This also means that an expression you do not know you have can create an emotion you’re not consciously choosing. By becoming more aware of our bodies, we have more choice over the emotions and moods that we experience.

When William James, the renowned American psychologist, said, “The deepest human need is to be appreciated,” he wasn’t making a casual heart-warming statement to soothe. Through decades of studying people, he saw the core emotional need we have is for our concerns and needs to be seen and acknowledged.

A natural response to fear is to lift the shoulders, and if we chronically hold our shoulders up we’re inviting the emotion of fear. We may not have anything to be afraid of or even think we’re afraid of something, but raised shoulders move us toward a fearful experience of life.

This willingness to abuse our bodies is the genesis of abusing other bodies. To solve the many dilemmas we now face, it’s important to have leaders who take action from their hearts and guts as well as their minds.

The body is where thought begins, since the body is where we are.

This practice included aligning his body so he was directly facing the person to whom he was talking. When he found himself contracting or drifting away, his practice was to center and face.

What makes Sylvia credible and what diminishes her credibility? Is she persuasive and if so, why? What do I see and sense in her presence that makes me want to follow her, or not? Is there integrity between her physical comportment and what she’s saying? Do I want to build a future with her? If so, why; if not, why not? These are all questions that

From a somatic point of view, imagination is not a mental construct but an attribute of synaesthesia. Imagination as an extension of our energy goes beyond what each individual sense is capable of in order to connect with those things we do not directly sense and makes it possible to touch the invisible

When we ask the first stonecutter what he’s doing, he replies, “I’m carving a piece of stone.” We move to the second stonecutter and ask her what she’s doing. “I’m building a wall,” she says. When we ask the same question of the third stonecutter, he answers, “I’m creating a cathedral.”