Seedling 2: Research Project Proposal, Introduction

Christopher L. Wilson

BPSY at California Institute of Integral Studies

Research Methods In Psychology, GEN11105-01

Dee Reed, PhD

February 19, 2025

Research question: Can senior leaders notice and shift attention to embodied states of awareness in the workplace, and if so, does this increase a sense of well-being and leadership effectiveness?

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Introduction

According to Banfield (2024), who researched ten senior-level managers' ability to navigate embodied states of awareness (ESA) in the workplace, the ability to navigate between different ESA states is crucial for effective leadership. This skill enables managers to choose adaptive stress responses that allow them to maintain stress eustress, work performance, and environments that lead to psychological safety and collaboration. Specifically, leaders who can recognize when they are in dysregulated embodied states of awareness (DESA) and intentionally shift toward modulated embodied states of awareness (MESA) can maintain productivity and psychological safety while avoiding maladaptive stress reactions that lead to conflict and burnout, suggesting this is a vital skill for sustainable leadership effectiveness. Banfield (2024) found that leaders reported being unable to access RESA in the workplace. Banfield suggested this as an opportunity for deeper research because of the importance of the RESA state for restoration, repair, and transformation, as outlined by Fogel (2020).

VanderPal and Brazie (2023) state that leadership in agile environments demands adaptability and a deep sensitivity to team members' emotional and psychological states. VanderPal and Brazie (2024) suggest that incorporating Polyvagal Theory into agile project management enhances team dynamics, communication, and collaboration by fostering a deeper understanding of how the autonomic nervous system impacts behavior.

Peter Senge, a prominent management theorist, asserts that effective leaders must be deeply committed to their personal growth and understanding of their own humanity (2012), and Pete Hamill (2024), author of the book Embodied Leadership (2013) and lead somatic leadership facilitator of the Strozzi Institute, says that effective leadership requires more than relying on coercion and authority. Hamill says that effective leadership requires embodied development, a process of transforming one’s ingrained physical and emotional patterns, what Damasio (1995) calls somatic markers, through sustained practice. Hamill points out that this form of direct physical practice is more than intellectual understanding and theory because reshaping these habitual reaction patterns changes our biology and corresponding psychology, inspiring an inner creative, collaborative call to declare a deeper purpose to leaders organizing principles (Hamill, 2024).

Recently, mindfulness and mindfulness-based stress reduction, known as MBSR programs, have become popular components used in the workplace to combat stress, well-being, and leadership performance. It’s important to recognize that mindfulness is effective if it is embodied (King, 2018; Vago and Silbersweig, 2012; Cebolla et al., 2016). King (2018) proposed four aspects of mindful embodied leadership in order to train leaders to develop the skills of mindful embodied leadership aspects: ‘Mindful Self-Awareness,’ ‘Mindful Self-Regulation,’ ‘Mindful Presence,’ and ‘Mindful Communication.’ King (2018, p 206) states that participants in the training reported that their leadership improved not only through cognition but also by experiencing mindfulness as an embodied awareness. This is an important distinction to make because of the constant possibility of escapism through theory and intellectualization.

Finally, Fogel outlined three embodied states of awareness, or ESA, that align well with Polyvagal Theory and embodied leadership development. In Fogel's research with therapists trained in the Rosen method, he found that the most crucial state to develop is the RESA, or restorative embodied state of awareness. He points out that this is because DESA, or dysregulated embodied states of awareness, and MESA, or modulated states of embodied awareness, tend to be adaptive for everyday living, working, and relaxing. While RESA is essential to the transformation, restorative, and repair process, it can quickly go unnoticed by the untrained eye or bodymind. Fogel discovered two key insights from clinical observation. Clients and clinicians need help to differentiate between MESA and RESA states. Fogel outlined three reasons. First, RESA is rare. Second, MESA is adaptive to most everyday tasks and captivates our attention, keeping us moving, thinking, and doing. Third, MESA is perverse. When Fogel describes MESA as perverse, Fogel points out that RESA is not thinking or even “what you think.” RESA is characterized by felt experiences like sustained present-moment awareness and spontaneous emergence without planning, which requires surrender and letting go, results in a lasting sense of relief, and absence of deliberate control. (Fogel, 2020, pg. 44)

Fogel further concluded that therapists, coaches, and leaders should focus on cultivating the skills and environmental qualities that allow RESA to emerge because the qualities of RESA allow the regenerative and long-lasting therapeutic and transformational process to emerge adaptively. Fogel positioned the therapist’s ability to relax into a present state of embodied self-awareness, which acts as a catalyst and co-regulating leading source for the client. When practitioners are trained to become aware of their own ESA – as opposed to trying to remain “distant” or “objective” toward the client – there is more possibility for the client to develop similar attitudes of self-awareness and embodiment. (Fogel, 2020, pg. 44)

This research is significant because of the ongoing need to develop leadership strategies that allow leaders and teams to develop organizational cultures that can respond to competitive needs and create effective, psychologically safe environments that promote individual and societal well-being. Traditional organizational development and leadership theories fall short because they are often disembodied and leave managers and leaders without the necessary ability to respond to challenges with responsive skills. This is one of the reasons why I have made it a point to outline the difference between mindfulness and embodied leadership. Furthermore, noticing and consciously bringing attention to ESA is a central component of embodied leadership that has not yet been studied in a leadership and management context.

For this research project, I will interview ten privately held company founders who manage executive leadership teams of over five and less than ten individuals. The research study will be organized into eight interviews over eight weeks. The interview questions will be designed to assess a leader's capacity to shift attention to embodied states of awareness. I will assess the self-reported increase or decrease in well-being and effectiveness over the eight weeks through qualitative interview analysis. I will develop a series of questions for each of Fogel's ESA and pay special attention to RESA.

I expect that leaders can increase their awareness of DESA, learn to describe it, and become aware of their ability to respond to DESA with MESA skills. When leaders become more aware of what activities and somatic markers notify them of DESA and MESA states I expect their assessment of their effectiveness and sense of well-being to increase. RESA is likely to be more difficult to recognize in the workplace. I will attempt to develop questions that point to tiny moments or glimmers of RESA within the workday. My expectation is that if leaders can become conscious of tiny moments of RESA and aware of their innate ability to savor and to expand these moments I might find an opening for potential specialized training to teach leaders to increase this ability. My intention is to begin with this study to lay the groundwork for additional evaluations into how to access RESA in the workplace.

My research question: Can senior leaders notice and shift attention to embodied states of awareness in the workplace, and if so, does this increase a sense of well-being and effectiveness?

References

Banfield, K. (2024). Navigating embodied self-awareness states to produce work-enhancing adaptive stress responses [Unpublished master's thesis]. Pepperdine Graziadio Business School.

Damasio, A. R. (1995). Descartes' Error (1st ed.). HarpPeren.

Fogel, A. (2020). Three States of Embodied Self-Awareness The Therapeutic Vitality of Restorative Embodied Self-Awareness. International Body Psychotherapy Journal, 19(1).

Hamill, P. (2024). Understanding the path of embodied leadership development. Strozzi Institute for Somatics. https://strozziinstitute.org/understanding-the-path-of-embodied-leadership-development/

Hamill, P. (2013). Embodied Leadership: The Somatic Approach to Developing Your Leadership (1st ed.). Kogan Page.

King, R. (2018). Mindful Embodied Leadership: Mindfulness-in-Action as a Catalyst for Leadership Performance [Doctor of Philosophy, De Montfort University]. 10.13140/RG.2.2.10454.11848. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364959163_Mindful_Embodied_Leadership_Mindfulness-in-Action_as_a_Catalyst_for_Leadership_Performance

Senge, P. (2012). “Leaders should be people who are deeply involved in their own realization of being a human being”: An interview with Peter Senge. In K. Goldman Schuyler (Editor). Inner Peace – Global Impact: Tibetan Buddhism, Leadership, and Work. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

Vanderpal, G., & Brazie, R. J. (2023). Exploration of How Polyvagal Theory and Autonomic Nervous System Impact Organizational Performance Through Reduced Employee Turnover and Improved Work Culture. Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability, 18(13). https://doi.org/10.33423/jsis.v18i3.6528

VanderPal, G., & Brazie, R. (2024). Integrating polyvagal theory with agile project management. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 24(1), 39-53.

Khoury, B., Knäuper, B., Pagnini, F., Trent, N., Chiesa, A., & Carrière, K. (2017). Embodied mindfulness. Mindfulness, 8(5), 1160–1171. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0700-7 https://www.gallup.com/workplace/395210/engage-frontline-managers.aspx

Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. (2023). The battle against workplace stress: How smart organizations are creating healthier environments. Harvard Business School Publishing.

Welcome to The Leadership Embodied Handbook and Audio Course:

52 Weeks of Somatic Practices to Access Your Body's Intelligence and Lead with Purpose, Power, and Presence. 

At a deeper level, this audio course is a singular expression of my heart’s creative gift for you as a human. I hope you realize and discover something beautiful each week when you listen and practice with me.

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What if I told you that you could access all of the things below by learning to get out of your head and into your body?

• Feel more fulfilled, joyful, powerful, and present

• Be less anxious and more skillful.

• Do your best work and grow into your best self.

• Realize your unshakable purpose.

• Transform challenges into life-changing opportunities to grow

Most people think they can intellectually work through their problems. The truth is this often leads to repetitive stuck patterns and gets in the way.

When you learn to let go of your thoughts and enter your body, you often find that growth and transformation occur automatically.

In my experience, and as I will show you, we can access these results by learning tools and skills to get out of our heads and into our bodies. This is a befriending and attending process, not a trying and forcing process.

My promise to you is that you can begin to achieve awesome results by appreciating and enjoying tiny practices one week at a time over a year of your life.

In this audio course, I will show you how our practice will naturally produce these awesome results.

As we discover this reality, we discover skills that allow us to gain trust in a deeper, less protective part of ourselves and learn how to truly grow and transform.

I want to invite you to do this with me in this audio course over the next year.

This course includes:

• 52 tiny wonderful weekly practices that you can enjoy & explore over a year

• 1 new practice is added each week

• Special workshops & community practice sessions

Subscribe on Substack to enroll in the course.

• Free to subscribe and to receive each new weekly lesson for one week.

• $25 / month (Try the course monthly & access community workshops)

• $250 / Year (17% discount to pay for the year-long course upfront)

• $500 for a personal 1:1 onboarding session with Chris

• Cancel the subscription at any time by emailing chris@returntopractice.com

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What to expect from “The Leadership Embodied Handbook and Audio Course:

You will receive a weekly somatic psychology/mindfulness/bodyfulness practice and embodied stretch lesson to listen to. As you practice, you will be invited to share in the community chat and to reflect on what you learn about yourself and your life experiences.

Are you here for 1:1 coaching? I currently have a waitlist for new 1:1 and team clients. If you are interested in coaching for you or your team, schedule an intro session to join the waitlist.

In our introductory session, We will determine whether we are a good match and inform you of the timeframe for collaboration. Afterward, you will be placed on the waitlist.

Otherwise, please read on to learn more about the embodied leadership handbook + audio course below.

About the Course, Chris Wilson, & My Teaching Philosophy

As of January 2024, I am currently pursuing a master's degree in somatic psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and my PCC in Integral Coaching from New Ventures West.

I also work full-time as a professional embodied leadership coach for individuals and teams, and I have over 5,000 hours of intentional transformational coaching experience.

I have worked with all types of people, from young adults and trauma survivors to CEOs and professional athletes. This experience is part of the reason I am completing my master's degree in Somatic Psychology at CIIS.

I live in San Francisco, CA, with my fiance, Anna, and our two cats, Winston and Benson. I am creating this course as a creative pillar of my practice and to share and appreciate teachings that allow people to transform and grow.

I want to teach you a series of mindfulness and somatic psychology practices. These practices will help you become your best self by helping you connect with your body.

I intend to creatively and joyfully share tiny, beautiful lessons from my practice. I hope to inspire you to deeply appreciate your raw, real life, which can only be felt and experienced through your body. Over the course of one year, I will share these lessons each week to create this embodied leadership course.

My teaching philosophy is that life can only truly be experienced by feeling, not thinking and that the only way to feel is to learn to get out of our heads and into our bodies. This paradoxical truth deeply informs my teaching philosophy. I am less interested in intellectual understanding and theories and more interested in seeing the connection in all things through practice.

My direct experience has shaped my belief that the only way to truly transform and grow is to learn tools and skills to get out of our heads and into our bodies. This is how we can learn to respond to challenges from having more access to Ourselves and become more whole humans whose lives are less managed by our protective parts. We become embodied leaders when we learn to do this physically, not just intellectually.

Then, living our life becomes our practice, and everyone we come into contact with is our teacher and companion in growth. This is not a fantasy or a dream but a direct physical reality for me. This has happened for me over the past 15 years, and I want to share it with you.

Thank you for subscribing. It’s a joy to share my practice with you, and I hope that this course will help you experience the same or a similar reality.

If you have any questions or want to connect, email me at chris@returntopractice.com.

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Navigating Embodied Self-Awareness States to Produce Work Enhancing Adaptive Stress Responses.

Banfield, K. (2024). Navigating embodied self-awareness states to produce work-enhancing adaptive stress responses [Unpublished master's thesis]. Pepperdine Graziadio Business School.

Link to PDF

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The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success

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The Atlas of Emotions

Ekman, P., & Ekman, E. (2016, April 26). Emotional Episode Timeline. The Atlas of Emotions. Retrieved January 15, 2024, from https://atlasofemotions.org/

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Fogg, B. J. (2019). Tiny habits: The small changes that change everything. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

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Fogel, A. (2020). Three States of Embodied Self-Awareness The Therapeutic Vitality of Restorative Embodied Self-Awareness. International Body Psychotherapy Journal, 19(1).

Link to PDF

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PDF - Google Drive Public Folder Link

Understanding the path of embodied leadership development. Strozzi Institute for Somatics

Hamill, P. (2024). Understanding the path of embodied leadership development. Strozzi Institute for Somatics. https://strozziinstitute.org/understanding-the-path-of-embodied-leadership-development/

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Embodied Leadership: The Somatic Approach to Developing Your Leadership

Hamill, P. (2013). Embodied Leadership: The Somatic Approach to Developing Your Leadership (1st ed.). Kogan Page.

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The battle against workplace stress: How smart organizations are creating healthier environments

Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. (2023). The battle against workplace stress: How smart organizations are creating healthier environments. Harvard Business School Publishing.

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Letting Go, The Pathway of Surrender

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Thinking, Fast and Slow

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Bowen Theory’s Secrets

Kerr, M. E. (2019). Bowen theory's secrets: Revealing the hidden life of families. W. W. Norton & Company.

Amazon Link

Embodied mindfulness

Khoury, B., Knäuper, B., Pagnini, F., Trent, N., Chiesa, A., & Carrière, K. (2017). Embodied mindfulness. Mindfulness, 8(5), 1160–1171. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0700-7 https://www.gallup.com/workplace/395210/engage-frontline-managers.aspx

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Mindful Embodied Leadership: Mindfulness-in-Action as a Catalyst for Leadership Performance

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Scattered

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In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

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The Myth of Normal

Maté, G., & Maté, D. (2022). The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. Vermilion.

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Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy

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King Warrior Magician Lover

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Befriending Beautiful Monsters & Handshake Practice

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Awakening Body

Ray, A. R. (2016). Awakening body: Somatic meditation for discovering our deepest life. Shambhala.

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The Practice of Pure Awareness

Ray, A. R. (2018). The practice of pure awareness: Somatic meditation for touching infinity. Shambhala.

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You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For

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Exploration of How Polyvagal Theory and Autonomic Nervous System Impact Organizational Performance Through Reduced Employee Turnover and Improved Work Culture

Vanderpal, G., & Brazie, R. J. (2023). Exploration of How Polyvagal Theory and Autonomic Nervous System Impact Organizational Performance Through Reduced Employee Turnover and Improved Work Culture. Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability, 18(13). https://doi.org/10.33423/jsis.v18i3.6528

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Integrating polyvagal theory with agile project management

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The event took me by such surprise that I misunderstood it for a heart attack, and I thought I was going to die. That day, the person I thought I was crumbled and blew away. “Maybe I’m allergic to the soap from the shower this morning,” I thought. On a sunny Wednesday morning in November 2014, I walked to my office in the SOMA district of downtown San Francisco. That morning, I started feeling itchy all over my body on the way to work. I shook it off, wondering where it was coming from. Eleven people were present around a boardroom table. While delivering a presentation, the itching would spread into a sense of fear that something was wrong inside my body. There, in the location where I felt most safe, connected, and purposeful, I would experience a massive panic attack. The morning after was an immediate rush to “fix” myself: I thought, “Something is wrong with you Chris!” In three weeks, I’d leave my job, losing my friends and sense of connection to who I thought I was. I didn’t know if I could trust myself. I was terrified.

We could look at it this way. There is map; then there is territory. (Ray, 2016, p. 3). The experiences in my life that have shaped my desire to return to college today were like signposts guiding my attention inward, into the territory of my body, away from the stories, ideas, and images that once kept me safe and that I thought were my life. Allow me to share the story of four of these points that guided me to get out of my head and into my body: These direct physical experiences allowed me to discover Self. This is why I am alive today. This is a small part of the story that has been my life. But, the discovery of Self has been the most meaningful. Now, I want to spend my life helping others to access Self. My personal journey has inspired my desire to complete my degree in Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies with a vision and mission to continue to complete my master's in Somatic Psychology. I am Chris Wilson, and I am a commitment¹ to completing this mission with the deepest of intentions to master my practice and to become a somatic therapist for the good of myself and everyone and all things. This brings me joy to share with you today.

Continuing my story: Months earlier, my insurance had run out, and with it, my last appointment with a therapist. She had been the first to point me toward befriending what was happening inside my body. The therapist mentioned two favorite resources for me to explore: Dr. Eve Ekman’s work around cultivating emotional balance and the somatic meditation practices guided by Reginal A. Ray. She gave them to me like gifts for someone you’d never see again. I put them aside, uninterested, and went back to worrying about my life.

The next season was a different kind of fear: Floating alone in the ocean of my life. The panic attack had sunk my ship. I was grasping for anything to help me fix myself. I didn’t know it then, but I’d begin collecting tiny pieces of floating debris that would one day allow me to sail again. The first came when I was surprised to see a workshop with Dr. Eve Ekman, who gave a talk down the street from my house. “How serendipitous,” I thought, “I know that name.” I invited my girlfriend Anna, whom I had just started dating, to join me. We were asked to take off our shoes as we walked into the meeting space. Anna hesitated, realizing her reluctance; she explained she would rather head home. Normally, I would have taken this as an opportunity to leave, too, but something told me to stay and explore independently.

The choice to stay would change the course of my life and the next ten years. In that room that day, I accessed Self for the first time. I left that session with a teaching that I would repeat repeatedly in many ways for the next ten years. “You are the only person who can report on what you are feeling. No test, scientist, or guru can tell you what is happening inside your body. If you don’t know how to report on it, you are not bad at it. Likely, you’ve just been poorly trained.” When Dr. Ekman made this statement to the group, it made me feel like she was speaking to me and that I might not be broken. This lit me up inside and gave me permission to begin training. She inspired me to explore and to learn to trust my body.

The seed had been planted for a new sense of purpose: A sense of purpose that would flourish within my own body for my entire life. This new, unshakable sense of purpose was forming around a generative intention of becoming more and more curious and kind to my body. Little did I know how much of a Self-fulfilling prophecy this would become. I received a glimpse but was still firmly stuck in my head.

In time, my money ran out. I tried to return to the job I loved, but something had changed. I felt like I was clinging and faking in a world where I once felt authentic. “What’s happening to me?” I’d ask myself. “You need to fix yourself.” I’d say. “No, you’ve just been poorly trained.” This yoyoing would repeat itself incessantly. The next floating debris would come as an invite from a conversation during a Lyft ride with a stranger named Gabe.

“You didn’t go to college?!" he replied with a surprising zeal. “No, I didn’t finish college. I left college to try and race bicycles for the US National Team, but I didn’t make it and ended up putting all my energy into learning to sell. Sales is safe! I got a job in software sales, and that’s what brought me here to San Francisco.” I was the Lyft driver, and he was my passenger. He worked at a program called Uncollege. They were a guided-gap year program for high school students that taught social-emotional learning, preparing them to find career paths through self-directed learning. “Wow”, I eagerly stated, “That's really neat. I’d love to work with kids like that!” He introduced himself as Gabe and invited me to give a talk to the kids. This interaction would lead to a year-long contract position as the Learner-In-Residence for UnCollege.

This contract position was one of many experiences that have prepared me to work in a collaborative learning environment. My job would be to run daily and weekly home circles with a gaggle of exuberant learners, with whom I would have the honor of living in an apartment building in Nob Hill. My task was to ensure that their home life empowered their learning experience and that they found their way to classes across town each day. I ran a circle where we would sit and reflect on the trials and tribulations of their respective paths. The circle became my container where we would conjure, hold, reflect, cry, and laugh. The circle formed an empty space that was teeming with life and possibilities. I experimented with various playful practices and exercises to empower the students for a year. Running circles became a craft. The students reconnected me to my inner child by being in the circle. I had no idea this craft of circling would be central to the unfolding transformation occurring in my life over the next ten years.

The circles I facilitated could hold so much more than I ever imagined. Mike was the twelfth outside professional I’d invited to share his story with the students. Mike was a men’s coach with a background in theater. After sharing in the circle with the students, he invited me to learn more about men’s circles. By Spring, he and I would become friends and partners to host our first weekend-long Men’s Retreat. I was scared that I was way over my head, but the circles I was learning to facilitate were responsive, adaptable, playful, and powerful. I’d never wanted to be a men’s coach or even heard of men’s work; yet, this life-changing experience at my first retreat inspired me to commit to mastering my men’s circle facilitation skills.

I came home from that retreat with a fire lit in my belly to build a business for men to access these spaces of healing and transformation. Mike and I became business partners and started The Unshakable Man.

Just imagine looking across a circle at another human and being guided to look past that person to scan the space behind them for danger. As you inhale through your nose, you are invited to open to receive the care and protection of the person in front of you. As we all exhale and perform this practice together, you hear me say, “The circle is the safest shape for the human nervous system.” This is one of my favorite ways to form a circle with a group. Uncollege ended. I moved in together with Anna and asked her to marry me. My relationship with Mike flourished into a business, creating containers of healing and transformation for hundreds of men. I became a men's coach and eventually bought the entire business from Mike. The practice of holding men’s circles became a six-figure business and my mastery craft. A community formed around the work.

The circles would regenerate each summer, spring, fall, and winter. Over the next five years, I’d hold two-hour-long circles Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings for three weeks a month. This work became my practice, and my practice was my life. I built a successful business running sessions online and in person that allowed me to put food on the table while following where my practice took me. I became a sponge, absorbing everything I could about somatic psychology. I cultivated deep friendships by sharing my practice with men I met online from around the world. Dr. Chris Spromberg was one of the most collaborative; although he lived in Montana, we bonded over our shared interest in the culture of manhood and shame. I read his dissertation on the topic, and we eventually co-led three seasons of circles and three men’s retreats together. It was a beautiful and challenging time of my life. I was constantly living on my edge.

Five unbroken years of sitting in men’s circles; 6000 hours of one-on-one coaching practice, over 400 men passed through these containers… lives changed… I changed. Embodied leadership skills were practiced. I learned from the bottom up how to be with the experiences of my life in more empowering ways. In June 2024, I celebrated 20 seasons of consistent seasonal three-month containers. I began documenting what we were doing into a 200-page embodied leadership training manual. This work has changed every aspect of my life. The greatest gift of this work has been realizing more and more access to Self and cultivating what I call the subtle joy of being. I’ve only recently begun to relax, realizing it might not go away as I have consistently become more buoyant. This brings me to today. All I want is to help more people to access this state of being. This is why I want to become a somatic therapist.

It’s been ten years since the panic attack that made me think I was going to die. That boy was left terrified, clinging to the idea of who he thought he was. He was scared to let go, afraid to drop into his body. He had no idea that connecting to his body would lead to the transformation that would define his life. I now see that real growth is not attainable by separating or withdrawing from my life, body, emotions, relationships, or challenges. It is not found by pushing through, conquering, or hardening. “The only way to reach complete realization is in and through our completely embodied human experience” (Ray, 2016, p. 5). The journey I’ve shared with you today has taught me that the challenges in my life are my curriculum, and we each have our own. The courageous act is to choose to open. These challenges guide me to find the places that need my care and attention inside my body. The more I learn to provide this loving kindness, the more access I gain to Self, and the more courageous and compassionate I become.

The most beautiful fruit of my practice is my relationship with this subtle joy of being that I get to share with my fiance Anna, our friends, the people in my life, my clients, teachers, and the beautiful work I will one day get to do as a therapist. Now, I feel deeply rooted in my practice. This rootedness is not fixed. It must be nurtured and watered like a garden. It is my responsibility to commit to my practice as deeply as possible, which motivates me to attend the California Institute of Integral Studies. I want to learn from more teachers and to be surrounded by other students with whom I can collaborate and share stories of growth and enlightenment. I am proud to say that I am a man with the courage to follow my heart to where I can make my greatest contribution to others.

Hear my commitment now: I am ready, open, and deeply committed to completing my degree in Psychology at The California Institute of Integral Studies, with a vision and mission to continue on to complete my masters in Somatic Psychology. I am Chris Wilson, and I am a commitment² to completing this mission with the deepest of intentions to master my practice and to become a somatic therapist for the good of myself and everyone and all things. This brings me joy to share with you today… My ship has sunk, yet I have learned to swim.

References:

Ray, R. (2016). The Awakening Body. Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Footnotes:

1 & 2: In the embodied leadership groups that I run, we train circle participants to speak their commitments as full-bodied statements of being, for example, “I am committed to being kind to myself” vs. “I am a commitment to being kind to myself.” The latter allows the speaker or reader to fully embody their commitment as if they themselves are the commitment with no separation.