Unleashing Your Inner Power: Mastering Emotional Resilience and Presence

I teach how to observe thoughts and emotions impacting the body. This is absolutely fundamental to the work that I do.

So, when I say upset is optional, you’d have to step back and ask not only what that means, but what is the sensation of upset, and where do you feel the emotional reaction?

This is important because in my 15+ years of being a practitioner, underlying health conditions often start with unrecognized tensions. No one likes to feel upset and powerless in a swirl of emotion, much less knowing what to do with it - the physical sensation of clenching, tightening in myriad ways of resisting what’s currently happening.

When you don’t recognize that you’re the one generating the tension, not the thing in front of you or the person you’re with, the tension can show up as a (knee-jerk) reaction. Or, come out sideways in another conversation, or skipped or glossed over, packed away and entombed until Thanksgiving with the fam. These are ineffective ways to use a valuable asset called your upset inside your family or team. Your upset is wisdom!

Upset being optional is not tamping down an emotional reaction. It is observing that you’re the generator of your tension and there’s a way to have all that reactionary swirl be useful. That’s true power!

Perhaps upset is a habit of movement, like going to the fridge five times within 30 minutes or avoiding a text or an email. These things we do out of habit (training that can be unlearned) and can also point us to where we’re holding tension.

A lot of my observation training started inside acupuncture school, and I think this is unusual inside academic institutions. Of course, schooling included learning Chinese medical theory, diagnostics and placing a needle without puncturing a lung, and learning to cultivate what was called a healing presence.

We all do some variation of this (yes, you are a healing presence unawares - or not), yet in my training, along with traditional training mentioned above, we intentionally crafted and practiced this for two years. A healing presence is a physical sensation. Yes, it has a definition, but its power is not in its abstraction. Regardless of where we were, inside or outside the treatment room, if we never put an acupuncture needle into a patient, we could choose to show up in a way that could be a “treatment” in and of itself. We were using our presence and our curious questioning as needles - to free the person of pain and suffering.

Yes, you are a healing presence, unawares - or not.

The skills I learned then, and currently teach and practice now, require practicing presence. And in the modern world, it’s that space where you’re not looking at your phone AND eating breakfast. The attention is placed on what you’re reacting to and where in your body to your circumstance.

Why is this important?

Everywhere we go, we bring our bodies - our calm bodies to our upset bodies. My mentor Bob Duggan would query: you go into a store upset, you lash out at the cashier as you pay for your bag of chips. The cashier goes home upset and kicks her dog. So, who kicked the dog?

What is it worth to learn how to cultivate and intentionally design how you show up from the bodega to the boardroom?

There’s not much difference between the wellness, health and leadership circles that you’re traversing. A curious question to ponder is, am I showing up, with Jedi precision, using this wise body to lift others up so they see their power and inspire others, too?

No? Then, let’s talk.

I invite you to be that rising tide that lifts everyone up- from the metro stop to Monday's staff meeting.