Leadership Embodiment: Cultivating Clear Minds, Open Hearts, and Steady Cores for Peacebuilding
Include Others, Listen Deeply, Speak Up in a Unified way with Leadership Embodiment for Peacebuilding, taught by Olivia Cheever, EdD, GCFP, Certified Leadership Coach and Elizabeth Valentine, LMT, CST, Certified Leadership Coach
Body-based awareness to be more fully ourselves:
When we use the term “peace” what do we mean? Why does the term matter to us? Is it a quality we would like to evoke more of in our lives and in our communities? How do we embody this quality, if we do? How do we know when we are feeling peaceful? What is our felt sense or our body’s experience of this sensation? And how do others in our presence experience us in that moment?
Leadership Embodiment Practices can help us notice when and how to embody more “peace-full” states–especially when we experience ourselves under pressure whether alone or with another. These states can include other qualities that also matter to us. What matters to you these days? Is there a quality, peace or another one that you would like to learn how to cultivate more often? Every day?
Often we may know better our “un-peace-full” body states as when we are disagreeing with someone in a situation we care about.For example, when we disagree with someone and feel the urge to convince them into our way of thinking.
•What do we notice happens in our bodies?
•How are we listening?
•Are we separating ourselves from them when we disagree?
In this class, we will practice and learn how to notice when we are off balance, or less “peace-full” when experiencing our reactive state. In Leadership Embodiment, we call this, “Personality,” You will learn, then, how to bring yourself back to “Center. “ This practice can be done in fifty seconds or two minutes through a Centering practice.
This Centering practice focuses on shifting your posture, shifting your attention to breathing up and down your spine, smiling and pushing your “bubble” out to include everyone around you.
While practicing moving from “Personality” to “Center,” several times, our bodies recognize an “old” way of being. As we recognize the old way of being with our patterns, we practice specific simulation exercises which help our body to “simulate,”or bring up (flush up) the old patterns and develop a new unified Center.
Our body then begins to crave the new potential of “Center,”allowing us a sense of being unified, connected to ourselves and others. This way of connecting to ourselves and others cultivates deeper listening, more inclusion, and the capacity to speak up without being aggressive. The practicing of these exercises helps us respond with an even more peaceful state.
Our focus will be getting clear on our tendencies (patterns), then develop the skill set to shift them in our daily lives. We will practice this here in the class. We will bring up our own examples (to ourselves or, with a partner, in our Break Out rooms) in order to apply these LE tools to the real-life situations we are grappling with.
Meeting together online, as we lead you through these simulation exercises, we suggest that you either use your imagination, or invite someone in your “bubble” to join in. These exercises during the class allow you to physically experience pressure in your body or imagine it. Our goal is to start a practice here with you and have your nervous system learn how to apply it in the real world.
Through simulation exercises we will take away:
• the ability to identify our signature stress pattern or how our system reacts under pressure
• the ability to shift through our body from our reactive state to a responsive skillful state -from “Personality” to “Center”
• ways to re-engage clarity and compassion when faced with conflict or opposition or “Difficult Conversations”
• practices to synchronize the physical and energetic system with what is being said verbally
DATE: Saturday February 26th, 2022 on Zoom
FEE: Before February 21: $55
After February 21: $70
TIME: See Class schedule for your time zone below:
Pacific Time (PST)
8:30 am – 10:30 am with a brief 10 minute mid 1st half session break
10:30 am – 11:15am Longer Break
11:15am – 1:30pm with a brief 10 minute mid 2nd half session break
Eastern Time (EST)
11:30 am – 1:30 pm with a brief 10 minute mid 1st half session break
1:30 pm – 2:15 pm Longer Break
2:15 pm – 4:30 pm with a brief 10 minute mid 2nd half session break
Central European Time (CET)
5:30pm – 7:30pm with a brief 10 minute mid 1st half session break
7:30 pm – 8:15 pm Longer Break
8:15 pm – 10:30 pm with a brief 10 minute mid 2nd half session break
Dr. Olivia Cheever is a certified Leadership Coach, consultant, trainer and Feldenkrais Method® somatic educator committed to joining with others to facilitate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She has worked with multicultural populations during her teaching/coaching career at Lesley University and Longy School of Music of Bard College. She has been engaged in Lesley University’s Courageous Conversations around race, gender, and privilege. Her cross-cultural doctoral research at Harvard looked at the ethical and empathic education of Indigenous healers and psychiatrists. With her interdisciplinary background as a Harvard trained therapist, somatic practitioner, and coach working with trauma and stress management, she provides a safe environment for people to experience their embodied presence in interaction with others with ease, alignment, inclusion and confidence in work and home environments. She works one on one and with groups on line and in person in her teaching/training/coaching practice based in Needham, MA and Bristol, VT.
Elizabeth Valentine is a certified Leadership Coach, consultant, trainer, and a somatic practitioner and educator committed to engaging with others to bring the practices of embodiment to facilitating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Her Anthropology studies at Boston University instilled a cross-cultural perspective which led her to create her Holistic Wellness practice in France, for a diverse population which included immigrant women presenting health, trauma-based issues and inequitable power relationships. Elizabeth’s diverse experience also includes leading embodiment programs at The Kroc Center of Boston, And Still We Rise Productions, various Massachusetts Public School settings, the Restorative Justice Community and Unitarian Universalist programs in the North East. She works both virtually with organizations and one on one with her coaching and teaching in her private practice in West Concord MA.