Ideals in Motion

"First, say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do."

This quote from Epictetus speaks to the need to develop practices that will enable me to embody a certain way of being.

I just returned from the School Of Embodied Leadership (SOEL) - a six day program focused on developing the capacity to truly embody leadership. The program was presented by Dr. Richard Strozzi-Heckler, founder of the Strozzi Institute and the discipline of Somatic Coaching. A major thrust of the program revolves around the development of what Strozzi-Heckler calls "practices". These are activities that support and literally enable being the kind of leader, the kind of person, that produces the results we want in life - for ourselves and others. Practices are the activities in which I regularly and mindfully engage that over time develop into unconscious habits. The significance of this is that it is my habits that form and inform my leadership "body".

The old addage "practice makes perfect" is actually a bit off base. The truth is that "practice makes habits"! With a bit of thought and a lot of discipline it is these practices - these activities that allow me to habitually keep my ideals in motion.

What's in a name?

When it is consciously evoked such things as identity, relationship, place, and possibly even sentience.

Who we are is defined not just by our sense of self. It's a function of how we are known by others and how we come to identify ourselves - our place - within the networks of others with whom we live. This is why some recent research data about dolphins is so interesting.

The new research expands on previous knowledge long known to scientists that dolphins' whistle calls include repeated information thought to be their names. CNN reports that the new research indicates that "bottlenose dolphins can call each other by name when they whistle, making them the only animals besides humans known to recognize such identity information." Even more compelling, Laela Sayigh, one of three authors of a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that two dolphins may refer to a third by the third animal's name. They know themselves, they know their place in the relationship network of which they are a member. We are not the only self-aware animals on the planet. Similar information has long been known of primates - although not to this extent. Some chimps have learned very extensive vocabularies and can communicate quite consciously with humans using hand signals. The ability of another species to consciously reference another within the context of self is critically important to us as a species.

Our ideals as a species are too often predicated on an assumption that we are the uber species on the planet. We view the world through this filter of dominance and infallablity. We act on the environment with impunity, we interact with other species as if our lives were the only lives that mattered. It is worth considering that any particular culture can only be understood by someone outside of it - a neutral observer, unaffected by prejudice or belief. In a wonderful book I read years ago (Ishmael by Daniel Quinn), the reader is able to see our culture through the eyes of just such an observer. In order to be sustainable my ideals - our ideals - need to be seen through many eyes. What's in a name? Perhaps our future.