Our bodies told us to co-write a book, and the process showed us the power of embodied collaboration

Image used with permission.

by Courtney Amo, Julie Beaulac, PhD, and Casey Berglund

In the Fall of 2019, Courtney, a public sector leader and Zen Leadership practitioner, sat in her hotel room the night before giving a standard talk on leadership. As she rehearsed, her body told her something was wrong. She remembered her friend Casey’s recent TEDx talk, Let your Body Lead, and watched it again. Courtney was inspired to rework her whole talk, and the next day, she spoke from the heart and used the signal of her body and of the audience to determine what would come next. The talk was a huge success. 

During a 10-day silent vipassana meditation retreat over the 2019 holiday season, Julie, a registered clinical, health and rehabilitation psychologist and consultant, felt her intention for 2020 come up - embodiment. She set this as the aspiration on which she would focus her attention for the next year. A couple of days after the retreat, Courtney called her to tell her about the talk, and an idea: “so, I have our project. We are going to write a book on embodied leadership”. The feeling in Julie’s body was an immediate and expansive YES.

Earlier in 2019, Casey, an entrepreneur, professional coach and embodiment guide, was in the difficult process of mining for the right stories to tell in her TEDx talk. The one thing that helped her narrow down was knowing that those stories could go into “the book.” When Courtney sent her a message in December asking if she wanted to collaborate on a book, Casey felt curiosity in her body, and a physical sensation to ‘lean in’. She had many ideas for books, and half-written stories that never got finished. Turns out, there’s always a good reason why.

In January 2020, the three soon-to-be collaborators met by phone, connecting from Eastern, Central, and Western Canada. Serendipity had led to this conversation. And from it, they felt a deep alignment, energy and resonance. They began meeting virtually most Sundays, first to plan, then to write. They agreed on values and goals, and created a space founded on safety such that different ideas could be expressed and each could bring forward their authentic contributions.

They wrote collaboratively - each had to build and improve on what the other had written, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter. This co-creation process encouraged an openness to others’ wisdom and to trusting the other to continue to build on what came next and what got cut. They learned that holding on too tightly to any one thing would crush the whole.

They listened to their bodies to guide them in reworking ideas, restructuring content, and adjusting processes. They voiced their fears and discomforts as well as their insights and inspirations. They developed deep trust in themselves, each other, and in the process. They engaged in this embodied collaboration, virtually, for over three years. In fact, Julie and Casey never met each other in person.

The result is “The Mind-Body Way: The Embodied Leader’s Path to Resilience, Connection, and Purpose”, available in April 2023 from Page Two Books. In this practical guide, the authors reveal how leaders often lead from the neck up, and miss out on the opportunity to tap into the intelligence of their mind-bodies as a whole. The result is suboptimal decision-making, disconnected relationships, and undue stress.

Through a step-by-step approach, The Mind-Body Way helps leaders tap into the strength and wisdom of their whole selves. Through their own embodiment, leaders create safe, healthy, inclusive and connected spaces in which their teams can thrive. In a world of increasingly complex problems, embodiment can help bridge the gap between simply working together, and truly collaborating.  

For those who are new to topics such as embodiment, the mind-body and nervous system, polyvagal theory, and embodied leadership, The Mind-Body Way offers an accessible, streamlined point of entry, and a way to derive immediate results. The authors have also developed a brief tool to help readers identify their leadership style from an embodiment perspective that will give them practices customized for their journey.

If you would like to learn more, or would like to invite friends and family an introduction to the embodiment journey, please visit www.mindbodywaybook.com. You will also be the first to know when you can get your own copy of The Mind Body Way.

Courtney Amo is a Zen Leadership practitioner.