Be. Play. Love‪.‬ Katie Hendricks, PhD & Sophie Chiche

Being kind to ourselves is an ongoing conversation, and one of the ways it expresses itself is through the things we do to nourish ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. 
 
Ultimately, our ability to fully experience and express our essence is hinged on our daily habits and practices of self-care and self-love.
 
We can think of each of these daily habits, from the state of our minds to the foods we eat and the people we are around, as deposits and withdrawals to our wellness bank. What fills that wellness bank? What depletes it?
 
This work requires us to become aware of and unlearn the habits that make it hard to be kind to ourselves. It also requires listening to ourselves and our bodies because every morsel of food and activity will leave clues as to whether it’s working for us [or against us!].
 
What are the non-negotiable practices that make up our lives? How do we learn to eat in a way that supports and truly nourishes us? How do we take an inside-out approach to our well-being? In this episode, we talk about the practices that allow us to live essence-filled lives. 
 
Energy is like money. Some habits drain our energy, others replenish it. Choose habits that refill your energy ‘bank account’. That’s how you become in charge of your life. -Sophie Chiche 
 
Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode 
 
-Tokens of wellbeing 
Whether it’s a stuffed pig or a crocodile, how can we use little objects to remind ourselves to be well?
 
-Experience your body as a friend 
Most people think of the body as the automobile and themselves as the driver, and they only pay attention when there’s a breakdown. How do we see the interconnectedness of all the pieces of our health and practice proactive wellness? 
 
-Unlearn the unkind 
The way we give attention to ourselves is a reflection of the way people have attended to us from a very young age. How do we change it if we might have picked up some harmful messages from our environments growing up?
 

Our bodies are the vessels we occupy from the start of our lives, but so many of us feel disconnected in this home we have within ourselves. If we live in our bodies, how can they feel so foreign to us? For a whole lot of reasons, we’re taught to ignore body wisdom even though it holds the most potent information about ourselves and how we move through the world.
 
How do we get acquainted with our body wisdom and why is keying into this innate knowledge so important? In this episode, we’re joined by licensed clinical professional counselor, dance/movement therapist and author, Erica Hornthal.
 
We talk about movement and body awareness and why it’s critical to our ability to be, live, create and heal.
 
When the body is the source of your pain, no one wants to revisit that. But we can’t escape our bodies. You’re bringing the place where the pain happened with you all the time, you may as well dialogue with it. -Erica Hornthal
 
Four Things You’ll Learn In This Episode 
 
-Our bodies never stop speaking
Human beings are always moving, even when we think we’re stuck in a freeze response, there is still so much happening within. How do we learn to decode what our bodies are telling us through even the smallest of movements? 
 
-How to find safety in your body
One thing that cuts us off from our innate body wisdom is how we’ve been conditioned to sit still and not “act weird”. How does this impact the movements we do make and how do we learn to move on our own terms again?
 
-Meet in movement
People don’t have to understand your body’s messaging to support you. How can we use mirroring to recognize, validate, and normalize what people are feeling? 
 
-Movement speaks where words fail
Before we can process a thought and speak it, our bodies have already felt and noted something. How do we use this to move through the world with more self-awareness? 
 
Guest Bio
Erica Hornthal is a licensed clinical professional counselor, board-certified dance/movement therapist, author, and the CEO and founder of Chicago Dance Therapy. Since graduating with her MA in Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling from Columbia College Chicago, Erica has worked with thousands of patients aged 3-107. Known as “The Therapist Who Moves You,” Hornthal is changing the way people see movement with regard to mental health. Erica is the author of Body Aware and The Movement Therapy Deck. For more information, head to https://www.ericahornthal.com/ and follow @‌the.therapist.who.moves.you on Instagram.

You’ve likely heard about the “whole body yes” and “whole body no”, and maybe even practiced using these to make your decision-making process a little easier. But choosing is really hard when we don’t feel that nudge from our body wisdom, and we just feel “meh” about the whole thing.
 
When it’s not a definite yes or no, we’re stuck in limbo, and that’s a dangerous place to be.
 
Learning to locate ourselves within a moment of indecision can be as simple as taking a breath. It interrupts the patterns of anxiety, fear, and adrenaline, and that creates a whole new structure for us to make a decision that is based on our actual wants.
 
How do we figure out what we want when it’s not a whole body yes or no? In this episode, we talk about the quickest way to cut through indecision.
 
Finding your “no” actually opens a space for “yes”. -Katie Hendricks  
 
Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode 
 
-How to identify your energy source
What’s the difference between introverts, extroverts, and INTIMATE extroverts?
 
-The space between a whole body yes and a whole body no is limbo 
When we feel ambiguous about a choice, how do we find the answer by locating ourselves?
 
-Learn to trust your inner signals 
A lot of our confusion and doubting our own experience is the result of mixed messaging we receive as children. How do you identify your wants when all you know are the rules and regulations of what we were told to do?
 
The Choice Map

The old way of showing up to work meant shoving our emotions away, not being vulnerable and putting on a facade of confidence, no matter what. Admitting you were afraid, unsure or overwhelmed? That was an absolute no-no.
 
The problem is, this also meant we were showing up without a lot of the intelligence we actually need to have emotionally healthy workplaces and great results.
 
Today, we give our emotions a seat on the team, we tap into the intelligence of our feelings, and we are vulnerable when we feel afraid or uncertain. Not only does this create a new way to work, but a new language for living. It allows us to band together as teams and face this rapidly changing world as an emotionally intelligent unit.
 
How do we invite emotional intelligence to work? Why must this process start with committed leaders? In this episode, co-founder of The Conscious Leadership Group, Diana Chapman shares how work is changing for the better and how we can start working alongside our feelings.  
 
Vulnerability in leadership is now an act of courage, not an act of weakness. -Diana Chapman
 
Four Things You’ll Learn In This Episode 



-The intelligence of fear 
It’s okay to say “I don’t know”, “I’m doing the best I can” - how do we demystify being vulnerable and what impact can it have on even the bottom line?
 
-Pay less in “drama tax” 
Teams cut off from their emotions pay a lot in “drama tax”. How does this weigh our teams down, and how can we create awareness of this dynamic and get our team out of reactivity?
 
-The rise of bottom-up leadership 
The old way of introducing changes to a workplace was for leaders to tell people what to do. Why do leaders need to commit to befriending their feelings before anyone else? 
 
-Teach the class
If something we don’t want happens, how can we use play to recreate the situation and laugh our way to creative solutions?
 
Guest Bio
 
Diana Chapman is the co-founder of The Conscious Leadership Group. She is an advisor to exceptional leaders who has worked with over 1000 organizational leaders and many of their teams, and is a founding partner at Conscious Leadership Group. She has created and implemented professional onboarding and ongoing programs—based on the comprehensive body of work she developed with CLG co-founder Jim Dethmer—with clients such as Asana and Esalen. In addition to facilitating CLG Forums in the Bay Area for founders, venture capitalists, and CEOs, Diana facilitates YPO Forums and Chapters worldwide. She also trains coaches in conscious leadership in the CLG training program she and Jim created. Diana co-authored the best-selling book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success, in 2015. She has been a speaker at TEDx, Mindful Leadership Summit, Wisdom 2.0, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Haas School of Business, YPO, and Kauffman Fellows.
 

Moving house, they say, is one of life’s most stressful events, but it doesn’t have to be. Sure, it stirs up a ton of emotions and learned patterns, but with the right awareness and intention, it can be a magical time and a beautiful voyage to a new world.
 
We can discover new parts of ourselves, deconstruct feelings as they come up, and treat the move as a trampoline to jump into the future with ease and excitement.
 
Moving to a new home also reveals something deeply rooted in us. The way we navigate all transitions surprisingly tells us a lot about the biggest transition we’ve ever made - being born. With curiosity, we can examine this pattern and use this time to heal ourselves.
 
How do we move with ease and essence? How do we honor all the difficult emotions that come up, while also celebrating this amazing transition?
 
In this episode, we talk about how a situation most people find chaotic and stressful offered many beautiful moments to be, play, and love!
 
You’re going to continue moving through life in the same way you first learned to make transitions unless you change the pattern. -Katie Hendricks 
 
Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode
 
-Accompany your whole self to the new place
When we commit to revealing rather than concealing, we get access to all these delicious tools that allow us to move through transitions with greater ease. How do we bring that forth?
 
-Turn towards each other
If we’re experiencing a transition with a significant other, how can we create a shared space of safety, nurturing, and celebration?
 
-The work works
Of course, moving won’t be a smooth process and wobbles are par for the course. How do we recover and recommit to tapping into the magic?
 

This just in: science has confirmed what we’ve known (and have been practicing for years) about the power of paying attention to our body sensations.
 
In a world of doom scrolling, depression, anxiety and fear, the solution lies within - in the amazing treasure chest we have in our bodies. We have an inner garden of sensory data, feelings, embedded experiences, and subconscious communication but many of us are cut off from it because we live in our heads.
 
When we make our bodies our friends and drop into that body wisdom, we instantly unlock liberation, readiness, creativity, engagement, and the ability to move through everything from discomfort to fear and complex traumas.
 
How do we trust and key into the wisdom our bodies already possess? What gifts does this inner landscape hold for us? In this episode, we talk about a recent article that proves the power of investigating what our bodies tell us, and simple ways to start checking in daily.
 
What’s going on inside you offers such guidance and wisdom and if you’re able to listen to it, you’re adding a whole new color of paint! -Sophie Chiche
 
Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode
 
-Drop out of the verbal and enter interoception
Our cognitive wisdom is only a tiny part of our entire inner landscape. How do we explore the rich continent that is our whole body wisdom?
 
-The power of keying into your body
How do we learn to give attention to our body sensations - even the slightest catch in our throats - and describe our inner landscapes?
 
-Your body is your friend  
Why doesn’t society want us to tap into our body’s wisdom? Why are we conditioned to live in our heads?