Beginning to finish

I Started Over. In My Body. On Purpose.

Week 1 of becoming a certified Pilates instructor while publishing a book about leading- and actually..leading a school district….at the end of the school year.

 

I am a leadership scholar. I study how people show up, hold space, and lead through hard things- to make great things happen for kids. And last week, I paid money to be a beginner.

 

I enrolled in a Pilates instructor certification program. Not because I needed another credential. Not because I am pivoting from education leadership. And definitely not because I had the time. But because something in me knew that the work I am writing about in my book could not stay theoretical or singular in one discipline.

Healing-centered leadership is not just a concept. It is a practice. And many of our practices live in the body before they ever reach the page or the classroom.

As educators of youth- we don’t often appreciate the fact that learning for young minds is tactile and physical before it’s ever conceptual. When we develop as adult learners- we overlook the functional part that contributes to our healing, ways of knowing and most importantly, un-learning.

Joseph Pilates believed that the mind and body are not separate systems competing for your attention. He built an entire method on the premise that physical control and mental control are the same discipline, accessed through the same door.

I have been thinking about that all week. Especially at this time of year when we’re closing out one year and preparing got the next. How many of the leaders I work with are physically exhausted and trying to lead through it by ignoring it? How many of us have learned to push past the body's signals instead of reading them?

I do not yet know how to teach Pilates. I have practiced for many years and it anchors the time I spend in solitude reflecting but I am at the very beginning. But I already know why this matters, and I wanted you to be here for the whole journey, not just the part where I have something polished to say.

 This post is part of an ongoing micro-series connected to my forthcoming book on healing-centered leadership in schools. If this resonates, join the list and be the first to know when it launches this year.

 

 Leave a comment: Where in your leadership are you trying to think your way through something that might actually need to move through your body first?