What is Somatic Executive Coaching?

Recently, my writing has focused on how somatic practices empower leaders to navigate urgent times. This article clarifies what somatic executive coaching is and how it could help you, too.

To say we are living through urgent times would be a dramatic understatement. The mess we are living through is shaping us into the people we need to be to handle it.

While external forces shape us, we also have the capacity to shape the world back by intentionally living a life aligned with our deepest values and greatest longings.

For inclusive leaders carrying the heavy weight of putting their values into action while navigating enormous uncertainty, somatic executive coaching can help.

Before defining what somatic executive coaching is, let's understand the foundation: somatics. The word "soma" comes from the Greek word for "body."

Somatics is a field of study and practice that acknowledges the body's innate intelligence and how it holds our experiences, emotions, and ingrained patterns.

It recognizes that the body is the domain of everything we are – our actions, moods, learning, coordination, and dignity.

Through specific practices, somatics helps individuals access their body's wisdom to facilitate growth, transformation, and healing by tuning into our felt senses.

Somatics raises our self-awareness and resilience, empowering us to identify the subconscious patterns that left unchecked create obstacles to what we really want.

What is Somatic Executive Coaching?

Last week, a brilliant organizational leader, asked me, “Rhodes, what is somatic executive coaching and how can it help my leadership team in this current moment?”

After writing a quick email detailing this leadership coaching approach, I realized my response might be helpful for others interested in exploring this kind of coaching:

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the great question! Somatic executive coaching is a holistic approach to leadership development that integrates the body, mind, and spirit. It helps leaders access their innate bodily intelligence to foster profound personal and professional growth.

This specialized coaching addresses how physical sensations and subconscious patterns & behaviors influence a leader's presence, emotional intelligence, and decision-making. By tuning into the body, leaders can transform limiting beliefs & behaviors by embodying new ways of leading with greater authenticity, presence, and confidence.

Ultimately, somatic executive coaching equips leaders become who they need to be, moving beyond intellectual understanding to achieve genuine, impactful personal and professional transformation. This deep alignment of inner state and outward action enhances their ability to navigate uncertainty while inspiring others during urgent times.

I’m happy to chat more with you or other members of your team if they are interested in exploring somatic group or 1:1 coaching with me. This Belonging Practice Guide may help you see how this kind of coaching can equip leaders with the skills to build workplace cultures of safety, trust, and belonging.

Take good care,
Rhodes

If you were hoping for a more succinct definition, here’s something you can save or share with members of your team who might be interested in this kind of support:

In my practice, I find that somatic executive coaching can be the missing piece for leaders who desire to transform into more authentic, present, and confident people.

It empowers them to move beyond purely thinking about concepts of being this kind of leader and making superficial behavioral adjustments.

It addresses the deep-seated, often unconscious, physical and emotional patterns that can limit a leader's effectiveness, and are difficult to identify without support.

By cultivating embodied presence, emotional intelligence, and the ability to transform limiting behaviors at their root, leaders can truly embody who they need to become.

This leads to authentic leadership, stronger relationships, more intuitive decision-making, and the resilience to navigate these high-pressure, urgent times.

How Somatic Executive Coaching Can Support You

Given these urgent times, feelings of uncertainty, fear, and even collective grief are running on high, overloading many of our nervous systems.

This reality often leads to reactive behaviors, tunnel vision, and a disconnect from who we really are. Somatic coaching offers practices to manage these "big emotions."

These practices raise our awareness of how we feel when activated, and help us slow down and reorganize ourselves so that we can be RESPONSEful and not reactive.

---

---

When you learn to feel into your body, you gain access to a deeper well of wisdom. This allows you to respond to challenging situations with intention.

It cultivates the capacity to act in alignment with your greatest longings – the deeply held values and aspirations that define who you truly are and what want from life.

This embodied awareness is the compass that guides you towards leading with greater authenticity, presence, and confidence, even during these urgent times.

Practice Somatics & Transform

Everyday we are practicing something. We become what we practice. Is what you are practicing aligned with who you know you must become to handle today’s challenges?

By making time to intentionally practice somatics, your awareness grows allowing you to breakout unconscious patterns that will transform the way you lead.

These are not quick fixes, but rather ongoing practices. They require commitment, repetition, and support. The following resources can offer that kind of support:

1. The Belonging Practice. Practice embodied leadership exercises like the 60-second challenge to gain the skills to build safety & trust. This guide can help, too.

2. The Belonging Practice. Join our next weekly Belonging Practice this Thursday at 8 am PT. Register here – this session is complimentary!

3. Your Belonging Coach. If you’d like 1:1 support, I’m offering a special 10-session somatics coaching practice package this spring. Learn more here.

I hope to see you at our next complimentary Belonging Practice this Thursday at 8 am Pacific Time. More details about what the session will cover are featured here.

Thank you for growing our Belonging Movement!