This concept comes to me from Wendy Palmer, an Aikido master and founder of Conscious Embodiment, a somatic approach to leadership development. The idea is that most of us are not yet at a place where we can maintain our balance in all life scenarios. And just as we need to strengthen our muscles to keep physical balance, developing a quality helps us to strengthen our emotional balance. In identifying a quality, we want to focus on a quality that we have felt before and want to feel more of. For example, some possible qualities might include: courageousness, tenderness, aliveness, joyfulness, compassion, love, decisiveness, acceptance, gratefulness, and clarity. Make sure that this isn't a "should" - like I should be kinder, I should be understanding, etc. The quality you choose comes from a place of positivity and optimism, something that you really want more of now- rather than something that you need to "fix" in yourself. This is a subtle but important difference in how you approach it. The quality you choose needs to resonate with you at your core, so that you'll embrace it.

I went through the process last week and asked myself "What would it be like if I had more___ and "time" immediately came to mind. But considering more deeply, it's not time I'm after, but my relationship with time that I want to shift (and for those of you who know me well this will not come as a surprise!) "Spaciousness", that's my word. I remember summers as a kid, when the days and the weeks went on endlessly, and it felt like time stood still, and at the same time it could fly by when I was engrossed in play. There was enough. And with more spaciousness in my life today, I would feel more ease and flow with the rhythms of the day (rather than sometimes feeling like I'm pushing it and trying too hard.) So that's mine. What's your 2012 Quality? See the exercise below to help identify it. Good luck!

This book is an incredible introduction to somatic practice and draws upon the non-aggressive Japanese martial art of Aikido, and meditation. Through various body practices and exercises, Palmer shows the reader how to cultivate more attention, awareness, and self-acceptance. Her premise is that the body is our teacher- and she walks the reader into the territory of our body energy and awareness in an approachable and easy to understand way.   This book has the possibility to shift our relationship with our bodies and to be able to tap into our body wisdom in a new way. For the leader, it offers a non-traditional paradigm to working with others and offers many new distinctions for learning.