In a world of relentless pace, rest – our birthright – is radical. We can stop the futile effort of trying to think our way out of the problems we have created for ourselves and instead clear a space to discover that which has not been heard before. Start close in. Come home to yourself.
When we find ourselves more fully in our body, we also find ourselves more fully in the body of the world. Walk into the centre of your emotional experience, step into the gravitational pull of your longing, move away from the bureaucracy of habit and enact something new.
You can’t fight the system, its brute force. But there is a change wanting to happen. Help the system to feel itself, and sense into the soft spaces ripe for change. This is not boxing, it is tai chi, it is a dance. We flow through the cracks.
The systems and political communities we live within are ecologies, not machines. When we recognise their aliveness, we also recognise our own aliveness. More than ever, we need to come back to ourselves and find our deeply embodied humanity and compassion. Because only a tender and vibrant body politic can feel its way through the convergence of crises we find ourselves in towards a new world.
I am Sophie Tidman, founder of Body Politic. Recovering economist and advisor in 3 continents for over a decade before I realised that I didn’t really have any answers. Nowadays I am more focused on partnering, and being enchanted with life. I am continually tested, blessed and schooled in this endeavour by my two little girls, our Newfoundland puppy, a brood of chickens and a garden that is rather larger than the greenness of my fingers can cope with.
For the past three years I have had the joy and pleasure to regularly experience Sophie facilitating a wide range of group experiences. These range from wellbeing practices such as yoga nidra and embodied yoga, to connection practices such as improv games, and collective intelligence processes such as social presencing theatre. Sophie has a natural calm, grounding presence that helps me come home to myself with ease. Her clarity, confidence and acceptance in the way she is holding space help me feel safe, engaged and let go into the flow of the exercises. From this place of trust and comfort, a deeper quality of wellbeing and powerful, surprising insights have unfolded for me. I also feel nourished, supported and grateful for the privilege of holding space with her.
Sophie is a very calm, self assured leader. She is empathetic but practical and will move thought process forward at a perfect pace. She asks the right questions and remembers all entities so that every person and aspect is heard. Sophie has an incredible fund of knowledge and creativity and it is a complete joy to work with her.
An expert systems coach and facilitator, Sophie guided the participants through an experiential process to create their own living map of a systemic challenge they face, helping them to reveal new information, see the whole and identify opportunities to move forward. The session was interactive and informative and received excellent feedback from colleagues who face complex problems every day as leaders in an ever changing environment. Sophie’s session helped us to demystify complex systems and think more about systems-based approaches to change and challenges. Participants agreed that it made them think differently as leaders, it certainly has for me personally.
Sophie did a brilliant job of leading team meetings with centring, helping us understand how we are at our best and worst, and developing compassionate and effective strategies to work with one another at points of tension and conflict. As a result, we built a high-performing team with a real esprit de corps that was the envy of others. Full credit goes to Sophie for her ability to deploy the right tool for the right situation, to know when to push and when to nudge, and how to support a culture where team members felt fully supported, challenged, accountable, and able to fly.