The Most Intimate Theft: Embodied Practice, Political Loss, and the Work of Staying: Notes from Shanghai & EcoDharma Intensives (Part 3 of 3)

“All revolutionary social forces have this fear [the fear of not knowing whether we can win; the fear that if we set our sights too high we may provoke the enemy to counterattack; the lack of confidence in ourselves and in our ability to struggle to create a better society] as they come face to face with their real conditions of life and the growing realization that they must assume revolutionary responsibility for changing the whole society — so that their lives as well as those of others in this society can be fundamentally changed. Because the fear is so great, it becomes much easier to evade the tremendous challenge and responsibility for disciplined scientific thinking and disciplined political organization, which are necessary to lead revolutionary struggles.” – James Boggs, Think Dialectically, Not Biologically (1974)

The Most Intimate Theft 

Embodiment is the experience of inhabiting our bodies with awareness—feeling our breath, sensing our boundaries, knowing our capacity to respond. It is the alignment of body, mind, and spirit: the integration of our physical, emotional, and life force energy into a coherent whole. To be embodied is to live with integrity—to hold connection between our inner truth and our outer actions, to be who we aim to be in the world, not just in intention but in how we show up, moment to moment. It is how we experience what Thich Nhat Hanh called inter-being: the recognition that we are not isolated individuals but deeply intertwined with all life. From this place, we access the life force that connects us all. Embodiment gives us clarity, discernment, and the capacity to be present—to ourselves, to each other, to the earth. Embodiment is being fully alive—responsive, present, and inseparable from the world around us.

To be prevented from pursuing full embodiment in our daily lives is the most intimate form of theft we experience under late-stage capitalism. This system—forged through genocide, settler colonialism, the exploitation of stolen and enslaved Africans, the enclosure of the commons, and the commodification of human life—does not simply extract our labor or our land. It reaches deeper, severing us from our own bodies, our own attention, our own capacity to feel and respond. We become objects rather than subjects, our worth calculated in metrics, our exhaustion repackaged as personal failure.

This theft happens through the fragmentation of our attention, the numbing of our senses, and the constant demand to be elsewhere—scrolling, producing, consuming, performing. We are pulled in a thousand directions, our nervous systems overloaded, our inner lives harvested for data that refines the very algorithms that extract more from us. We surrender our embodiment for meager rewards. We give up our presence for the buzz of a notification. We sell our rest for another hour of overtime. We exchange our deep listening for the shallow comfort of numbing out in front of a screen. We trade our authentic expression for a version of ourselves that is palatable, employable, and safe. We barter our connection to each other for the illusion of self-sufficiency. We relent our wholeness for survival and a false sense of security. And bit by bit, we forget what we have lost—and what we might still become. As we become more isolated and alienated, we lose the knowing that our survival and safety are predicated on collaboration and collective care. This system doesn't just train us to forget our interdependence—it conditions us to protect the very structures that harm us, to compete for scraps while the table is being pulled from under all of us.

The work of reconnecting to ourselves—the work of reclaiming our embodiment—is not self-indulgence. It is a reclaiming of our spirits, our life force, our capacity to feel and to fight. This is the urgent work of building the capacity to meet this moment with clarity, courage, and collective power. The crises bearing down on us—ecological collapse, political unraveling, the violence of empire—demand that we become whole to ourselves, to each other, and to our environment.

There is a growing discipline of work around embodiment—rooted in somatics, mindfulness, and movement practice—that speaks to this necessity. This is not abstract theory for me—it is the story of my own life and leadership journey. The work of reclaiming embodiment has been the central project of my adult development, and it has taught me that the personal and the political are not separate spheres but a single terrain of struggle.

Learning to Stay: A Leadership Journey Towards Embodiment

I was introduced to mindfulness practice in 2011. Learning to observe my mind was stunning. I found a busy anticipatory mind that ran wild, leapt through time, and was fueled by should'ves and what-ifs – often externally rewarded for being ambitious and proactive and internally punished by self-doubt. An invitation to come into my body was more than challenging—sometimes it just seemed unbearable. I began to notice that when I felt fear, stress, or worry, or brushed up against the wound of unworthiness, I tended to dissociate or implode.

Over the years, meditation has taught me how to be with the suffering of my fragmented self. This, I have come to know as self-compassion. In No Mud, No Lotus, Thich Nhat Hanh says that we are only truly alive when the mind is with the body—the good news is that this oneness can be realized in a single in-breath. This marked the beginning of a journey of repair and reconnection.

In 2016, I was newly thrust into an executive non-profit leadership role. I inherited an organization in slow collapse with crises ranging from existential to financial. In those crises, I felt like I was carrying the weight of the world, and I saw the opportunity for transformation. The organization could become so much more. Despite the self-doubt, I assumed responsibility and sought to equip myself to carry it. Through comrades, I was introduced to Generative Somatics and applied for their School of Embodied Leadership (SOEL) week-long intensive.

I came to this training knowing very little about somatics—which, in retrospect, served me well. The program combined physical practice, emotional processing, and deep reflection on purpose and commitment in ways I couldn't have anticipated. At that point in life, I would've thought twice about exposing the most intimate parts of myself to anyone—let alone to strangers. The intensity of a schedule filled with demanding physical, mental, and emotional practices with few breaks, being accountable and responsible for my team, offering and receiving daily critiques, and deeply self-reflecting made it impossible to escape myself. My history, shiny parts, unprocessed emotions, scars exposed—paving the way for integrity, a mending towards wholeness.

While I have found it difficult over the years to give sufficient language to somatic experiences, I will attempt to share one that has stuck with me. The body remembers the things we try to file away, and at some point we have to settle the score. I was holding pads for another participant. My role was to be steady, absorb the impact of his strikes, and, in this situation, his emotional release. However, I failed badly. I internalized his pain and rage, and it triggered a fearful, contracted, helpless self. I was frozen, emotionally flooded, and it felt as if all my strength leaked out of my body. A teacher stood behind me to lend support, and then tapped me out. I sat on the sidelines and wept for the scared 6-year-old version of me and for the adult that, despite great effort, couldn't keep it all together. Things fall apart, and they break open. When they do, it is up to us to decide what to do with that. I tended to myself, consulted with a teacher, and I came back to practice.

By the end of the week, we had to identify a leadership commitment informed by the needs of the movement, our organizations, and what we were learning about ourselves in training. I had a brief encounter with a teacher that clarified my commitment for years to come. They are a teacher who can see right into your being, and I did my best to avoid them. I was getting water; I looked up, and there they were. They smiled at me and said, ‘It’s in the eyes.’ 

I would like to recall this as a profound moment when everything clicked—a neat narrative of sudden clarity. The truth of the encounter was more like 'does not compute,' and it took years of reflection and experience to make meaning of it. What I eventually came to understand was this: they were pointing not to some fixed quality I possessed, but to a capacity I was developing—the ability to stay present, to let myself be truly seen, to meet others with openness rather than defense. The eyes, I realized, are where we reveal whether we are actually here or somewhere else entirely.

My leadership commitment is layered, with depth that guided me for many years, and one that I continue to practice embodying: I am a commitment to visible and authentically connected leadership. It has meant doing the work—through advances and setbacks—of seeing myself more clearly, embracing myself fully, and allowing myself to be seen by others. Learning how to listen for understanding, and to stay in it with others when things get hard. To be present with whatever arises and see things as they are—rather than grasping for what I want or hope it to be. We cultivate an internal disposition that increases our capacity to act fully in the world.

These practices did not remain confined to the training room. They fortified me through incredible leadership challenges, including rebuilding an organization and navigating a global pandemic. They've steadied me to through fear and uncertainty, grounded me to hold unshakeable beliefs, and propelled me to take risks and bold stances, and move with clear intention.

The Garden We Couldn't Save: Leadership in the Face of Loss

“Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories...” - Amilcar Cabral, Tell no lies, Claim no easy victories (1965)

In 2022, my former organization found itself in a land defense fight we were not yet prepared to wage. We had been shifting from being a charity-based (food and land access) organization towards organizing around building alternatives (food sovereignty). Further, external conditions were calling us to evolve into a power-building organization to protect our community-based land projects. The primary contradiction we faced in that moment was that the pressures of gentrification (land threats) outpaced our internal development and the broader urban agriculture sectors’ capacity, which had very limited experience contesting for power. 

Our garden, founded and stewarded by the community for decades—one among many across the City—had been stolen and lost to development acting in direct opposition to the community’s interests. We put up the best fight we could, and temporarily saved half of the garden from immediate development. We could’ve pretended that this concession from the City was a win. It would’ve been an easier road. We could spin a ‘not a complete defeat’ into something else that would protect our image, and bypass the painful truth of being powerless—and the work required thereafter. 

This loss was not abstract. It was a garden I had walked through countless times, where we taught children how to grow food, where block parties took place, and where families gathered. The failure felt like a betrayal of everyone who had trusted us to protect it. This loss kept me up at night. I was constantly battling thoughts of: How did I let this happen on my watch? What more could I have done? Am I the right person to get us through this? What will we do now?  How will we make sense of this?  The fearful, contracted, impulsive parts of myself wanted to leave—to quit. 

In the midst of this crisis, I came into a session with my somatics teacher determined to find an escape. The responsibility I was carrying across all parts of my life felt like too much. She led me into a series of practices that tapped into the wiser, integrated part of myself. I didn’t need to abandon all my responsibilities to find relief—disconnecting from my commitment would only increase suffering. I could trust in years of practice and accumulated lessons to make the necessary adjustments to meet this moment. 

A common saying in somatics is that a relaxed body is a powerful body. I came back to this loss clearer. We conducted a deep organizational examination of what occurred, which offered significant political insights that would launch our land justice work. What emerged from that examination was not a tidy set of lessons but something more valuable: a clear-eyed understanding of our position within the broader political landscape. The gap between our ambition and our capacity was not a personal failure—it was a strategic one. We needed to build different muscles entirely. This realization shifted everything. We had to regroup, rethink our priorities, adjust our plans, and do a thing we’d never done before. The following year, we launched a base-building and political education initiative in the neighborhood, and co-led city-wide coalition-building efforts. 

This experience clarified something I now hold as essential: when we are willing to take the road less traveled, do hard things like resist static thinking and reactionary behaviours, we can seize openings that advance our struggles. As a seasoned leader who has experienced a fair share of ups and downs, I have come to accept that we live within a set of conditions and limitations that must be rigorously investigated, as we seek to change them strategically.

The Body Remembers: Boxing, Zen, and the Work of Staying

“A true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love…one of the great dramas of the leader is that he or she must combine a passionate spirit with a cold intelligence and make painful decisions without flinching.” –Che Guevara, Socialism & Man in Cuba (1965)

A central concept from somatic embodiment frameworks is that it takes 3,000 repetitions to build a new physical, mental, and/or emotional pattern. Through the process, we learn ourselves intimately, and the practice reshapes us. When we cultivate our learning agility and stay in it through the unease of not-knowing, we move through higher stages of knowing and doing. Eventually, new movements become muscle memory. The body learns to recover and conserve energy to sustain us for longer periods and advanced forms of practice. 

In the years following the garden loss, I found myself seeking practices that would meet me where I was—not as a leader trying to hold everything together, but as a person learning to be present to whatever arose. Two forms of embodied practice have shaped this period of my life more than any others.

Over the last 2.5 years, boxing and Zen training have challenged me to foster a beginner’s mindset. I currently experience them as a humbling of an ego that would prefer to skip to the part where I am right, I am good—an old patterning that for many years determined my sense of self-worth and value. When the inflamed ego arises, I pause, notice, and ask: how do I want to relate to this? I remember that I am practicing remaining open and curious through frustration, excitement, confusion, satisfaction, disappointment, pressure, and fatigue. I recall that mistakes provide new information to work with, to seek correction rather than run from it, and try something new rather than internalize it. I am practicing sincerity: bringing wholehearted presence, deep care, and genuine effort to training. Attuning the mind and body to be awake for all aspects of life.  

Boxing, in particular, is teaching me something that leadership training never could: the difference between tensing up and staying loose under pressure. You will be hit—that’s the game. When you brace against a punch, you absorb more force; when you stay relaxed, you can move with it. I have learned to recognize the same dynamic in organizational life—the way we contract around threat, losing our agility precisely when we need it most. Zen, by contrast, has taught me to sit with what is, without needing to fix or change it immediately. These are not separate lessons; they are the same lesson in different registers.

This presence now animates my leadership commitment, as I build something new through Blade & Spade Strategy Collective. How we do one thing is how we do all things. I believe we can transform and produce disciplined-thinking leaders and political organizations when we clarify our commitment, overcome organizational weaknesses, strengthen our collectivity, and train good practice. This, guided by a steadfast heart, will take us beyond what we believe to be possible.

When I look at the world we are trying to build, I am reminded that the work of embodiment is not merely personal—it is preparation for the struggles ahead. I cannot think of a greater example in this moment in history than the people of Gaza, whose resolve to survive and to have a future in their homeland has sparked revolutionary fervor across the globe. Their capacity to remain present to their own suffering and still choose life, still choose their sovereignty as a people, is embodiment at its most profound. Their struggle is not separate from mine—it is the same struggle, unfolding on different terrain. They are us, and we are them, not as a metaphor but as a material reality: we are all part of a dying imperialist system, and have a role to play in ushering in a world where life, not extraction, is the organizing principle.

Ehipassiko: An Invitation to Practice 

The work I have described—learning to be present, to stay when everything in you wants to leave, to see things as they are rather than as you wish them to be—is not a destination. It is a practice. And like any practice, it requires repetition, patience, and a willingness to begin again. The teachings of the Buddha invite us to ehipassiko—to "come and see for yourself." This is not an instruction to believe, but to investigate. To test these practices in your own life and see what they reveal.

Below is an invitation to do exactly that.

Take a few deep breaths, following your natural breath in and out. Feel into this moment, right here, right now. When you have arrived, complete the following sentences. Pause after each one. Take as much time as you need. Remember to return to your breath.

My political commitment is…

I know my actions are aligned with my commitment when…

I sharpen my practice by…

I am in collective agreement and accountability with …. through….

This is part 3 of a 3-part series (Part 1 & Part 2) inspired by my time in Shanghai & the Appalachian Mountains in April 2026. Many Hands, Light Work is a suggested accompaniment read for complete case studies on the referenced organization’s transformation journey. 

For those who have followed this series to its conclusion: thank you for staying with me through the fear, the loss, and the tentative hope. The work continues.