Why Wellness Matters: Empower Growth Today
The Why Wellness Matters Podcast explores why wellness is a critical aspect of leadership, organizational culture, and personal growth, offering practical tips, expert interviews, and real-life stories. In each episode we'll dive into discussions about how mindfulness enhances leadership effectiveness by fostering presence, clarity, and emotional intelligence. As well as explore scientific findings on how mindfulness affects brain function and performance. This podcast is for leaders, HR professionals, coaches, and individuals looking to enhance their leadership skills while prioritizing their health and well-being.
Why Wellness Matters: Empower Growth Today
Self-Trust: Increasing Capacity
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Self-trust grows when your mind, body, and values are in alignment. In this episode, we explore how increasing capacity through wellness and self-leadership helps you move beyond survival and into confident, intentional action
This is the Global Podcast Network where executives and professionals connect, share, and inspire. Stay tuned for the conversations that drive success.
SPEAKER_01Are y'all ready to thrive? I think we are. We're with Thrive Frameworks once again here. We're going to talk more about this holistic wellness studio that really integrates so much for meditation, healing, somatic healing, I should say specifically, yoga and reiki, sound therapy, and so much more. Welcome back to the show today, Cynthia. How are you?
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Jill. It's great to be here. I'm wonderful. Um, you know, dealing with this heat um that we have on the East Coast right now and getting ready for the holiday weekend coming up. Um, I'm thriving to be to be quite honest.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful. Great to hear that. So please, we'll start off by having you introduce yourself to our listeners today and viewers. I'm sure there's new ones since last time we spoke.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, I just want to start out by saying hi to everyone. I'm so honored that you're spending this time with me and Jill, and we get to impart some wisdom uh on you and and take what you take the meat and leave the bones, right? If something doesn't resonate with you, it's all good, right? Um, but uh my name is Cynthia Pyle Manley. I've been working in wellness for 20 years. I know it may not look that way because of my youthful appearance, but I started wellness, my wellness journey quite early. And then I became a federal mediator and HR professional, which I had also been doing for about 15 years. My background specifically is in conflict resolution, and I found this really beautiful through line with wellness and self-regulation and getting into the body and understanding the language of the body and how it relates to our behaviors in the workplace. So that's why I named my company Thrive Frameworks, right? Because it really is about how do we not how do we escape our lives, but how do we create frameworks and systems that allow us to rise to challenging times and work with other people, other individuals, organizations, systems, like what have you, whatever you're being faced with. Um hopefully it'll be something that you can just pick up. One one of the tools, you know. Um, you'll maybe you find something on my website or on my Instagram that really resonates with you and that you can um just easily access.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but last time we really we thrived. And we talked more uh, you know, about the coaching, the leadership development you do, the chair yoga, mindfulness, sound healing, Reiki, somatic practices, and so much more. So for today, um again, these are many wellness offerings that you have and modalities. But listeners, you know, may be wondering, you know, how did you get from leadership development, shall I say, and conflict resolution into sound healing, Reiki and somatic work? Can we take a little bit closer look in depth uh into your journey here, into your career?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. And I um I love this question because I really do every all of the tools that I've developed, I practice on myself. So I am my own first um test subject, if you will. And uh I actually did a um modality, if you will, that uh right before our our call today that I'd love to share with listeners, right? I'm very like, let's practice, let's let's get right into it. Um, and so the first thing is with leadership specifically is self-trust. Okay, right? If you don't trust yourself, how can you expect your team, your community, your children, you know, anyone that you're leading, anyone that you're guiding somewhere, like how can they trust you if there's a sense or premonition that maybe you don't fully trust yourself? And so I wanted to, we I wanted to kind of scale it back to just like the the bare bones, like the first entry point to um self-trust. Okay. And that's really listening to yourself and understanding your own dialogue and your own um the language of the body, because cognitively you have a script, you have things that you say to yourself on a regular basis, you may not even be thinking about it. But then there's also this language of the body, right? That you start noticing, oh, my um speech is a little bit broken up, or my shoulders are tense, or my hands are shaking, or I feel flush, or I have a rumble in my stomach, and maybe I need to eat something. That's gonna be actually be a future episode. I have a wellness um dietitian who is gonna come and talk with us about energy and how to fuel the body and fuel the brain to perform better. But the side note to future to come, we'll have um a dietitian um expert to talk about that. But really, it's just listening, and we don't listen enough. Like just taking a breath and slowing down and just taking a full breath in, you know, growing tall through the crown of the head, lengthening the spine, opening the lungs, and taking a full deep breath in all the way down into the belly to help deepen the connection between the internal dialogue, uh, I think we touched on this last time, is uh somatic practices. So I also have this glass of water here, and this is great if you're in the boardroom, right? So just holding, I prefer a cold glass of water because that cold signals to the brain something. And so I'll just hold it and notice the weight of the cup in my hand, noticing the condensation, the coolness. Right. Even before I take my first sip, even before the first sip, I'm starting to become mindful of the signals of the body and synthesizing it with the brain, right? It's data, yeah, it's data, right? And it helps you feel grounded. Then maybe we take a sip.
SPEAKER_01I hope you don't mind. I'm doing this along with you because I have a cold drink here. Yeah, if you do too, please, yeah, cold water for me.
SPEAKER_02Come along with us on this journey, and so now you start to notice, oh, like I don't have to be in. It's just a you know what I like to call it is micro uh regulation for macro stabilization. So it's these micro moments that aren't gonna solve the whole puzzle, but they just give you a moment of pause to access your highest level of thinking, to access that prefrontal cortex. That's where all the language, curiosity, learning, all possibility is located in the in the um the executive functioning of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, and everything related to fear, um uh loss, grief is located in the in the reptilian part of the brain. So we're constantly using these modalities to help us vacillate, right? Between, and the reptilian part of the body is not our enemy. It's actually designed to help us protect and perform. So I really don't want, I I really like this framework of we're vacillating between the fight or flight response, the reptilian piece, and the executive functioning, because they are both very important to the holistic aspect of the person in being able to both thrive and protect the themselves. It's not an enemy.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, ooh, ooh, all right. Well, wow, more on capacity, if you want to add some more there. I don't know if we're jumping the gun here. I just want to make sure we're going through everything, but hold on. Okay.
SPEAKER_02You're quite you're quite right.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay, good. I'm gonna make sure because I'm like, wait a sec, because now capacity you're saying is the mental, emotional, physical, the the you know, the resources basically that the yeah, these demands that are placed on us. So when we refer to this now, you know, in a sense, in like the the conversation with people thriving and how that helps and affects us, what would you say um, you know, capacity does? I mean, and then we're gonna go into some of the trust framework next, too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So um the somatics help us to create that space, and that's where the capacity is built. Got it. So the micro um, the micro pauses allow us to get a bird's eye view. So we're not uh for a moment, like the glass is cold, it's it's uh wet. Um there's no judgment there. We're not talking about is this bad, is this good, is it right? We're just being really present and neutral, almost like an anthropologist would be. So just really um activating that curiosity, and that's where in this micro way we're practicing capacity building.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, all right, I'm getting it because you mentioned though, like there's stress, uncertainty, pressure, competing priorities. There's so much.
SPEAKER_02And economic uncertainty, political polarization, information overload. Um, there's just so much that we're um data that the brain is trying to synthesize through and determine what's most important to prioritize and to protect, right? But that word protect can also mean it can um sort of have a uh unintended uh consequence in that it can create defensiveness, it can create distrust, it can create distrust with yourself, right? And then it can also create distrust with your partner, your team, whoever you're engaging with, because the information, again, that data that they're feeding you may not quite be landing the way that it was intended to. And your first instinct is to protect, right? So that's why the somatics is so important and building in these micro pauses because it gives you capacity to be cute curious and ask open-ended questions instead of sort of labeling or determining what this other person's intention is good or bad.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha. And I know we kind of dove into self-trust already a little uh early, but uh you mentioned though, because with this whole cognitive shift, right, the change happens, we're gaining more access to ourselves, you said, right? So could you share how we're doing this whole like survival type thing in our brain? And it's like, okay, is this good, is this bad? And we're we're we're starting to think about this and be become more aware of these shifts, as you say.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, the thing is, is that um self-trust or trust that's lost in your team, that capacity to be open and curious isn't lost in one fell swoop. It's something that's usually eroded over time through, as you said, competing demands, stress, uncertainty, pressure, and that is um unfortunately not a um, it's not durable, it's not a sustainable way of being. The uh it's it creates um cortisol spikes, hormonal changes, um adrenaline, all of these things can actually have um pretty negative effects on the body over time. And we're learning that now more through science, the more science there is around heart disease, which women are the um you know main people who are impacted by heart disease. Um, we also see it now with um this generation that is starting to age and with cognitive decline and dementia and things like that. And so I wonder if there had been a framework, uh, and this is really my life's work because my father uh suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and I uh was his primary caregiver. So a lot of this isn't the neuroscience behind it, is informed by my own personal journey with with experiencing the impact of um over being overstressed. He had a very high demand job, he graduated uh from Yale, he worked at the World Bank. I mean, you name that he he he did a lot of really um remarkable things, but there's a cost. There's a cost.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, wow. Well, moving on to you know, self-trust, as you say, um, do you want to dive into the mid-level manager challenge in a sense?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I mean, so this is like how it what it looks like in practice, right? Um, there is Yeah, I was gonna say, where do you see it showing up the most, right?
SPEAKER_01And most often.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, with my clients and and in my experience in the workplace, it shows up the most with mid-level managers. Although I also want to, you know, sort of emphasize that we're all leaders in one shape, one way, shape, or form. It doesn't matter if you're a CEO, you are the CEO of your life. Yeah, you are managing multiple things at one time, making decision points. Um, there can be fear around those decision points, and um making that cognitive shift from danger to possibility is not just for CEOs because that that framework exists for for everyone at multiple levels of the organization. And um that's why we call it self-leadership. And so, but specifically for the mid-level managers, what I've noticed, um, particularly with my HR background, is that there's this pressure to uh execute. And oftentimes, if we just look at the manager's scorecard, right, and we just look at the data and the performance metrics, they are given a specific timeline, their specific milestones, and either they exceeded or met or failed to meet those expectations. And if we don't look at the context behind it, this person can have exceptional character. So going um much of this is built from Stephen Covey's book, The Speed of Trust, which has been an important part of my toolkit. And so, and I encourage your listeners, if they're not, if they have so it was actually written by Stephen Covey's son, Stephen Covey Jr., um, and Stephen Covey's well known for his book on the seven habits of highly effective people, amazing book. His son then later on went to write um The Speed of Trust, which is a an excellent um complement to the seven habits of highly effective people. But so in Covey's work, he talks about two aspects of trust that are foundational and core aspects character and capacity. I'm sorry, character and competence. Competence is a word we use in HR quite a bit, right? There are key skills and competencies or key skills and abilities. These are what HR professionals and CEOs and people in leadership are measuring. And they're measuring these mid-level managers, really all employees, based on these competencies that they've had written out, right? Yeah. And what Cuffy uh suggests is that you can have someone who has amazing character and you see it in the interview, you know, and you can feel that they have the values that are aligned with the organization, but they may not have the capacity to or I'm sorry, they may not have the competency, right? And so as an HR professional, we are trying to match up the character with the competency. So character is something that you may not necessarily be able to measure, but competency, we can measure it based on their performance. It's observable. Yeah. But what I think is the missing ingredient, if you will, is capacity. So capacity is the missing ingredient because why? I don't I've again I've worked in HR for such a long time that I began to wrestle with this question of we've got really great character people and they have the competencies. I'm I've trained them. I've sat in the room and trained them. They understand the um the ask. They understand the ask and they understand the why. And they may even be bought into the why.
SPEAKER_01But where's the gap? Well, I know what corporations can help, right? You mentioned like there could be some appreciation events. There's sometimes it's like team building. Um, how can we fix this problem in a sense, right? And make the organization actually um, you know, a better place, would you say?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So that's where the capacity is built. So maybe it's an off-site or a leadership retreat.
SPEAKER_01Uh team building, yeah. Team building, yes.
SPEAKER_02And often it looks like there's a big change in the organization and people are struggling again from uh the this is why it's really important for the mid-level managers to be have that trust with executive leadership to be able to communicate. Hey, the schematics look great, the uh the restructure is clear, people understand where they sit in the organization, but there's still something um unresolved as it relates to impact or the implementation of this thing. So let's step away for a second. Let's go to a cabin, you know. Uh, for smaller organizations, maybe that's just booking an Airbnb. For larger organizations, there's more um involved with, you know, finding an off-site and going um away for a bit. I've even had small nonprofits use my studio as their off-site space, um, which is which is fun. Um, and then I'll come in and teach a yoga class, a chair yoga class. So again, you don't have to have a yoga mat to do yoga. Um, people confuse the poses, the uh which in yoga we call asana. They confuse the asana with a physical part with yoga, but yoga is much more it's meditation, it's breath work, it's self-awareness, sensory awareness, it's all of these things kind of combined. So we'll do some somatic practices, we'll do chair yoga, we'll have a um a sound healing session, and and employees feel appreciated, right? They feel seen, but that's often not the end of the work, that's usually the beginning of the work. Um, because one of the things that we talked about in our last session was that practice makes permanent. Practice doesn't make perfect, it creates ingrained new neuropathways that allow for that self-agency, that choice to become easier. Yeah, it's that shift. And the more that you do it, just like a weight, like you wouldn't read a book or take a class one time on how to lift weights and expect to gain muscle, right? You actually have to go to the gym and lift the weight and develop that capacity and feel.
SPEAKER_01The resistance from Lee, but surely it does take some time to build up. Same situation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It takes time. And I think sometimes people and organizations get impatient because they don't see the results immediately that they're hoping to see. But really, behind the scenes, those new neuropathways, those new muscles are being developed.
SPEAKER_01And that's when all of a sudden we see this empowering shift happening, right? And you said when we're operating survival mode, it feels like it's happening to us. But when we regain this capacity, then we're responding, you say, from ourselves instead of reacting to everything around us. So how do you really help people make this shift, Cynthia?
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's a really beautiful question because oftentimes people are reacting to the environment that they're being uh presented with. But what they really want to do and what we really want to encourage and create capacity for is for them to um for them to be able to make choices that are aligned with their values. And so this is another service that I've offered uh groups is to create core values, to create declaration statements for the organization. I mean, this is so pivotal. We the the nuts and bolts of change have already been laid out. We understand the budget, we understand the um the why, we understand the ask, but understanding the context with underneath it and how employees want to be seen in terms of their values and where they want to act from in terms of their values. And you the if you spend some time and really sit down and talk about these things, they're not incongruent, right? They're not incongruent. They're there may be shared interests between upper level and the employees who are actually implementing. But we just need to take some time and step back and be curious, right? And get into that prefrontal cortex and really ask those open-ended questions and think about what's possible and take that bird's eye view perspective.
SPEAKER_01Got it. Well, as you say, then awareness really alone isn't enough, right?
SPEAKER_02Right. It's not awareness, it's just the first, the first point. And then it's it's it's really awareness, and then we move into um just being able to align yourself again, like I said, with the values. Where do I want to be acting from as opposed to how am I reacting? What's my response to this instead of my reaction? And then you can actually take actions that are aligned with your values, and then you know, that's data as well. It's not the end point. We can iterate after that. We can test this. So test these new behaviors, test these new actions with our team, with our partners, with our community, and that's data too. So then we can kind of go back to the drawing board. It's not, yeah, it's not a one and done. Organizations are living, breathing things. They're it's almost like biology. It's a social system that has to evolve over time. It's not static. Um, so then we're able to, you know, have more awareness, create alignment with our um our values, take aligned action, and then adjust or um or pivot where needed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, let's it's time to kind of close and reflect. We're almost out of time. Oh my gosh, it happens so quick all the time. So if you don't mind, um, yeah, let's just do a little overview recap for today, and then we're gonna obviously find out how we can reach out to you to start working with you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um I sort of where I see the journey of this episode is that you know, leaders often know what to do. They know what to do. Um, and it isn't always the problem, it's about building capacity. So their capacity because of stress, decision fatigue, caregiving, organizational change activates that fight or flight response. But micro regulation, somatic practices, breath work, meditation, healing, Reiki can help create that micropause between reaction and response, allow you to access that executive functioning that's so important for curiosity and shared understanding and shared perspective taking. And where that awareness is developed, then you can see what's possible. You can create more agency for yourself and for people around you, and you can actually see the full landscape of the challenges that you're being called to meet. And all I know I just said a mouthful, right? Oh my god. But there are resources on my website. This um framework that I have coined is actually downloadable if you go to thriveframeworks.com. And uh, and I also invite listeners to follow me on Instagram at Thriveframeworks. And I hope that what's been shared today can help people flourish under prof under pressure. It really is possible if we just are intentional about restoring the capacity, reconnecting to self and our values.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure having you here again. And uh I know you have some upcoming workshops we want to promote. So go to Facebook, Instagram at Thriveframeworks, right, to find you there. We'll talk more about that. And again, your website one more time, tell us. It's thriveframeworks.com. Great, and also you can download right uh everything that we talked about today. You can book the session, private session, group session right there through the site itself. That's thrime, thriveframeworks.com. Oh, thank you so much. Pleasure having you here. Same here. Great job as always, and looking forward, I guess, till uh next week. Till we meet again, shall I say? Yes, thank you so much, Cynthia. Enjoy the rest of your day in beautiful Maryland. Uh, it's hot everywhere around the country, isn't it? Sure is. All right. Stay cool. Bye.
SPEAKER_00This is the Global Podcast Network where executives and professionals connect, share, and inspire. Stay tuned for the conversations that drive success.