The Three Layers of Embodied Awareness
- Miranda Holder
- Nov 6
- 3 min read
Leadership from the inside out
Thanks to our culture’s focus on the brain over the body, it’s second nature to lead from the head. We analyze, anticipate, and work to live two steps ahead of what might go wrong. But real, sustainable leadership begins inside the body.
Neuroscience shows that nearly 80% of the information traveling along the vagus nerve flows upward, from body to brain. These signals shape how you think and make decisions, long before you have words for what you know.
When that conversation goes quiet – when we override fatigue, ignore tension, dismiss unease as weakness – we lose access to an entire stream of intelligence designed to guide us.
Embodied awareness is the art and science of tuning back in, one layer at a time. And this is what the next era of leadership will require – leaders who can pair cognitive intelligence with embodied wisdom.
1. Exteroception: The Outer World
The first layer of awareness lives in the senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. It’s the body’s way of connecting to the environment, of answering the question, “Where am I, and am I safe?”
When you attend to what you see and hear and feel (the texture of the chair beneath you, the sound of your breath, the way light moves across a room), you activate the insular cortex, the brain’s center for self-awareness and emotional regulation. This simple act of sensory attention tells the nervous system, “you can settle.” It steadies heart rate, reduces cortisol, and creates the physiological condition for presence.
And presence, when embodied, is felt. Your calm body becomes a cue of safety to others. Teams think more clearly, and conversations deepen.
Presence isn’t a skill you acquire; it’s a state you allow.
2. Proprioception: The Body in Space
The second layer is proprioception, or the awareness of your own body’s shape in space.
It’s how you sense yourself sitting, standing, gesturing. Tiny receptors in your muscles and joints send constant updates to the cerebellum, drawing up a silent map of how you inhabit the world. Athletes, dancers, actors – and exceptional leaders – they all are aware of their bodies in space because their bodies have impact.
In leadership, proprioception is integrity made visible. It’s the alignment between what you say and what you signal.
Research from Princeton shows that observers form impressions of credibility and warmth in less than a tenth of a second. Before you ever speak, your body is communicating.
When you occupy space with awareness, your message lands differently.
The way you hold yourself is a form of language.
Before the mind persuades, the body transmits.
3. Interoception: The Inner World
The deepest layer is interoception, or the awareness of the body’s internal landscape (heartbeat, breath, temperature, tension).
This is the layer that whispers before the mind can narrate.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio calls these sensations somatic markers – data points that help the brain predict what will move you toward or away from well-being. The anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex translate this data into feeling and meaning. It’s why a tight chest can signal misalignment, or an exhale can mark relief before your thoughts catch up.
Interoception is also the root of empathy. The same neural pathways that let you sense your own inner world allow you to feel another’s.
The body is not opposed to reason.
It’s the ground from which reason emerges.
Why This Matters for Leadership
When we cut the body out of the equation, we lead from a fragment of our intelligence.
Without exteroception, we lose presence.
Without proprioception, we lose integrity.
Without interoception, we lose discernment.
Reconnected, we gain something subtler and more sustainable: the ability to read a room beyond its words, to feel when to press and when to pause, to act from coherence instead of reactivity. This is the kind of intelligence the future of leadership will depend on – perceptive, regulated, deeply human.
Because embodied awareness doesn’t make you softer, it makes you the kind of leader whose clarity comes from the whole intelligence system, working as one.
The Work
The Embodied Intelligence Method™ is the foundation of my approach to coaching – a synthesis of applied neuroscience and somatic practice designed to reconnect the mind with the body’s quiet intelligence.
It’s how we bring the full system back online, so the head and body begin working in concert.
If you’d like to experience this for yourself, I created a Meditation for Embodied Awareness – a short guided practice that walks you through the three layers of embodied awareness.
And if this work speaks to where you are – if you’re ready to lead and live with your whole intelligence system engaged – this is the heart of what we explore together in 1:1 Leadership & Career Coaching. Because the future of leadership belongs to those who can think clearly, feel deeply, and stay connected to both.