Wow!!!!!!!

Leadership
Written by Brenda Ramos

Let me say that again... WOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!! 

It's been two years since my last blog, almost exactly to the date. So what have I been up to? And why am I starting today? I moved out of the home I was in for almost 10 years, almost married a man I rushed into a toxic relationship with (you'll get to read about that soon) and quit my job to pursue my dream of helping people full time. YAY CHANGE!!!

I'm a lifelong learner. So what I've been doing for the past month since leaving my job is taking a bunch of online courses. One is specifically to get me certified as a coach through the International Coaching Federation and the rest are a la carte courses that I feel will help me in several ways. One of those courses is Seth Godin's Leadership Workshop. 

The first assignment in this class is to write about and reflect on the following topics: 

What is leadership? 

  • Instead of pointing to a leader, outline a moment in which someone you respect engaged in leadership.

I come from a background in the arts specifically Salsa and Caribbean forms of dance. I have been fortunate enough to witness multiple directors start new dance teams, choreograph new routines, and run professional rehearsals in order to become experts in this industry to the point where they travel around the world doing what was originally just a hobby. In my mind the best example of leadership was when one director attempted to take his "crazy" idea to Broadway. He rallied support from multiple teams in the New York & New Jersey areas, gathered a small group of devout dancers to assist in every way possible, and created a 2 hour show that although failed to arrive at his desired location did manage to make a significant impression on the local scene. I believe his ability to pitch his idea with passion and then ask for help in the areas where he needed it led him to go as far as he did. 

  • Describe a moment when you chose to lead. How is it different from the rest of the time, when you are merely just managing?

It takes so much courage to lead. To stand up alone (at first) with an idea and introduce it; to grab folks by the hand and say, "Come with me. You won't regret it". To speak with such conviction for your idea that people are taken in by the passion and enthusiasm you emanate. The truth is I tried it only once and failed. Was I not passionate enough? Did I speak to the wrong crowd? I don't know. But I'm ready to try again. WHOLEHEARTEDLY. That's why I'm taking Seth's workshop and that's why I'm back to blogging... on my website... for the world (hopefully) to see. 

  • Do you agree that leadership is a choice?

Yes I agree that leadership is a choice. I also believe that people feel called on a deep level to lead. The choice comes when you either pay attention to the nagging feeling of "We can do something bigger" or you ignore it. You continue to ignore it and find ways to numb yourself to it and maintain a life of status quo. 

  • Leadership is about making a change. A change that might not work. If you do the work alone, you're an artist. If you get other people to do it with you, you're a leader. Going forward, then, what is the change you are trying to make?

 I want to rally people into loving themselves more, becoming more self-aware, and demonstrating more compassion for themselves . Then I want to help people turn that around and spread it into their communities. Simple, crazy and possible. I know it is. 

So there you have it mi gente, my 1st attempt back into blogging. I think what I'll do is put video into my newsletters for you and if you're inclined you can come here and read my words. Hopefully they come to you at useful moments when you need support and/or strength to lead in your own way. 

Love you! Peace in... Peace out... Peace. 

Brenda 

Brenda Ramos

Brenda Ramos is a Spanglish-speaking, foul-mouthed, spirit-led, stardust-and-light-filled being: a complex system of atoms, neurons, and soul navigating a world shaped by racial empire, patriarchy, and extraction. She's a first-gen, queer AFAB woman of Borikua/Puerto Rican heritage, and was born and raised between the Borikén archipelago and its diaspora. Her bloodlines trace to the Jíbaro mountain people of Borikén, colonially known as Puerto Rico. She carries their sacred, sensual, and spiritual legacy into a life and body of work rooted in ancestral knowing, embodiment, and relationship.

Brenda is a mindfulness-based mentor and life coach, meditation teacher, and intuitive movement guide rooted in Decolonial and Indigenous praxis. Through Authentic Whole Self Living, she offers The Art of Radical Being, her Framewerk for cultivating a more trusting, embodied, relational way of living. Its five movements of coming home are Remember, Reconnect, Reclaim, Realign, and Return. They are rhythms we revisit, not steps to complete. They invite us to remember what is alive within us, reconnect with our bodies and relationships, reclaim what has been crowded out or suppressed, realign our choices with our values, and return with greater awareness and agency.

Brenda works with folks who feel they have lost parts of themselves to caregiving, aging, assimilation, or the demands of survival. She does not hand them a prescribed version of who to become. She creates conditions for them to recognize the wisdom they already carry, trust what they have been sensing, and come home to their bodies, inner knowing, roots, and relationships. Her work makes room for resonance, reciprocity, and interdependence: how we listen to what feels alive, tend what we are part of, and remember that none of us exists alone.

Living Balance is the orientation of this work. It is an embodied relationship with change, not permanent calm or perfect equilibrium. Brenda's Window of Living Balance gives language to the everyday rhythm of Leave, Pause, Notice, Return. Leaving is part of life; returning can mean resting, grieving, asking for support, setting a boundary, or simply becoming present enough to choose. Every return carries new experience.

Her formal mindfulness training includes a 300-hour Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training through MNDFL, the two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, and their 16-week Mindfulness Mentor Training. Her broader study and practice draw from Buddhist and dharma teachings, trauma-sensitive mindfulness, Nonviolent Communication, restorative and decolonial practices, JourneyDance, Reiki, and positive psychology coaching. She honors the lineages and teachers who have shaped her work, including Lama Rod Owens, Lodro Rinzler, Adriana DiFazio, David Treleaven, Roxy Manning, and Oren Jay Sofer among others.

For nearly two decades, Brenda taught hundreds of people around the world to access their sensual power through salsa dance. Today, movement remains a way to listen to the body, express what is alive, and reclaim joy and choice. Her practices also meet people in the ordinary fullness of life: caregiving, work, culture, grief, pleasure, conflict, and community. She writes The Practice of Tending, a newsletter exploring these relationships as an ongoing practice rather than a finished state.

Brenda lives and practices on the ancestral homelands of the Mohican and Munsee Lenape Peoples in Hoboken and Jersey City, New Jersey. She is a a program director in education advocacy, and a caregiver for her 96-year old mother, who is a cancer survivor living with dementia. She is also a mother, sister, titi, dark chocolate snob, proud goofball, and unapologetic night owl. She knows, bone-deep, that inner care and collective care shape one another. She's here to walk alongside people as they find their own ways of coming home.

Connect with Brenda:

Website: authenticwholeself.com

Instagram: @authenticwholeselfliving

Substack: substack.com/@authenticwholeselfliving

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https://authenticwholeself.com
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