Obligated to Lead

Between the Breath: Essays on Rest, Leadership & Listening

“Do not desire to fit in. Desire to oblige yourself to lead”. Gwendolyn Brooks

There is a subtle but persistent pressure placed on leaders.

To fit in.
To soften the edge.
To translate the truth until it is palatable.
To wait for permission before moving.

Especially those carrying vision. But fitting in has never been the work of leadership.

Leadership is an embodied responsibility, not a performance. To lead is not to dominate or persuade. To lead is to oblige yourself to answer what you already know is asking to be lived through you.

This obligation is not external. It does not come from institutions, boards, or trends. It comes from vision.

The Vision is Not an Idea

It is a directive. Vision is often spoken about as something inspirational, something you have. But true vision is something by which you are held. Vision arrives with weight. With consequence. With timing.

A visionary is someone who thinks about or plans the future with imagination or wisdom.

When a vision is real, it reorganizes the nervous system before it reorganizes the calendar. It compels our dreams and patterns our language.

When the vision emerges, we are called to listen. This is why leadership rooted in embodiment feels slower to those addicted to urgency, and inevitable to those who recognize truth.

The Vision is the Plan

Strategy without vision may move but does not arrive. Vision without embodiment may dream but does not take form.

When vision is fully claimed and allowed to live in the body, it begins to organize itself. I experienced this firsthand as an executive director, when the vision I had for the organization and community was boldly alive; but I struggled with finding the ‘perfect plan’. It was a mentor who reminded me that the vision was the plan.

When we lean into and lead the vision, the right conversations emerge, the unnecessary initiatives fall away, boundaries clarify without force, and timing reveals itself.

This is not magical thinking. It is disciplined presence and the willingness to trust the vision.

The body, when not overridden by fear or performance, becomes a living source of discernment. It knows when something is not ready. It knows when alignment is present. And it knows when leadership is being asked to step forward - not later, not louder - but now.

Leaders who trust this do not wait to be validated. They move when then they hear the call.

Fitting in is a Survival Strategy

…and it will suffocate you, your leadership, and your vision.

Many of us learned to fit in as a way to stay safe - to belong, to reduce friction. Fitting in is not a leadership strategy. It is a survival response shaped by systems that reward urgency over coherence and compliance over creativity.

Leadership asks for a different strategy.
What if you did not contort to be understood?
What if you did not dilute the vision to be agreeable?
What if you stopped asking whether others are ready, and instead asked whether you are willing? Willing to be seen clearly. Willing to disappoint. Willing to hold the line.

This is not ego. This is reverence for and devotion to the vision.

Selah. The Pause That Reveals Direction

Selah is a breathy mystical word that is largely understood as an invitation to ‘rest, pause, or consider’. Pausing is not retreat from leadership. It is, in fact, the disciplined practice that clears interference so the vision can lead.

In stillness, the noise of obligation falls away. In rest, the difference between adaptation and alignment becomes obvious. In presence, vision stops whispering and starts instructing.

Resting creates enough space for leaders to stop reacting and start responding. Leaders who practice Selah do not chase relevance; they move with intention and inevitability.

A Closing Invitation

My experience in leadership has consistently held the quiet tension between fitting in and standing forward. The vision was always clear, even when survival made it hard to listen. I knew its truth then, and I trust that you know it, too.

This is the work we are being asked to do.

Do not desire to fit in. Desire to oblige yourself to lead.

The vision is not waiting for a plan. The vision is the plan.

And your body already knows how to begin.

At Selah. Somatic Therapy & Yoga, we work with leaders who are ready to slow down, listen, and lead from what is true rather than what is urgent. You do not need to have it figured out; what’s living in you already knows how to begin. Selah will help you listen.

___________________

Breath with Me (consider closing your eyes or softening your gaze)

Notice one breath as it is - without changing it. Feel where your body is supported.
Let the next step wait. Carry what resonates. Leave the rest.

Stay for the exhale. Selah.