Entering by Amanda Ridings
by CSA Accredited Supervisor Amanda Ridings
The martial art of Aikido is known as The Art of Peace because it includes the principle that a practitioner responds to an attack in a way that protects the attacker as well as themselves. As a self-declared ‘hippy’ in the 1960s, the late Wendy Palmer was inspired by this ideal. However, she found she was unable to put it into practice when faced with ‘incoming energy’ – her inquiry into why this was so led to the development of the Leadership Embodiment (LE) approach.
A key practice in Aikido is ‘irimi’ (pronounced e-rim-ee), which means ‘entering’. Broadly, it refers to being present to, making space for and stepping into incoming energy – without losing our centre. During the process, we glimpse a 360-degree panorama.
In LE, the essence of this practice is known as ‘entering into adversity’. When a challenge arises, we centre and step into it, opening our awareness to include the presenting difficulty. The boundary between ‘self’ and ‘issue’ dissolves so that we see the bigger picture, allowing a systemic resolution to emerge.
If we don’t centre and enter, we handle difficulties from a reactive place… which, in my case, means fighting, digging in, and fighting some more. This doesn’t tend to go well!! Centring creates a moment of choice, entering offers greater agency.
Recently, faced with a series of challenges relating to my second book, Weekly Leadership Contemplations, I’ve had many opportunities to explore this.
It began in January, with a significant rise in the annual fee for keeping my self-published books in circulation. The increase was at odds with my publishing contract. This initial adversity – a breach of contract - was fairly comfortable territory for me and I ‘went into bat’. However, the publisher insisted on their revised fees. My options were to dig in, which might result in the contract being honoured but further damage relationships, or to practice centring and entering and connect to the bigger picture.
In January, both my books were with this publisher. I’m writing a third book and had assumed this would also be published under their imprint. In the new circumstances, I began to research alternatives.
The increased fees raised another issue – published during the pandemic, Weekly Leadership Contemplations hasn’t sold well and so renewing distribution at higher fees didn’t make sense financially. And yet… I love this little book and know that others love it too. I resolved to enter into trying to revive its fortunes.
This meant actively promoting the book and asking others for support - deeply uncomfortable territory for me. However, I posted a piece on Linked In, centring and entering to do this with grace. My appeal generated a great response – the small stock held by Amazon quickly disappeared.
This presented a new adversity - the publisher was unable to restore supply and responded to my cajoling by wringing their hands and attributing the problem to others. I felt helpless. What now?
I went on holiday!
I returned with renewed perspective and energy and, since I could order stock of Weekly Leadership Contemplations, I decided to become a seller on Amazon. This was a tedious, confusing and time-consuming process – and a bit distasteful on a personal level. However, what mattered was restoring the availability of my book, so I centred and entered… again and again. I began to sell books.
Leaving Weekly Leadership Contemplations with the publisher was now untenable. I secured an alternative home for it… a like-for-like swap. However, I was concerned this risked a similar outcome. Instead, I decided to engage directly with the printing and distribution platform, IngramSpark, following in the footsteps of other CSA graduates.
This too was tedious, confusing and time-consuming. But I took each step and learned along the way, supported by Bek, who did the layout for my books. The bigger picture now was to road-test this option for Pause for Breath and my third book.
It’s taken 4 long months, but Weekly Leadership Contemplations is back in the supply chain – under new management! Unexpectedly, I’m a publisher. And a book seller. Who knew?!
In persevering, I harnessed the energy of each new adversity. What supports you to engage and re-engage, to persevere as set-backs arise?
Amanda Ridings, July 2024