🌊 Leading From Presence: When I Let Go of Plans and Life Sang Back (Newsletter #5)

Before diving into a full-on leadership program, I gifted myself something precious: a full day with absolutely no commitments. Just me, myself, and the small coastal town of Sitges. No plans, no pressure. Just presence.

I walked, explored, felt the breeze on the beach. I even considered taking an ice bath in the sea—but then gently said no. I was on my period, feeling sensitive, raw, open. And that was part of the beauty of the day: honoring what I needed in the moment.

I reconnected with the weekly Positive Intelligence module and let myself sink into the childhood visualization once more. I read about love and friendship. I listened to music that moved me. I danced on the inside and felt deeply grateful—like really grateful—for the life I’m living and the person I’m becoming on all the relationships in my life.

And then life surprised me, as it often does when I’m fully present.

I walked past a woman playing clarinet in a small plaza. Her name was Marcia. I took out my earbuds and started to dance. Just like that. Just me, moving, feeling, connecting—to her, to the music, to the moment.

She stopped playing. We started talking.

I shared that I had recently taken a few singing lessons and that I love music. “Why don’t you sing something now?” she asked. It was wild and unexpected—and exactly the kind of invitation I want to say yes to more often in life.

So I sang In Your Bones, the same song I had sung at Women’s Hub. She played it on Spotify, and then started to improvise with her clarinet while I sang. Together, we filled the plaza with presence, with sound, with heart. I think the photo from that moment says it all.

And this, to me, is leadership.

Not in the traditional sense.

But in the truest sense.

Leading from presence. From listening. From joy. From honoring your cycle. From saying yes to the unexpected. From being fully alive.

This is the kind of leader I aspire to be. The kind who dances through a plaza when the music calls. The kind who sings even if she doesn’t know all the lyrics. The kind who connects deeply—with herself, with others, with life.

Because when we lead from this place… something shifts. And people feel it.

I know I did.