Ep. 7 Your Body KNows

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Your Body is an Early Warning System: Somatic Coaching and Embodied Leadership with Giulio Brunini

We’ve been taught to treat our bodies as mere vehicles that carry our brains to the next meeting, but our soma is actually our most reliable intelligence system.

IN THIS EPISODE

Aparna and Lars are joined by master somatic coach Giulio Brunini to discuss the profound consequences of overriding our physical signals for the sake of corporate performance. We dive into why "restless toes" and autoimmune flares are often the body’s way of writing a diary of our stress before our minds even recognize the burnout. Giulio shares his transition from the high-pressure world of global advertising to somatic coaching, explaining how leaders can unlearn the "numbing" that got them promoted and instead develop the inner stability needed to lead with presence. This is a slower, intentional conversation about recovering our humanity in a world that asks us to muscle through everything.

THE QUESTION WE'RE SITTING WITH

What is your body trying to tell you that your mind isn't yet willing to hear?

TAKE THIS WITH YOU

• The One-Minute Breath Count: Set a timer for one minute and count how many normal inhales and exhales you take. Knowing your "number" makes meditation feel accessible even during a busy workday.

• Notice the "Inconvenience": Pay attention to the physical sensations that arise when you are avoiding a difficult conversation; embodiment often surfaces the truths that are inconvenient for the ego but necessary for growth.

• The Laptop Pause: Before you open your laptop in the morning, take three intentional breaths and notice one sensation in your body—no fixing, just saying hello.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Giulio Brunini — Master Somatic Coach specializing in embodied leadership.

• The Strozzi Institute — An institute for somatics and leadership.

• Dr. Gabor Maté — Researcher and author discussed regarding the link between stress and autoimmune disorders.

CONNECT WITH US

Visit us at https://www.circleback.club/

Aparna on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aparnarae; aparnarae.com

Lars on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-gallien; https://www.larsgallien.com/

Want to bring this conversation into your organization? Aparna and Lars speak at HR conferences, Fortune 1000 ERGs, and philanthropic foundations. pod@circleback.club

Full Transcript

Lars: Hi, I'm Lars Gallien.

Aparna: And I'm Aparna Rae. Welcome to the Circle Back Club, the podcast for workers that are done pretending that everything is okay.

Lars: We are here to reimagine and rebuild workplaces, to see your coworker as your comrade, not your competition, and to stand up for the dignity and care of all humans. Today we’re going to talk about what our bodies know at work. No matter what, we live with physical signals—overwhelm, stress, flow—and choose to listen to them or not. Before we get into it, I want to name that this episode might feel a little slower. The invitation is to get curious about what’s going on with your body as you listen. We are joined by master somatic coach Giulio Brunini, who focuses on embodied leadership to help leaders develop inner stability and presence.

Giulio: Lovely to be with you.

Lars: To warm up, is there a funny way your body communicates with you?

Giulio: When I go to bed, my brain drifts off, but my toes are having a full rave. I think my toes are riding the diary of the day in Morse code.

Aparna: I know I’m about to have a challenging day when I lose my gross motor skills. If I’m dropping spoons before 8:00 AM, it’s a signal that I’m stepping into the day with anxiety.

Lars: Knowledge work is confusing because our value is often seen as being "from the neck up." I had a client who waited too long to listen to their body until a new illness forced them to take leave. Sabbaticals or layoffs often give us forced embodied awareness moments to ask: what was I not listening to?

Aparna: In 2024, I took a year-long sabbatical. In the years preceding that, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic back pain. I eventually developed gut health issues where everything I ate gave me a tummy ache. Six months into my sabbatical, many of those issues disappeared. It forced me to reckon with professional choices that were making me sick.

Giulio: Somatics comes from a Greek word meaning "the living body in its wholeness." Somatic coaching assumes there is no distinction between the body and the self. When we learn to listen, the body becomes an early warning system—registering a difficult conversation or burnout far before our cognitive self does. I don't look at pressure as something to just manage, but as an opportunity to see what lives in our tissues and nervous system.

Aparna: You spent 15 years at major agencies like Yahoo and Saatchi & Saatchi. What made you jump to somatic coaching?

Giulio: My body spoke to me before my mind did, through panic attacks. Even though I was performing well and climbing the ladder, my nervous system was saying it wasn't sustainable. It took me another 10 years to transition because the negotiation between the mind and body is intense. There’s so much at stake—safety, security, identity. But if we wait too long, the body stops whispering and gives you a "nice big slap." My work is helping leaders stay connected to those signals so they can build better cultures.

Lars: In our last episode, Dr. Nicole DeKay mentioned that the higher up you are in a corporation, the more likely you are to be burnt out. Executives are often rewarded for numbing themselves—ignoring chest tightness or pushing through fatigue. Somatics asks them to unlearn the very thing that made them successful.

Giulio: Exactly. One challenge is the "protocol problem." Executives want a five-step framework with clear ROI. Somatics doesn't work that way; you might sit with a sensation for weeks before it tells you something. Breakthroughs come sideways. Another challenge is credibility; anything associated with "wellness" is often quietly dismissed. I frame the body as a source of intelligence for better decision-making.

Aparna: I recently heard Dr. Gabor Maté speak. He noted that women have significantly more autoimmune disorders than men. I see this constantly with women working in HR who are squeezed between employee needs and executive demands for profitability. They are responsible for rationalizing the "squeeze," and I think there is a correlation between that harm and physical manifestations in their bodies.

Lars: What’s the other side when we finally listen?

Aparna: Data shows somatic experiencing restores balance to the nervous system and reduces PTSD symptoms. Dr. Nicole DeKay noted that modern work often results in complex PTSD.

Giulio: When leaders learn to listen, they develop the ability to sit in hard conversations without collapsing or attacking. They take clearer decisions and stop confusing urgency with importance. I coached a director in Turkey who had temper problems that broke down his team. When he tuned into his own values, he became more human and connected. His team ended up winning best results for profitability, and he was elected the best leader in the region by his own people. Humanity and results can coexist.

Lars: People often think they have to leave their environment to change. But you can make this change in the context of your current life.

Giulio: It takes courage. I use the metaphor of a river. You leave the bank to cross, but when the water gets deep and the current pulls you, it’s easy to run back to the safe bank you know. To keep going through the deep waters, the sense of who you are becoming needs to deeply matter. Sometimes, you don't even get to the other side; you just learn to stop muscling through and allow the current to take you to the ocean. Rest is not a reward for productivity; it is the condition for it.

Lars: Let’s offer a somatic practice.

Giulio: I offer the "one-minute meditation." Count your breaths—one inhale and one exhale is one breath. If you count 16 breaths in a minute, you now know that you always have time for a minute of attention. It’s a leadership skill. Also, take 30 seconds before a meeting to feel your feet on the floor and scan for tension in your jaw or belly. Don't try to fix it; just notice.

Aparna: I realize I hold my breath constantly. We’re going to do a one-minute silence now for our listeners to count their breaths.

(One minute of silence)

Aparna: I had 15 breaths. I felt deeply relaxed hearing the call for prayer in the background of your mic, Giulio.

Lars: Let’s do a rapid-fire round. One thing you wish corporate workers knew about their bodies?

Giulio: Exhaustion is data, not weakness.

Lars: What becomes possible with embodied intelligence?

Giulio: We build companies that are actually sustainable for people and the world.

Aparna: Fewer PowerPoints and fewer Slack messages.

Lars: Finish the sentence: Our body wants us to know...

Giulio: That the answer was never only in our heads.

Lars: One work culture value in Europe you wish U.S. workers had?

Giulio: The idea that rest is not a reward for productivity; it’s the condition for it.

Lars: Final advice?

Giulio: Before you open your laptop, take three breaths and notice one sensation. You're just saying hello.

Giulio: My takeaway is a sense of allyship. Workplace self and whole self are the same; the idea that we can leave our emotions at the door is fiction that costs us creativity and trust.

Aparna: My takeaway is to stop short-changing myself on movement. If I can walk a puppy three times a day, I can walk myself.

Giulio: You can find me at giuliobrunini.com.

Aparna: Next episode, we dig into the myth of self-advocacy and mutual aid with Hala Saleh. I'm Aparna.

Lars: I'm Lars. We’ll circle back.