Sophie de Lacaze, Pantarei Approach Practitioner
“It was the inspiring female leadership from Claudia Glowik and Vered Manasse, which led me to learn the Pantarei Approach”, she says in a warm and excited tone.
It’s one of the last beautiful and warm days of this summer. We meet to talk about Sophie’s work, vision, and passion. While our conversation moves us deeper into the meaning of authentic leadership and healing relationships, outside, the German election for the Bundestag is taking place. A young woman is in the running to become the next federal chancellor, while at the same time thousands of people are running the Berlin marathon in the soft September sun.
Conscious Female Leadership
Sophie explains that she was very drawn by the fact that the Pantarei Approach was co-founded by two women. “The combination of empowerment and conscious female leadership was something I felt strongly connected to. This combination became a big part and the base of my own work and the leadership training I developed later. The studies were such a rich and emancipating environment for me to tap into my own conscious leadership. And during the time the seed was planted to create my own program.”
Sophie, who was born in Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg, decided to follow her dream to become a dancer although after Highschool everything was already set up for her to study psychology in Montpellier, France. She auditioned for a dance school in Berlin and was accepted. “This completely changed my life, and I became a professional dancer. For 3 years I was dancing at least 8 hours a day.”
The body as a channel to express yourself
“I started dancing when I was five and since then always had the dream to become a ballet dancer. Dancing has always been the natural environment for me in which to connect to my body and the safest and freest place to express myself. Where I would struggle to find words, it was easy for me to talk through my body. After my dance education, I worked as a dancer. It wasn’t easy to make a living, especially in Berlin. So very soon I started diving into different trainings in bodywork and massage.”
In this way bodywork naturally came into her life and showed her a new exciting and nourishing path. She explains, “I did a very profound five-year body psychotherapy training at the Netherlands Institute of Core Energetics. The training met my longing to go deeper than just massaging, touching the surface, and to relax and open up the body.”
How does the Pantarei Approach relate to your work with Core Energetics and the Authentic Leadership Program you created?
“The work with Core Energetics is very much based on exploring and working with attachment trauma; understanding how our development within the first seven years of our childhood impacts our development and relational patterns. And how this influences our relational life as adults; where we get stuck and how we can transform that and grow from there. When I started the Pantarei Approach training, I already worked with clients using a body-oriented approach. With this approach the client would express themselves and their experiences through movement. I was not taught to use touch in combination with verbal communication before. And I wanted to combine bodywork with the healing work that I was already doing as a body psychotherapist. For me, the Pantarei Approach was ideal in that sense. I feel that I have integrated the Pantarei Approach and Core Energetics into a combined framework.”
Becoming the creator and conscious leader of my life
“And as I said before, the Pantarei Approach was a missing piece for me in how I would translate and express my work and knowledge about Core Energetics with my clients. There was something in me that deeply resonated with working with the body through touch. For me, touch is such a powerful tool. Working hands-on with the body gives me and the client a deeper and closer connection. For me it’s even coming closer and truly touching the wounds, the traumatic experiences clients have undergone and through that felt connection finding the wisdom, the strengths and the resources of their being.”
“I really wanted to bring and facilitate healing”
Sophie was always interested in how to create meaningful, fulfilling, and healing relationships, and she dedicated time to learning and researching this topic. She says, “this comes from my own self-development and healing. It was something that I was forced to look at, but at the same time, it really became my passion. There is so much pain that we can experience in relationships. The more I learned with Core Energetics and during the Pantarei Approach studies, the more I wanted to support others to create and maintain healthy relationships. The other question that is driving me, is how we become the leader of our lives? How can we integrate our wounded self and become the creator and leader of our own life? These were the driving questions for me. And becoming a Pantarei Approach practitioner was the continuation of my path of becoming a healer.”
Body-oriented psychotherapy that integrates body, mind, heart, and spirit. Tell us more…
“This is something that is important to me and what I love so much about Core Energetics and the Pantarei Approach. It really integrates the body, mind, and spirit and by connecting all of them we can become whole. When we connect to our core essence and who we truly are, there’s something where we experience ourselves as a part of something bigger. Here we can come out of this paradigm of separateness, which is very much the landscape of trauma and separation from one another. When we become aware of this place of oneness or unity, we can understand and feel that we are one with each other. The trees, the sky, nature, and with the invisible around us – we are spirit. For me, this is the magic of our beingness.”
Explain what authentic leadership means to you?
“I feel that my work encourages people to step into their own authentic leadership and live their full potential. When we do what we love, we fall in love with ourselves. As we express it more and more it influences our relationships with our partners, our family and friends, our communities, and ultimately with our planet. I strongly feel that the outcome of all the healing we find in both the Pantarei Approach and Core Energetics is to step into our own leadership. From my perspective, it frees a great amount of energy. And it connects us to our heart and passion and the next natural step is to take the lead. And if we do that consciously we can create a world that is worth living in for all of us.”
Daring to lead – “I feel that we are in a phase now where we’re really stepping into a new paradigm of conscious leadership, where it’s not anymore about the hierarchical, patriarchal way of understanding leadership.”
“With my work, I support people to fully own their strengths and to bring their gifts and their talents into the world. For me, this is authentic leadership. We are all natural leaders in our own unique ways. To understand that and to let go of the images we have about strength and power is a huge step. We need all these different voices; the ones that deeply feel others; the ones that are deeply connected to spirit; the earthy ones; the ones that are down-to-earth doers, and the sensitive and tender ones. We all bring different qualities and strengths and I feel in a moment of this global crisis, we really need all of this.”
“And for me, that is really the pearl of the Pantarei Approach. You don’t have to become someone else, and it is where you are seen and supported with your unique qualities.”
“For me, authentic leadership is really a question of uniqueness and the awareness of what I as an individual want to contribute towards. It’s a coming together as a society. In a global crisis, we need all our wisdom, abilities, and capacities, because this is something we only can do with our collective consciousness.”
H.E.A.L – Holistic Embodiment for Authentic Leadership
Sophie is offering one-one sessions and process groups in Berlin, as well as the five-month-long Authentic Leadership Program she created together with her partner Nuno Salema. She explains; “during the Pantarei training, I found the courage, the power, and the trust from the Pantarei community to step into my own leadership and develop the H.E.A.L Program. It combines the exploration of attachment trauma and the 6 Principles of the Authentic Leadership Model that we created. The Program integrates experiential learning with teaching combined with process work and embodied expression. The Authentic Leadership Model is a relational model that can offer guidance to people, in order for them to create healing and fulfilling relationships. Throughout the Program, the Authentic Leadership Models are explored, experienced, and integrated. This empowers people to embody their leadership skills and brings them into their everyday lives.”
You can get in touch with Sophie de Lacaze through her website.
Written by Lena-Philine Zinser
Photography by Lene Wichmann und Johannes Berger