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Carla Kimball's Presence Biography
(Explore our website to learn more about Carla's work as a Speaking Presence Coach.)
I
first experienced the power of presence as the lead modern dancer in my
college dance company in New Jersey in the early 70’s. At the time
I was terrified of speaking, and, in fact, had managed to drop out of
every class that required a presentation as part of the grade. But as
a dancer on stage I experienced a level of calm within myself and connection
with the audience that was profound. The story of this experience has
become my “signature” story when I speak.
Shortly after graduating with a BA in Psychology, I had an injury that ended my career as a dancer and I began two decades of a relatively traditional corporate career path. Half-way through that period I entered an MBA program in Florida and several years after receiving that degree I returned to the same graduate program to design, direct and co-teach with business school faculty the business school’s first executive education program. In this job, I learned to overcome my public speaking fear, but never did reconnect with the type of presence I had experienced as a dancer.
In 1990 I left the traditional world of business to get a second masters, this time in Counseling/Psychology with a specialization in Expressive Therapies from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. In my first semester at Lesley, I took a yoga and meditation course for credit and it was there that I began to rediscover the quality of presence that I had experienced as a dancer, but this time it was internal rather than in performance.
Because
my three years at Lesley showed me that I did not want to pursue psychotherapy
as a career, I began to be drawn to more expressive ways of being in the
world. A month after graduating I entered a yoga teacher training program,
and began a long journey of study and work that focused on creating balance,
harmony and presence in our lives. I became a stress management consultant
as a way to help others access balance for themselves. In the process
I trained as a holistic lifestyle teacher, a danskinetics teacher, a meditation
guide, a focusing trainer, an ayurvedic practitioner and a tai chi practitioner.
All these practices added new dimensions to my growing understanding of
presence.
It was ten years ago, three years after becoming a yoga teacher, that I first experienced Speaking Circles®, a methodology for gently overcoming public speaking fear developed by Lee Glickstein of Speaking Circles International (based in Northern California). This approach felt completely aligned with my orientation toward centering from inside out and it was through this process that I began to discover that the quality of presence that I had experienced as a dancer could also be experienced in speaking.
I trained as a Speaking Circle facilitator and have been running public speaking programs and services ever since. My coaching style and approach has evolved and developed since then to become my own, influenced by all that I have learned from the multitude of disciplines that I have studied.
In
2008, I took a two month sabbatical, living for two months in a yurt at
Axladitsa-Avatakia,
an ancient olive grove in a remote location on a peninsula in Greece.
While there, I tapped into a deeper understanding of presence and how
to live a life of joy while also having minimal impact on the environment.
In my work and my writing I integrate threads of presence that I’ve come to understand so well from my 20 year journey as a dancer, yoga, tai chi, and meditation practitioner, focusing trainer, student of Ayurveda, yurt resident, and public speaking presence coach.
My
photography has been a sideline interest, one that I took up almost 30
years ago which has become more refined and developed since the advent
of digital cameras. Last year as part of a course I was taking at Lesley
University, I created a photography exhibit and performance art piece
entitled Embodied Presence/Revealed Presence, and through that project
I discovered that I could capture a quality of presence photographically
simply by paying attention to ordinary things through the camera lens.
My
interest in photography and presence has now evolved into a daily photo
blog. Every day I post a photo at www.revealedpresence.com
of ordinary scenes in which the natural presence of whatever is being
photographed is revealed through the lens of the camera.
(Yoga and dance photographs by Ron King)
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We are centrally located in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire close to the intersection of Interstates 89 and 91. As such we are in in the heart of New England and close to Boston and all of Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York and Maine.
Travel time from:
Albany, NY — 2.75 hours
Boston, MA — 2.25 hours
Brattleboro, VT— 1.25 hours
Burlington, VT — 1.5 hours
Concord, NH — 1 hour
Hartford, CT — 2.5 hours
Portland, ME — 3 hours
Portsmouth, NH — 2 hours
