 Photo by Todd Quakenbush Why do so few of us realize that life is meant to be simple? We come equipped with a nature, talents and gifts. We just have to grow up and use them. Therein lies the problem; in the process of ‘growing up’ we take on so much of other people’s ‘stuff’, added on layer by layer, we lose sight of who we are.
Our true self is passionate and joyful. The one with the layers added, not so much. Imagine the joy in turning up to a workplace, or being in a relationship, where people (including you) are in tune with themselves? To be who you are , your own true nature, how do you strip away the ‘nurture’ and why? Is that not part of who we are? Well, no. It’s part of the armory, or ‘layers’, we’ve developed in order to get through, get along, to even exist; beliefs we’ve adopted about ourselves. When I was heading into higher education, my mathematics teacher told me it would be a loss if I didn’t take the subject. Not wanting to let him down, I took his advice and adopted a ‘I obviously have talent for math’ layer. Bad decision. Two years into uni, on a summer break, I was working nights in a bar on a holiday island off the coast of Spain. Instead of spending my days at the beach, I was studying for the second and final resit of the math exam; and spending all the money I’d earned on a flight home to take it. Pass, or leave uni. I learned enough that summer to both pass the exam and finally drop the subject. Unfortunately though, because I’d initially been guided by my ‘talent for math’ belief I was, by then, locked into a Bachelor of Science degree. Sadly the only subjects I had taken in that first couple of years that I was actually interested in, and had sailed through, were in the Arts faculty (psychology and management studies). Luckily I then decided to go on and take a postgraduate diploma in Human Resources, much more my kind thing. If only I hadn’t minded momentarily hurting the feelings of my math teacher at the outset though. Yes, I finally learned at uni math wasn’t for me, but I then held the misguided notion that was because it involved letters (as an aside, whoever put letters and algorithms into math was surely sadistic). But the ‘I have a talent for math’ layer was strong and I held on to the idea that I was good at numbers… Finally after years of doing accounts at home and in business, and budgets at work, I recognized that the knots in my tummy, the items I wanted to hurl across the room, the people I’d been terse with, the headaches I’d borne and the imaginary screaming in my head were all fairly good indicators that I actually don’t like numbers. That was in my late 30’s. When you’ve been stuck in a layer and you finally shed it, you wonder why on earth it took you so long to realize it. The relief is amazing. To strip off the layers there’s a hard way and an easy way. The hard way is Groundhog Day – another job, another project, another relationship, another friendship, playing out the same old scenarios. When you’re in those spirals it’s hard to even distinguish what the issue is, you just know you’re not happy. It’s the proverbial not being able to see the wood from the trees. Often it’s easier to blame the scenario or another person than to figure out what, within you, is not a match. There are easier ways – with a deliberate shift to the plural here. They all start with a desire to be happier, and a decision that you will put in the focus required to make that happen. Let’s talk more about that next time. This world doesn’t need the stressed out, unhappy, grumpy version of you, it needs the one who feels good about who they are and what they do, so who are you – truly? This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
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 Photo by Jessica Polar About a month ago I was having lunch was a previous boss of mine, he remarked that it still baffled him how confronting it was for some people to work with a person being themselves. The more I would say what I really thought, the more it made certain people start to spin out.
He values people’s authenticity. I’m not saying he always liked it, there were times we wanted to kill each other (not literally but it was nice to have a cartoon version of it in my head on occasion), but his preference was for passionate authentic people. The line of thinking is you get a lot more discretionary effort and much better results. I agree. But it’s an interesting subject, authenticity. Wikipedia says authenticity is the degree to which one is true to one’s own personality, spirit or character, despite external pressures. Sounds great, but how many of us truly know our authentic selves? If you do, well done. But for me, it’s still an ongoing journey. For years I’ve been interested in psychology, always drawn to the multitude of personality and character tests that exist. While some basic understanding is helpful – like the revelation we aren’t all wired the same way i.e. some people prefer interaction with others while others prefer tasks, some people are introverted, others are extroverted, and (a big one) men and women are quite simply different – it can quickly get very complex from there. But I’ve come to realize that psychology is about understanding people with their nature and nurture swirled together, with ongoing life events that reinforce things we’ve come to believe about ourselves and the world. Let me give you an example. A child is born, in its early years it starts to sing. Its parents say “ooh, maybe stay away from the singing”, backed up with a few grimacing looks or laughter every time the child does its best rendition of Old MacDonald or Twinkle Twinkle. Now this child has just added a layer to their true nature, some ‘nuture’, a layer that says “I can’t sing”. Starting to recognize the layers? We’ve each got hundreds, probably thousands, of these layers. What I mean by being who you are, is to be the person under all those layers. So how do you even know who that person is? As I said, it’s a journey, one that involves being confronted by the same issues time and time again, going round the same loop. A common example of this is in relationships, we attract the same types of people time and again, the same issues in different guises. Many go through their entire life repeating the same old issues, feeling sorry for themselves. Instead, if you look at your part in these situations, and learn from them, you take away some layers and move on. The story of my relationship with one of the people my old boss referred to as being "confronted" when I was being me, provides a great example of just this. Her personal story is not relevant here, but it’s now easy for me to see I’d attracted an old scenario again. A domineering, overbearing person trying to force their opinions on me. And initially (and for a long time) I reacted as I always did, in defense. Now, I’ve always been ‘professional’, so “in defense” was of course within those boundaries - lots of ranting to the boss, drawn out ‘discussion’ and heated debate over this or that, platitudes and compromises, all of it exhausting. But I’m a fighter, especially of injustice, so it’s fair to say the pictures in my head as I was ‘professionally’ dealing with this person weren’t of a cartoon variety. Right there, there’s a ‘layer’, “ I’m a fighter”. I was so sure that being a fighter was my true nature. But how could it be? I never liked fighting, there’s a clue. But I wasn’t going to be diminished either – the true fear – not realizing until now that the true me will never come to light while it’s repressed by this fear. Funnily enough then, it turns out my true nature is not to fight, not to defend. None of it sits comfortably; it’s simply what I learned to do to survive. But now I know there’s a different choice. Now I know if you give attention to something it simply fuels more of it. So now I am learning to switch that off. Consciously at first. The driver/survivor in me is no longer required nor helpful. I don’t want to waste my communication skills in defense all the time, it’s too wearing. The outer and inner me simply weren’t a match. Are yours? So I made that decision with that person at work, and ended it by being authentic. I stopped trying to be nice or professional, in our final fight I simply said “I won’t be bullied by you or anyone”, and walked away. Then I stopped giving any energy in that direction, I knew it was done. My energies went into the more productive transformational stuff I was there to do. This earth needs more people being who they are, rather than who they’ve become. Certainly the corporate world needs it, politics needs it, and the government needs it. Be who you are, you’ll be better for it and so will we. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. |
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