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Part of me wanted to post a few pictures of many of today’s leaders to highlight my point, but it is more pervasive than that, and I wanted to look at what could be done to evolve us past this point of blatant immaturity.

I’ll tell you some examples of the kinds of things I’m seeing; examples of what I’ll call unconscious leadership.

Given my belief that I have not only the right, but the obligation to question decisions our government make, when I started to wonder about the rational for our current government’s decision to maintain an elimination strategy for COVID19 in New Zealand, I began to search for some answers.

Now, this article is not about challenging the efficacy of New Zealand’s current response to COVID19, it’s not about COVID19, the global landscape on this issue of whether and how to control the virus is complex and constantly changing.

However, in my bid to understand why we are where we are, I came across an article by Bridie Witton quoting Professor Michael Baker (one of the main advisors to the government on this matter), Dr Rod Jackson (a professor of epidemiology at the University of Auckland) and Dr Simon Thornley (a public health physician at the University of Auckland) who – like many – is questioning whether elimination is still the right strategy.   

Keen to hear responses to the valid points Dr Thornley raised I was appalled to read Jackson has little time for Thornley’s arguments and says “they should not be given any oxygen”. He says “Thornley is the only dissenter in the epidemiological community. We are all advising the Government, and we speak with one voice. And you have got a junior epidemiologist who is presenting a different case.”

Not exactly mature.

The same could be said when I watched footage of Nicola Willis (a Member of Parliament in New Zealand’s main opposition party) make a speech to Parliament in August questioning the Government on how the recent COVID19 outbreak had come about.

While she hit home on some key points, her speech ended in a way that – to me – is indicative of what undermines confidence in politicians. It was the “on this side of the house we would do it better” argument. Honestly, it is like listening to a school playground. I want to say “Grow up, make your points and work together.”

The same could be said when I noticed that another national politician - whom I knew from my time in local government, and worked with about a decade ago – had left his position as Chief Whip in the opposing party’s office and continued as an independent. He had done some whistle blowing and, of course, the political party came at him.

They deflected by focusing on his extra marital affairs. Again, this is very tit for tat playground behaviour.

I was then personally quite disappointed in the Member of Parliament’s response to his affairs in a radio interview. He said “the rules of the game have changed; we are now looking under the bed sheets”. The assertion he made is that affairs among members of Parliament are rife and part of the culture, but there has always been a tacit agreement they remain secret.

I mean, really, this level of maturity is not what I am looking for in those vested with the job of making critical decisions for our country.

All of this seems to get amplified within the realms of social media, as our viewpoints are being increasingly manipulated to a degree never seen before, as eloquently described in the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma.

It’s little wonder that there is so much polarisation and confusion and, ultimately way less progress (on key issues that affect all of humankind, the creatures on this planet, and the planet itself) than is possible if we were all pulling in the same direction.

What does it mean to grow up? To me, it means self responsibility, to take deliberate action to mature on the inside as well as the outside.

I am talking about taking responsibility for that part of me that reacts when I get triggered. I do not mean that I take steps to behave in a more polished way, like media training.

In the examples I’ve given above, it is clear to me that Dr Rod Jackson may well be considered a loose cannon for making such obviously derisory statements about another colleague. I know from my own media training that there is a certain way I should respond to the press so I don’t embarrass myself or the organisation I represent.

The same could be said of the Personal Development training that many executives undergo. The best of this usually at least achieves one of the prerequisite steps in maturing on the inside, and that is self awareness. I found the better training and coaching an uncomfortable unfolding, and witnessed the same in my colleagues, to see ourselves as others perhaps might; the good, the bad and the ugly.

From there I have observed that many just get better at magnifying the good and hiding the bad and the ugly. There are few I have witnessed really doing the internal work it takes to recognise the roots of these internal triggers that set off the immature behaviours and heal them.

As I said in Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation, aside of the trauma we all experience to varying degrees in our life, there are also the inherited patterns of behaviour in our parents that we react to, and unwittingly develop patterns in response to. These are essential for our survival in childhood but become unhealthy patterns later in life, and will certainly pass on unless we take action.

James Redfield describes these control strategies quite succinctly in The Celestine Prophecy. They sit on a scale of aggressive to passive and he describes four archetypes; it’s often easiest if you start by taking a look at which strategies your parents employed:

• Intimidator’s threaten verbally or physically and come on too strong, making others frightened. They are so wrapped up in their own anger they don’t care what is happening inside the other person.
• Interrogator’s constantly question, criticize, nag and find fault, making others self conscious and eroding their confidence.
• Aloof’s shut down when confrontation happens. They often withdraw physically or verbally, forcing others to struggle and dig to find out their true feelings.
• Poor Me’s tend to guilt trip, projecting themselves as the helpless victim in need or care and attention. This makes others feel guilty even if they know there is no real reason to feel this way.

Each of these are linked with the corresponding strategies that created them, and that they create.

For example, Intimidators create Poor Me’s appealing for mercy, or, the child will endure until they are old enough and big enough to fight back, creating another Intimidator, and so the cycle continues.

It is not just in politicians I see this level of immaturity, it’s everywhere I look: executives playing one-upmanship in boardrooms, teachers shaming kids in order to control the classroom, parents repeating the same cycles of shame, guilt and fear over and over. I know, I’ve been on this journey, pointing fingers at others and – most destructively – inwardly, berating myself for not being better.

To move past this, in every walk of life, starts within each individual taking self responsibility to mature on the inside; I have to take responsibility to become conscious of the damage I do, to myself and others.

Imagine a world where leaders have healed their negative patterns, where people are not denying, suppressing or disowning their authentic self, and are free to fully express the best of who they are? That is the world I came to live in, and it starts with me. What about you?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Leadership: Why Trust Leads to Better Business Outcomes, What Do You Want The Prevailing Global Culture to Look Like?, Stand in Your Own Truth and How to Be True to You When Life Pulls You in Different Directions. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I was reading some statements related to people who feel they are wrong or that they are invisible, and I really liked “I am here to make visible that which has, until now, been invisible. My gifts of insight and perception are a profound blessing to the entire world.”

Oftentimes as I was growing up and expressed my opinion on something, my family and friends would look at me as though I were from a different planet. And as I matured into an adult I continued to attract many scenarios that made me feel rejected.

Even recently as my partner exclaimed how I “take things to an extreme” around my food choices and healthcare, I realised that – on some level – I have still been attracting rejection. Sure, it’s healthy to question myself and, as another person pointed out, how extreme is defined depends on who is interpreting it.

For example, I know people who are exclusively raw food or vegan in their food choices and wouldn’t dream of purchasing anything that wasn’t organic, but I also know people who eat take-out daily, and people whose grocery choices are based purely on cost. Given I purchase groceries for people other than myself I consider my approach to be rather moderate; there is something for everyone.

What was also interesting was that this opinion about my choices was expressed on the back of a conversation about the state of food production today. We had been discussing, and agreeing on, all the issues with mono farming and the use of chemicals and hormones in the food chain that eventually ends up on our plate.

While I appreciate we all have a budget to work within, and for some people it’s more desperate than others, given that some of our most insidious food options are those most heavily subsidized globally, I consider how and where I spend money far more powerful than any vote I might cast in a political election.

And it’s for this reason I believe we are seeing many changes. Thirty years ago when I decided to cut refined sugar and flour from my diet because of a health issue I was having, the only place I could obtain alternatives were the aptly named health food shops. I obviously wasn’t the only one seeking alternative choices because these days’ supermarkets stock a wide variety of options, and even roadside fruit and vegetables often sport signs saying “spray free”.

It’s not just food production, but also health care options, education options, constitutional options, options for contributing to society while being able to provide for our families and so on. I see many opportunities for people to reclaim their personal power and contribute their unique gifts and talents as, I believe, we all intend when we are born into this world.

So as much as I still attract strange looks and opinions that make my feel rejected, I know that my ideas are usually pretty sound, and the world is slowly changing around me. This then tells me I still have some work to do in terms of healing this feeling of rejection.

Having gone on to discuss this with my partner, he realised that his own comment was most likely rooted in some of his old stories. He does in fact support the evolution of our global food production systems and choices, though is still somewhat entrenched and addicted (as intended by the manufacturers) to those foods that are not serving his health.

I then witnessed my daughter’s feelings of rejection this week when she was not invited to a friend’s birthday party. She and her friend, to all appearances, seemed to be getting on as well as ever, so she was a little blindsided by the whole thing. As I helped her work through it, I realised that she was mirroring the same rejection I was feeling.

I shared with her “it’s us who decide how we are treated. While we don’t get to make decisions about how people view us, or feel about us (and whether they want to be in relationship with us), we do get to decide what we accept from them in terms of the way they treat us ongoing”.

That friend would have been one of the first on her list if she were having a party, because she considers that is how you treat a good friend. So, since her friend does want to retain their friendship, it’s really up to my daughter to show her friend how she expects to be treated through her actions and reactions.

Whether she reacts in anger, or states her expectations and feelings calmly and firmly, and whether she acts in kindness and congruence with her own values moving forward, or acts in spite and revenge, will all determine how she gets treated in future.

It is a lot to take on and learn in those younger years, but it makes me realise exactly where we lose our personal power through ill advice and cowardly actions (the win-lose kind) in those early interactions and relationships. This is what I’m working to reclaim, years of trying to please others in order to avoid being rejected, in a way that is empowering, and I’ve found the only approach that works well in human relationships is win-win; cooperation rather than competition.

That also means taking ownership of identifying and expressing my needs, desires, opinions and perspective, rather than shying away because others might see me as different. Doing this with open, active listening, calmly asserting my ideas and opinions, and – as I’ve been reminded of recently – being kind, appears to me the best way to go.

I’m not talking about the ideas and opinions that get unwittingly passed generation to generation, my perspective – my authentic perspective – comes from challenging those ideas to really see whether they fit with what I truly value and believe.

I saw an excerpt from a TED talk this week where the lady was talking about a flight she had been on and, when she heard the female pilot make an announcement, she thought “right on sister, we (females) are rocking it”. An hour later when they hit some turbulence the first thought that crossed her mind was “I hope she can drive”, revealing a bias she did not know she even had.

These are the kinds of bias and ideas that, once I bring them into the light of conscious awareness, I can shift perspective. That is why I also think one of the wisest statements I ever heard was “Showing someone their resistance is a greater gift than persuasion.”

Owning my own story, my own feelings, rather than projecting it on others, requires practice and perseverance. Why is it especially important when I’m feeling rejected? Because rejection is a strong and negative emotion, it has a lesson for me, and that lesson is the mirror opposite to the rejection itself, its calling me to embrace and value that which is unique to me.

Having my perspective rejected just means I have a perspective different to the one held by another person, this is a good thing, this is how we evolve. Rejecting me or rejecting another because my opinion differs to theirs is the opposite; it is unhealthy and rooted in old hurts. 

When I read statements like “The full expression of my gifts, talents, brilliance and knowing is necessary for the well being of all” I hear the call and realise it’s time to consciously step up and be seen. I also realise it’s not a statement that is aimed just at me, its universal.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear, There is Nothing to Fear, Heal Your Past Hurts To Help You Fulfill Your Potential and Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I’ve spent a lifetime subscribing to the “feel the fear and do it anyway” mantra, now so ingrained in my psyche after Susan Jeffers’ first published a book by this name back in 1987. I even bought a copy of that book in the 1990’s but, if I read it, I absorbed only what I was able to hear at the time, unable to see certain truths about myself at that point.

Another quote by Susan Jeffers that I read today tells me I definitely missed the deeper meaning. She said “the less you need someone’s approval, the more you are able to love them”. Now I realise it’s a quote about having a healthy sense of self esteem and being able to communicate my boundaries with ease.

Back then I had no clue what a personal boundary was, I’d never been allowed them in the traditional do as I say upbringing. All I would have taken from that quote would have been a further affirmation that I needed to do what I must to ensure I was not reliant upon anyone else’s approval. That meant becoming highly independent, self reliant and extremely resourceful. 

Having decided no one was ever going to intimidate me, I grew into a woman who was fiercely independent and who spoke truth to those in any kind of perceived hierarchical power. Given this, I would not immediately resonate with a fear of speaking my truth.

Yet alongside my speaking truth to power persona, sat a hypersensitivity to how others feel. This resulted in a temperament that was outwardly confident, aggressive if pushed, yet full of internal anxiety.

Being hypersensitive to others’ emotions, I am fully aware of the huge spectrum of emotions felt and expressed, but it was Gary Zukov who first introduced the idea to me that there are only two types of emotion, those based in love and those based in fear.
 
As Kryssie Thomas says in Fear and Love are the Only 2 Emotions You Have to Work With “Love is what we were born knowing, feeling and expressing, fear is what we are taught and learn from outside sources.”
 
This simplification helped me to see that fear was something I have felt in many different ways in my life; I am certainly no stranger to stress, anxiety and tension.
 
Currently I’m learning to calmly and confidently express my thoughts, feelings, needs, desires and ideas with a newfound awareness of the need to speak my truth and express my personal boundaries upstream (rather than downstream when they’ve already been crossed).

Having had a heavy conversation with someone this week in an attempt to practice this, I was aware that my neck was extremely tense and sore afterwards. I sat in silence and closed my eyes to inwardly observe the pain I was feeling, it is the kind of pain caused by the muscles on either side on my neck really tightening up. I was curious to see what it had to teach me.

From an energetic standpoint, the neck sits in the area of the throat chakra, and one of the things that can cause a blockage in that area is a fear of speaking.

The heavy conversation I had just had was with my partner. Over the course of this year, between him being incapacitated for a while after breaking his leg and then having had the COVID19 lockdown, our relationship has had a thorough spring clean and is in pretty good shape.
 
Given this, and my newfound awareness of the need to speak my truth, I felt it was time to tackle a few of the niggly things that come up now and again.
 
This was not an ultimatum type conversation, nor was there anything that was in current contention, so there was nothing obvious that would make this conversation heavy. That was the part that made it curious, why did I experience such a high level of anxiety about speaking my truth?
 
Of course I recognise my own childhood patterns, I know that – like all kids who are literally dependant on others for their survival - this is where it has its roots. But I am no longer that child, I now have the choice to live in ways that continue to suppress me, or to act differently.
 
I’ll put it simply, I felt vulnerable, and – in a way – I did feel as though my life (as I know it) was in danger. It triggered my flight or fight response as I struggled to stay present in the conversation when it was taking place, rather than descending into defense mode.
 
On the face of it, our relationship is one that could be described as healthily interdependent. Our roles and responsibilities allow each of us to contribute our gifts and to fulfil our roles in a mutually satisfying way and to the benefit of our family.

But it’s also kind of scary to a person like me who is fiercely independent. That reliance on another for my survival is what makes anything I or they might perceive as rocking the boat dangers waters for me.
 
Looking at that word survival, I’m not talking about physical life or death in this context, I know I’d survive. In fact, given my belief that everything that happens in my life happens for a reason, I even have faith that all would be well in the longer term.
 
In the short to medium term, however, the whole construct of our day to day life, including that of our children, would turn upside down if the relationship was to hit the rocks.
 
It is this that made the conversation heavy. It wasn’t about the topic at hand, it was the weight of the decision to step outside my lifetime pattern, to take a risk and speak my truth without it being fuelled by the anger and indignation of a boundary long overstepped.
 
Looking back on our conversation, I watched my partner’s body language change from easy and relaxed to the boat being rocked as I delved in and he endeavoured to take in what I was saying. As I replayed the scene in my mind afterward, I became aware of underlying tension in my body the moment I’d finished talking and awaited his reaction.
 
Of course, as I’ve said, this was not a make or break type conversation, and after he had time to process things, it later led to a useful and supportive discussion. This was the reward I was seeking and, as clunky as it might have been speaking my truth, my courage had paid dividends and led to more authenticity in our relationship.
 
But the space in the middle, the one in which I was observing my neck pain and he had gone about the rest of his day, processing what I’d said, I can now see was fraught with anxiety as I reflected on the wisdom of speaking my truth.
 
Now that I can see all of this so clearly, I can also see the many times in the past I’ve failed to speak my truth upfront in a situation and understand why my needs have not been honoured. Instead I’ve hinted at them or gone about expressing them indirectly, hoping the other person would get it, and getting angry when they did not.

The voices in my head that would keep me from expressing myself upfront were not explicitly voices of fear in the sense that I feared that person, but I most definitely feared their reaction. In a subconscious bid to gain their approval and maintain the relationship, I had never learned to assert my feelings, desires or needs in a healthy way.

This would apply in all relationships, personal, professional or transactional. My need to maintain calm on the surface would lead to turmoil beneath and sudden raging storms when it was all too much. In this way the other person could rarely hear me because my anger would trigger their flight or fight response and we would butt heads or they’d run scared.

It is not enough to feel the fear and do it anyway when it comes to speaking my truth, I have to identify what my truth is and cultivate the habit of expressing my views, needs and desires upfront – long before I get so angry that no one can hear me.

If you’ve spent your life putting others first and not wanting to rock the boat, perhaps it’s time to find the courage and figure out how to express what you want, think and need? Once we can each do that, we can live in authentic relationship with the people and world around us, something that creates a win-win for everyone.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear, There is Nothing to Fear, Heal Your Past Hurts To Help You Fulfill Your Potential and Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I’ve had a sense of bubbling euphoria this week as I’ve been moving through day to day life. It comes from some work I completed over the weekend that really helped me to crystallise where I am on my journey, with a definite sense that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The journey to me has been a deliberate and painstaking pursuit, taken in small steps over a number of years. But I get the sense that the metaphoric dark night of the soul is drawing to an end, it is the dawning of a new day.

Along the way there has been a diverse range of literature and teachers whose work has provided much needed guidance, most of whom (if not all) have been mentioned in my weekly musings. I am nothing if not resourceful, and on each part of this rushing river downstream it has seemed that the right thing has appeared just at the right time to help me navigate whatever tumultuous waters I was in.

Claire Zammit’s work on self actualisation, the latest piece I’ve been diving into, ranks among my favourites for its ability to capture and and categorize (into eight distinct areas) what aspects of life one might have deeper yearnings for, not feel fulfilled and want to evolve in. Her work in recognising why this is the case and how to break through the barriers is well thought out; and a blessing for those of us who are really serious about realising our full potential in any area of life.

Being asked to talk about self awareness last week gave me the opportunity to review the stages of the journey. First there was a desire to develop and succeed in a more unconscious state, then there was an awakening to the bigger context of life. This illuminated the burdened state in which I was attempting to move through each day, so there then came the more deliberate reclamation of my authentic self.

Don’t get me wrong, do I think this is the end of my journey? Heck no, more of a breakthrough, moving onto the next chapter. It will be interesting though, each week as I sit down to write these and reflect on what I’ve learned, to see if and how the flavour changes.

So back to the breakthrough, it came from going through a 73-page document that Claire Zammit co-authored with Katherine Woodward Thomas; it goes through the twenty one self-limiting thought patterns that create our more burdened identities, outlining the common thoughts, beliefs, gifts and so on, that comes with each.

To be clear, I’m not saying you can just read this document and – whoosh – you’ll have the same epiphany. It’s possible, but bear in mind there are many roads to the same end, and each journey is unique. This happened to be the one that, for me, was the perfect tool given the culmination of everything I had experienced, read and learned to that point.

In fact, I’d been subconsciously searching for this list. Ever since I’d heard Teal Swan talk about Fragmentation, referring to the parts of us that fragment off in relation to our essential self. An example she gives, from memory, is about being brought up in a family where it wasn’t okay to express your anger, and how that might affect who you show up as in the world over the years; perhaps even to the extent that you become a person who doesn’t recognise you ever feel anger because it has become so denied, suppressed and disowned.

Anyway, in her various talks on the subject, Teal mentions that with each fragment we each split into many parts (she has seen as many as over eighty), with a minimum of twenty two. It struck me as a very specific number. So when Claire Zammit mentioned the twenty one thought patterns she had identified, I immediately connected the dots (21 parts plus the essential self being twenty two).

I have no idea if their lists are the same, but the point for me was this represented more of a totality of what could be at play within me. For the last few years I’ve been healing patterns that reveal themselves through whatever is triggering me in the moment, and it has served me well, but I was wanting a litmus test of how far through that dark night I was.

So I went through the 73-page document highlighting every single statement that resonated and looked at where the clusters were. What became very clear was that my two main themes were in relation to my own feelings, needs and desires and my uniqueness, calling and contribution. Specifically how to name them, assert them in a way that garners support and maintain a healthy balance between giving and receiving.

Having done a lot of work this year on healing my boundaries, and recognising my people pleasing and co-dependant tendencies, it made a great deal of sense to me that being able to fulfil my potential in the area of clearly and confidently expressing my thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, ideas and visions to others, has been a key step towards fulfilling my potential in terms of being able to recognise and contribute my gifts in ways that are meaningful and have a positive impact.

Knowing that I had already begun working on these things, I realised this was my sense check that the change in light was indeed the dawn of a new day and not an oncoming truck about to hit me square in the eyes. I also checked in with another lady I know, and who knows me well, whose chosen field is in helping people work through these barriers who affirmed I am well through the continuum.

What has made the most difference, in my little bubbling, euphoric state, is recognising how l feel when someone else around me is triggered. I was at lunch with some friends, one of whom gets really triggered on certain issues, and I accidentally stumbled into one of those particular topics. Even though she knew we were each well aware of the issues on both sides of the fence and hold the same vision, it was as though all the oxygen had been sucked out the room as a tirade ensued.

It was an amazing experience of having a mirror held up. I am no stranger to these tirades; I too have been a tirade queen on many issues that are important to me (just ask the kid’s school). What I have been able to see clearly now for a while though is that my anger is only spinning my wheels in the mud on any topic. Other people can’t hear me because my anger instinctively makes it unsafe for them, triggering those around me into flight, fight, freeze or fold.

Also, what lay at the heart of my anger was something else entirely, in my case it was the childhood pain of my opinion not mattering, among other things, and I came out fighting, determined no one would put me in the corner again. It was that I had to work through so that I could begin to communicate more clearly and calmly.

Claire’s core message in unlocking our potential is:

• You absolutely cannot fulfil your potential if you have inner blocks or barriers (like my anger, for other examples look at How to Live in Conscious Self Awareness in the World)
• But you don’t need to be perfect... to create a breakthrough you only need to break the biggest pattern standing in the way of the main area you’re yearning for (for example, purpose and calling, but there is a free questionnaire in here that will help you identify yours) and this will start a chain reaction.

My bubbling euphoria isn’t because I feel entirely clear of my past, it’s because I’ve now got awareness of and am working on the biggest pattern that has been standing in my way. As I recognise and work to integrate those parts of me I’d denied, I can feel a seismic shift in my own energy as it starts to orientate itself towards the very thing I’ve been yearning for, my contribution and calling.

Do you feel a deep yearning for something more in your life, an elusive potential within? Perhaps you’d like to more clearly express your authentic self? Or contribute your gifts to others in ways that are meaningful and have a positive impact? Or feel safe, valued and supported in your romantic relationships to become the best version of yourself? Or feel you have all the resources you need to thrive? Or feel connected to your creative expression? Or to your deeper knowing? Or feel energized, well, healthy, at peace and at home in your body? Or to make a difference in the lives of others?

I want all of these things, and what I’ve discovered is – while I need to recognise there’s work to do, and do it – I don’t need to be perfect to make a breakthrough, and neither do you, you just need to begin.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy I Am Worth It – Are You?, Why Projecting is the Best Tool for Self Awareness, Honour Your Story but Free Yourself of Its Shackles and How to Heal the Past so You Can Live Your Best Present. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.