As 2020 draws to a close, I was reflecting on a piece of news an old colleague of mine had posted about a lovely surprise holiday her husband had booked to a tropical location at the end of next year. Probably like many people, I am unsure whether that kind of travel will be possible again by then, but I started to wonder whether that was even the right question to be asking myself.

In his article 15 Great Quotes on the Importance of Asking the Right Question Mitch Ditkoff states how, as a consultant, he continues to be astounded by how few organisations have any kind of process to press pause, reflect and make sure they are coming up with the right questions. 

Setting aside questions about COVID19 itself for now, I started to think back to those early lockdowns, when much of the world seemed to stand still. It was a time when we as a family got to pause, reflect and take stock.

I can understand people wanting to get back to holidays and social activities, but what did that pause shed light on? There were reports of Venice’s canals running clearer, the clearest they’ve been in sixty years. An article in Science Direct sadly concluded (after research looking at the effects on the environment during the first global lockdowns) “Coronavirus itself is Earth’s vaccine and we humans are the virus”.

Talk of holidays and “getting back to normal” evokes in me a sense of frustration. I’m going to ignore the expression “the new normal” for the moment, because that seems to be more associated with control and fear, and that is not the kind of future I’m envisaging. But this idea of life going back to the way it was before the global pandemic seems ridiculous to me.

It has amplified so many issues about our environment and our social, political, economic, technological and personal challenges that it is a time in history ripe for change.

But having witnessed the relatively quick return to a lack of human connection between commuters in London after terrorist attacks in the early part of the millennium, I know how quickly distraction sets in.

During the lockdown here back in March through May, I revelled in being able to stroll out my front door and walk peacefully through our neighbourhood. But as soon as the restrictions were lessened, road traffic increased and the peaceful walks became crowded with road noise and traffic fumes, so now I have to get in my car to drive elsewhere if I want to take a peaceful walk.

I loved that my car did not get its tank refilled for over two months, it weighs on me that I consume fossil fuels. Yet, like many people around the world, I have commitments that would be extremely difficult to meet without running a vehicle. How can I find ways to change this?

How many governments and major political parties right now are even thinking about the lessons this crisis has taught us and have evolution on their agenda?

That said, I know my most effective voting takes place through the money I spend and the things I give my attention to. So where am I placing my attention? What am I spending money on? Am I using my resources in a way that would encourage the kind of change and transformation that could be for the benefit of not just me or my family, but for all of humankind, the creatures and the living planet on which we all reside?

I learned this year that I have white privilege. What other privileges do I hold? How can I give other people the benefit of my privileges? How can I help dismantle the systems of oppression within myself and for others?

I also learned from The Social Dilemma documentary that social media is six times more effective at spreading false news. Since conspiracy theories have abounded in 2020, I’ve watched friends and family become polarized on important topics to a degree that neither side seems able to hear the other.

I’ve had to ask myself, am I using social media as a tool? Or am I letting it demand my attention and manipulate my thinking? And where is my own resistance to hearing others’ opinions?
 
I learned that, in a time when our country faced a health risk, our government cut off the supply to my chosen form of healthcare and made only pharmaceuticals available. What can I do to ensure I maintain a freedom of choice in my healthcare even in times of crisis?

I learned that I was absolutely spot-on in my self assessment that I am not cut out to home school my children. Yet being able to give them and their schoolwork such individual attention led me to asking the right questions that uncovered their neurodiversity, and still more questions to find the right support and training so they can flourish. I wonder how I can support all children in their uniqueness to flourish?

I learned the importance of self sustainability. With panic buying, a lack of groceries and no access to garden supplies, keeping emergency supplies and a variety of fresh things to eat growing in our garden became more important. It highlighted all the problems I had known about with mono-farming and the way we currently source goods and services from around the world. What more can I do with our budget to encourage local and organic businesses?

I learned that reconnecting with my partner and children was simultaneously challenging and liberating. It brought about a huge amount of personal change in terms of consciously shaking off old beliefs and behavioural patterns that weren’t serving us. Where to next on that I wondered?

And then I got one of Claire Zammit’s emails that asked seven power questions:

• Where in your life have you most felt like yourself this past year?
• What have been the greatest challenges you’ve overcome?
• What can you acknowledge about yourself and your strengths?
• What is it time to let go of in your life?
• What is it time for forgive yourself for?
• What is it time to forgive others for?
• What are the old patterns that it’s time to release?

It reminded me that, while I have learned a lot about myself this year, the road ahead lies wide open for me to keep learning.  

2020 is a year that I think of as catalysing. It has led me to ask more questions than it has produced in terms of answers. I’m always impatient for change, and I know as I look back change will probably seem quicker than it feels right now.

Am I asking the right questions I wonder? So long as I keep taking time to pause and reflect on the bigger picture of my own life, I’m confident the right questions will arise.

The question is, with holiday season almost upon us at the end of this landmark year, what are the right questions for you to ask yourself right now?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Change the World One Day at a Time, Want to Make the World a Better Place? Tune In, What Value Are You Adding to the Currencies in Your Life?, How You Are Complicit in the Oppression of Others, You See What Happens When Leaders Are Not Grown Up on the Inside and The Internal Shift You Need to Help Solve the Social Dilemma. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

She held up a pair of shoes and asked us to imagine that those shoes belonged to our mother or father. Then she asked us to imagine them on their feet as they are walking towards us. “How do you feel right now? What do you notice in your body?” she asked.

This was a talk on intergenerational trauma by Dr Diane Poole Heller. As I imagined this scenario I found myself getting anxious. I found it such a simple and interesting exercise I later asked my partner the same questions. His response was a feeling of fear, of walking on eggshells.

Our bodies seem nothing short of a miracle of cosmic proportions to me, the more I learn, the more I marvel at this vehicle for my earthy ride that I once referred to as a meat suit. Now I see that it is something beyond sophisticated, a kind of intelligence I can’t even explain.

My body can tell me things my mind can’t compute. That one little exercise about how my body reacts to the sensation of feeling like I have a parent walking towards me tells me a lot about why I have always feared conflict.

I’m often taken back to the standard parting comment from my parents in childhood “be good”. Being good was what was important in society in that era. It is something I’m so conscious of, that I’ve deliberately made my parting shot to my own kids “love you, have fun”.

And while this is a personal reflection, I think it does connect into what’s happening right now in the world around me. Out of interest in what was happening in the US election I watched a short clip of Joe Biden saying that after the election was called it was time to “put the rhetoric of the election behind us and (I’ll paraphrase) reconnect with each other”.

Too little too late given that the crumbling seat of power in Western civilisation appears to be descending into polarised anarchy, exactly the kind of conflict we do want to avoid. This seems yet another example of the kind of rot that sets in as discussed in You See What Happens When Leaders Are Not Grown Up on the Inside.

To call the political trash talk rhetoric is to severely downplay the role it has played in political polarisation, realising too late the violence that has been incited and the extreme importance of leading by example.  

Though, as I said four years ago in The Role of Clinton or Trump in an Evolved World?  political game playing is not for those who want authenticity, it’s not for those who want to understand the world through the eyes of another and it’s not for those who want to truly be part of a world more evolved than this one today.

My view then was, whether it was Clinton or Trump was irrelevant, neither represented an evolved world, both represented a step in nature’s death dance of an era. And so four years on, this death dance is still playing out, but certainly further along the track, hopefully the crescendo.

This is the kind of violent conflict that arises, I believe, because we are taught that disagreement and difference is a bad thing, there is a right and a wrong, instead of their being many personal truths. And so, I think, instead of us being able to confront and explore our personal differences one to one, we become this angry, seething, polarized mass unable to engage in meaningful conversation.

Before I dive into this fear of conflict a bit more on a personal level, I want to really query whether conflict is something I should be afraid of? While the aforementioned escalations make it something more than just undesirable, taking it back to conflict between two people, the words of Abraham Hicks are ringing in my ears about contrast:

“Contrast is anything you don’t like, doesn’t feel good, or causes you to be in a negative mood. Identifying contrast is a useful tool to get clarity on what you don’t want.”

Now while there is always the possibility for conflict that is truly life and death, most conflict I face in my life really is not – and yet my body reacts to it as though it is. For example:

• A friend says something that triggers a negative response within in me,
• My partner does something (or doesn’t do something) that triggers a negative response within me,
• Our kids’ school says something (or omits to say something) that triggers a response within me, it’s an everyday occurrence.

This stuff is all too real, part of my everyday reality, part of yours too I imagine. Like the friend who unintentionally stepped on an emotional landmine in conversation about my daughter’s camp, that I talked about in How to Stop Being Triggered by What Other People Think.

Like the parenting conflict with my partner I mentioned in What I Love About Being With Narcissistic People. And like the lack of explanation at our contactless, drive through pick up system at the kids’ school when all the traffic is backed up and there seems no obvious reason as to why we have been sitting waiting going nowhere for ages.

None of these things were a threat to my survival, but they felt like that from the way my body reacted. I recently had a conversation with some friends about getting triggered, posing the question about whether it was a bad thing or not? I’m of the opinion that it is actually great, because it points me to an opportunity to grow out of old patterns and heal old wounds.

In the moment, though, it does not feel good, far from it. When I’m triggered, the chemicals in my brain want conflict; the pull within me is strong. Just as strong as the opposite feeling of being confronted by someone who is triggered when I’m not, and then I want to get away from conflict; unless I’m also triggered and then the lure is back.

My psyche says “I’m not the powerless little child any more, here I am in the ring, bring it on!” which really is more like an angry teenager than what I’d expect from my adult self.

So what is going on? It’s basically my sympathetic nervous system recognising an old threat pattern and triggering my flight-or-fight response. In childhood, like every child, I was dependent upon my parents for survival. I couldn’t get away from the perceived threat, so my body developed defence patterns.

The most well known patterns are flight, fight and freeze, but psychologists are now recognising more complex variations beyond these. All of which are differing ways we learned to adapt to the stresses and threats in our environments.

By threats, I’m taking more here to the emotional threats of withdrawal of love, of facing shame or guilt for not doing as I was told, or breaking a rule, or being bad in some way. When someone triggers me, my nervous system reacts the way it did when I was a child (and the same can be said for anyone who hasn’t done personal work into unpacking all this, including most of these so called leaders).

So while I know people are generally doing the best they can in any given situation, I’ll admit I - at least momentarily - forget that when I get triggered. There is a narrative in my head about what “they are doing to me” and how it is unfair and I won’t tolerate it.

Of course, I now know this is an old voice that I’m hearing, the powerless child version of myself. Whereas, as an adult, I do have different choices:

“We have to start to re-own pain and befriend it, to consciously practice moving towards it instead of away from it. There was a time we felt we could not eradicate an actual threat so we moved our sights to the secondary threat...pain itself. By association we started to see the pain itself as the threat to our life. In reality, pain is not a threat to us at all, it is a feedback mechanism.” Teal Swan

So essentially, although the scenario has changed, my body still reacts to the same old pain, my wiring fires based on the old well worn patterns.

This year has been an interesting journey in particular, as my partner and I have come into conscious awareness of our mutually unhealthy patterns as recounted in How to Break Free of Addictive Relationship Patterns.

Now in the moment when one of us is triggered, none of this is fun, but this awareness is helping us to break the chain of pain. Instead of being pulled in, it’s more likely now that one of us will walk away, ready to revisit when the other is not so triggered.

Instead of feeling like our relationship has a fatal flaw because we get into conflict, we now see conflict is not the problem; it’s all our old associations with conflict that are the problem. And this is really the point at which we are able to choose to fully grow into our adult potential.

We can stay locked in our childhood patterns forever, as essentially the human race has done for generations, but it’s a game that has no winners. Instead we have each chosen to embark on a journey of unravelling and being deliberate about making different choices, building new pathways in our brain and nervous system.

What makes me afraid of conflict is really seeing what not doing this work does on a large scale. When we embrace the personal conflicts between us as important indicators about who we each are, we can do the personal work needed to mature into conscious awareness and fulfil our true potential. Now that is the world I want to live in, what about you?
If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How Relaxed About Your Own Differences Are You?, Want Better Health? Be Shrewd About Stress, Let Anger Be Your Teacher While Learning to Become Its Master, What Can Your Anger Teach You About Your Gifts? and What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

This is the question before me this week. As someone who desires to aid in our evolution, it has been thought provoking and uncomfortable for me to confront some of the ways in which I have unconsciously been complicit in the oppression of others.

If asked, I would have sworn I am not intolerant towards any particular group, so it’s been eye opening and refreshing to look at myself from a different angle. Certainly throughout my life I’ve observed the many ways in which people who are deemed different are treated differently and I’ve been thankful not to have faced their particular challenges.

The sorts of things that can divide us are unlimited, but the common ones are gender, race, sexual orientation, existential beliefs, political beliefs, religious beliefs, social class, economic status, physical abilities, mental abilities and so on.

The earliest examples that come to mind from my schooldays are the way people (whose brains don’t seem wired for typical classroom education) got dubbed as unintelligent, disruptive and/or naughty, sensitive people got picked on and those with a disability of any nature were hidden away.

The biggest intolerance I was aware of in my early West of Scotland upbringing was religious. The first question when I met someone new most often being “are you a fenian or a proddy?” (meaning of the Catholic or Protestant faith). There were kids on our street not allowed to play among those of different faiths and there were separate state schools for those of the Catholic faith.

I first noticed my own discomfort when around those with sensory disabilities. Working at the checkout of a drugstore, or on the information desk at the travel centre, I suddenly found myself wondering how to best serve those who had hearing or visual disabilities.

It wasn’t that I harboured any known prejudice towards people who faced these challenges, it was more that I had no experience or education on the best way to assist them, and it seemed rude to ask, especially since the whole transaction was quite time pressured with queues to serve.

I also remember my extreme discomfort when sitting next to people on the public bus who had mental disorders, on the long journey to university each day. I’d often see people getting on the bus and feel my stomach clench and start breaking out in a cold sweat thinking “please do not next to me, please do not sit next to me”, having never integrated with anyone facing those challenges during my school years, again, I was ill equipped.

In fact, last year when our family visited Hawaii, I was again confronted by those old fears when taking the public bus around Waikiki. For those who are unaware, there are a large number of homeless people there, who seem to be a mix of people with mental disorders, people with drug addictions and other people who have fallen on hard times but who are otherwise of sound mind.

Suddenly I wasn’t just navigating life in my own individual experience, I was doing it in the role of a parent, well aware of my desire and the weight of responsibility to be a decent human being and show my kids how to traverse the social fabric of life in a kind and safe way.

If there is one word this comes down to it is fear. I am scared to say or do the wrong thing.

Why? Because that didn’t go well as a child. As I mentioned in How to Stop Being Triggered by What Other People Think being a child of an approval/disapproval, right/wrong and punishment/reward style upbringing, in order to avoid disapproval, rejection and/or punishment, I became a people pleaser and a perfectionist.

There are probably a number of other self limiting behavioural and thought patterns that would play into the root cause of why I might be unconsciously complicit in the oppression of others, but it can definitely be summed up as fear, and mainly through a lack of understanding on my part. 

“Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” Martin Luther King Jr

“The lesson”, says Layla F. Saad, “is that if you believe you are the exception, you will not do the work, you will continue o do harm even thought that is not your intention.”

Do I want to be involved in any scenario in which I directly or indirectly subject a fellow human – or any creature for that matter – to hardship or abuse? Of course I don’t, but I can think of far too many ways in which it happens, especially now that I’ve started to look through the lens of others.

Perhaps this, more than any other motivation I might have for addressing my own fears and limitations, is the most compelling. If I do harm to myself, that is one thing, but to affect another in such a way is not acceptable to me. I can see that we are all interconnected, that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” as Newton put it. If I allow one part of the whole to be treated as less than, I diminish the whole.

That is exactly how wars, genocides and other atrocities happen. People allow themselves to dehumanise others in the name of a difference and everyone suffers. People allow themselves to think they are better than for any number of reasons, but I am going to say it all comes down to fear, fear of differences. 

I’ve been reading an excerpt from a paper written by Peggy McIntosh back in 1988, in which she lists fifty ways she benefits from white privilege in her daily life. She tried to choose conditions that, in her case, attach somewhat more to skin colour than to class, religion, ethnic status or geographic location (though notes that all those factors are intricately intertwined).

Some examples are:

• I can go to a book shop and count on finding the writing of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions,, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can deal with my hair
• If a traffic cop pulls me over or the tax office audits my tax return I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race
• I did not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

I have also found Layla F. Saad’s book Me and White Supremacy an excellent read so far. It presents a step by step reflection process as a 28-day challenge to become aware of where I might be consciously or unconsciously supporting systemic racism.

But each step of the way, as she addresses issues like fragility, tone policing and staying silent, I can see the parallels into every other area of human difference and where I may be unwittingly contributing to oppression of those within society.

The obvious area where I have personally felt oppressed within my own life would be related to being female. But I am sure that everybody has experiences of being different on some level and can, if only in a minor way, begin to relate to some of the challenges fellow humans face when subjected to both overt and covert prejudice.

When I read one of Layla’s prompts on “staying silent (or making excuses/changing the subject/leaving the room) when your family members or friends make racist jokes or comments” listed under how white silence shows up, I reluctantly admitted to myself that I have done this on many an occasion.

I wondered why I do that, and find it is because I am not wanting to make waves. This is likely tied into my own anxieties about what people think (as I mentioned earlier), and the associated trauma and patterns there, but there is definitely a patriarchal element too.

I actually don’t trust myself at this stage to get into a confrontation without getting angry. This is one of the key aims of me doing my personal inner work, because I do want to be able to converse on important issues, making people think about their views rather than entrenching them further in beliefs that create oppression.

But I do know how it feels to listen to jokes stereotyping people with blond hair, or Scottish people, for instance, and how those that tell them don’t bat an eyelid to their insensitivity when I’m sitting there. Little do they know the magnitude of how angry it makes me.

Then there’s the objectification of women and the pornographic ‘joke’ videos that get freely sent around on social media. I only have to think of those, and think of my daughters and then I have instantly invoked the wrath of generations of oppressed females in the collective consciousness into my psyche.

I read Thomas Hübl’s story this week and how he found his life’s work in healing collective and intergenerational trauma, I’m looking forward to reading his book on this topic in the coming months. I suspect though the answer begins within each of us and doing our personal work.

A good friend of mine’s daughter does a lot of research and advocacy around the Maori world view, and just this week I saw she has co-authored a new book Indigenous Research Ethics: Claiming Research Sovereignty Beyond Deficit and the Colonial Legacy. The thing I admire most about her, is her ability to challenge people through questions without getting riled. It’s actually a thing of great beauty to watch, and I hold that as my example.

But I also resonate with the chapter in Layla F. Saad’s book about tone policing. I can well imagine how it would feel to hear a racist joke, anything where there is intergenerational trauma and oppression invokes a much greater sense of anger than just a personal affront. She makes the point that telling someone you can’t hear what they are saying because they are saying it in an angry way, is another way to silence those being oppressed.

At first I was conflicted, because it’s true that it is hard to hear someone’s anger. Anger elicits my old self defeating thought patterns and behaviours, meaning that instead of an open-minded adult, some old inner hurt part of me is at the helm. I notice this is often the same when I speak in anger to others, they reciprocate with a hurt part of themselves.

Yet I hear Layla’s words when she says “To be human is to feel. To talk about pain without expressing pain is expecting a human to recall information like a robot. When you insist that a black, indigenous or person of colour talk about their painful experiences with racism without experiencing any pain, rage or grief, you are asking them to dehumanize themselves.”

So I have come to the conclusion that if I would like to make progress it falls upon me at this point to both be able to hear another’s anger in these matters and to learn to express my own anger in a more palatable way.

In the words of Layla F Saad “You do this work because you believe every human deserves dignity, freedom and equality. You do this because you desire wholeness for yourself and for the world, because you want to become a good ancestor.”

It’s important to continue to challenge myself in all the ways I might be unintentionally complicit in the oppression of others, because it seems fundamental to our evolution. If we can accept and embrace our own and others’ differences, this will create strength and compassion within the whole of humankind. This creates a shift from competition to cooperation, fear to love, prejudices to preferences, and can only be to the benefit of all life.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How to Live in Conscious Self Awareness in the World, The Internal Shift You Need to Help Solve the Social Dilemma, You See What Happens When Leaders Are Not Grown Up on the Inside and Change the World One Day at a Time. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Whether as a politician, parent, teacher or someone’s coach, manager or advisor, if you are an adult you are a leader; our future generations are watching...

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 an analogy of 2020 today as a year that was full of promise that seemed to get off to a false start.

Anne McNaughton’s said “Imagine Usain Bolt, the fastest sprinter in the world, lined up and hyper focused. The starter’s gun goes off and they bolt out of the starting blocks but then an alarm goes off – it is a false start and the runners, one by one, realising this at different lengths down the track stop, turn around and no doubt say a few choice words. A lot of mental preparation had to go into getting off to the best possible start and that has all been destroyed. There would not be many happy chappies in that line up”.

This is true, and I can’t count the times my partner has said “2020 isn’t at all how I imagined”, I suspect few could have imagined it this way. However, it has its silver lining; it has given many of us – and the planet – much needed breathing space.

Tomos Robert’s four minute video The Great Realisation, published this week, sums this up more beautifully than anything else I have read or seen to date. It is read as if written in the future, a father narrating a story to his children that explains why they say hindsight is 2020, well worth a watch.  

To pick up on the theme, this has certainly been an opportunity for me to get clarity on many things I would not have otherwise been able to see. With an end to lockdown in sight here in Aotearoa (New Zealand), my thoughts are turning to concrete actions that were not centre stage before we went into lockdown. It is a real chance for a do-over.

One of the things that has become crystal clear, having been forced into home schooling, is why my kids are normally so resistant going to school. Other than the big first day of school, which brought with it a sense of coming-of-age excitement – neither of my kids have ever relished going to school.

I can now see they haven’t grasped some of the basics and – as the curriculum advances – they are feeling more out of depth. It is hard for me to relate to this as I had no problem learning in school but my partner, who has ADHD and we suspect is dyslexic, spent most of his school years completely unengaged in class.

I do remember watching those in my own class at school who struggled and, even at that young age, could see the classroom environment wasn’t serving them. The last thing I want is my kids to spend the majority of their days in flight or fight mode from being forced to learn in a way that doesn’t suit their brain. So, as we start turning our heads towards life beyond lockdown, I am actively seeking screening and exploring alternatives for them.

Just as I have reflected on the children’s schooling, my partner has also had time to reflect on his work-life balance. For the first time since starting his business a few years ago, due to the lockdown, he returned a zero revenue balance last month. Things have truly gone back to the starting blocks in many ways, and allowed for a reset around expectations and workload.

While I highly recommend listening to Tomos Robert’s The Great Realisation video, there is another short video I want to share that might make you smile and lighten your heart. It was made by a family in Akoroa, here in New Zealand, and really captures the spirit of the family lockdown opportunity in a fun way with the Family Lockdown Boogie.
 
So while 2020 might not have got off to the start we were expecting, it may just have given us exactly what was needed: a chance for a do-over. What have you learned from this lockdown? Do you need more time for reflection? Or is it time to make your way back to the starting block and win at 2020 and beyond?
 
If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Is This the Opportunity of a Lifetime?, Are You Overlooking the Obvious Opportunities in Your Life? and  Be at Ease With the World Around You. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

What a crazy world I’ve lived in this week
LIfe full of that word virus yet it’s peace I seek

I don’t feel fear, not yet at least
More dismay at people preparing for famine than feast

Taking sensible steps is a chore in my head
Aspects of daily life getting harder is a thing one can dread

So each day I take the time
To seek that inner peace of mine

To gain some perspective on the conversations I hear
To choose rational thought and reclaim my inner peace over fear

It is not always easy I will admit
When I have an inbox full of things talking about it

I turn to my partner, my friends, my kids
Too much virus stuff, it gives me the skids

Yet the nuggets of gold are not hard to find
Mother Earth has taken a big out breath in areas human activity has declined

Life could actually slow down in a way
To help us contemplate the next positive play

The years after this virus hit
Will we make positive changes because of it?

​Will governments learn from this hullabaloo?
Who knows, but will you?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy in Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear, What Is the Deal with Conspiracies? Want Better Health? Be Shrewd About Stress or Get out of Your Head and into Your Heart. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

A friend of mine shared a post this week from an Iran-born American human rights activist who had been asked to comment on the assassination of General Qasem Solemani. Given that I don’t watch a lot of media, the news about the assassination had reached me earlier in the week when some family members were discussing it.

It was fabulous to see the comments on the post from others who had been open to exploring an alternative view, outside of what gets reported through mainstream media (or, for that matter, just continuing with the any bias they may have grown up with).

As I said in Each to Their Own – Finding Your True North:

No one else has my DNA, my heritage, ancestry or experiences, nor the lenses through which I see the world; we are each unique. And so our truths are similarly so, speaking to us in different ways.

Thus, in my experience, there is never any one truth, only opinion and perspective, and I was thrilled to see other people willing to explore and form their own. This is something I would encourage everyone to do, and to do it from a point of discovering their own authentic self.

I thought about the lady who had made the video stating her opinion, and the oppressive culture she had described in Iran; it made me think of the stories I had been reading recently about Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy and Hilter’s Germany. It also made me ponder on worthy causes on the Earth today.

This also led me to reflect on the things we are all drawn to, or rebel against. While no one said life was meant to be fair, it seems to me the desire for freedom to make our own personal choices, and equal opportunities to pursue what is important to us, is universal. The thing I keep coming back to time and again is the sovereignty of our being.

I thought about my own part in all of this and realised I still have biases. For example, when I hear Trump described as an egotistical, chauvinistic buffoon, I admit there is some resonance. The same could be said of many political leaders, or the systems I have come to distrust, or even the many people in my life whose opinions and actions have created a sense of dissonance.

It’s not that I feel wrong in having a bias; it’s more that it seems foolish to disregard something or someone entirely because of it. It seems more sensible to look for commonalities that exist, since nothing and no one is actually separate from who I am; it is all just showing me aspects of myself.

I am no expert on the Middle East, so it was easier in many ways to be open to a fresh perspective. However, other topics that are closer to my heart - like parenting, education or healthcare for example –undoubtedly prove more contentious. It was a good reminder for me to remain open, knowing that my own opinions constantly evolve and shift.

I know why I’m generally closed on topics close to my heart. As a child (like most people brought up by even the most well meaning parents) my opinions were undoubtedly shaped and influenced by those around me. Space, time and deliberate inquiry have brought me to an understanding of my authentic self and the many ways my view of the world differs to those opinions.

I’ve gone through the years of trying to persuade others to the views I have formed, and came to the realization – as I said earlier – that everyone has their own truth and some are more open than others to exploring alternative views.

It’s a hot button, I think, for many of us whose early experiences quashed our inner views; it certainly made me less movable and more determined to retain my own. Yet it is a big world out there that can accommodate all the collective individual perspectives, it already does.

The question is what you or I want that collective, prevailing global culture, to look like? Should it remain as one which is intolerant and scared of differences, or do I start to take responsibility for the collective by taking responsibility for re-parenting myself?

As I said in We Can Live in Harmony  “in the world today you can see whatever you want to see; from what would appear to be the prevalent, more insular and selfish behaviours of many – which I like to think of as a crazy death dance of a desperate egoic state that knows its number’s up – to the more conscious behaviours of those who are aware of their connectedness to everything.”

Harmony out there begins with inner harmony in here, and the only person who can create that for me, is me. Each time I see a disharmony, I look within to see where that is reflected within me, and seek to learn from its lesson.

There is no need to feel powerless in the face of the state of the world today, there is much to be done from right where each of us stand, in our own shoes. We can end the cycles of feuds and wars when we each take responsibility for our own inner harmony; this will reflect out into the world in a way not before seen in our history.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How Can I Create a Better World?, Be an Evolutionary (Rather Than a Revolutionary), Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear, and Let Anger Be Your Teacher While Learning to Become Its Master. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Earlier this year, when listening to a talk by Carol Look, I did a simple exercise to define what success would look like for me. Being a mum of two school age children, top of my list was the ability to centre myself and find calm amid the storms. More than anything, I wanted my words and behaviours to uplift and inspire rather than cut and criticize.

I have found that one of the hardest things to shake, though, is old patterns of behaviour. It’s been relatively easy to understand intellectually why I might react to someone (or a situation) in a certain way given my entry, upbringing and indoctrination into society; even achieving conscious awareness of my reactions in the moment has been possible with regular meditation and practice.

However, the desire to change only took me so far; willpower and patience oftentimes ran out and old patterns kicked in. Conscious awareness of the often incongruence between my reactions and behaviours and the desire I hold within me for something different only increased my pain.

What has really taken me across the final stretch to lasting change is accountability. In my case, I’m doing this work for my kids and myself, but it benefits every other relationship I have and will have.
In her book Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Dr Laura Markham says “How can you expect a child to learn to control his own emotions if you don’t control yours? … If you were yelled at, it takes tremendous work not to yell…it’s not rocket science, it takes about three months.”

I followed her recommendation and created a tick sheet for myself that was titled “I will speak respectfully to my children”. They get to decide each day if I get a tick or a cross, and I’m glad to say the result so far is overwhelmingly ticks. That said, I am human and expect there will no doubt be occasions where I’m not a model of emotional regulation.

By declaring my intention and following through with the daily check in, it’s given the kids both the comfort of knowing that their mum at least means well and the permission to pick me up on any reactions that don’t match with the intention I set.

What I’ve noticed, is that the years of practicing meditation and becoming consciously aware of my thoughts and feelings in the moment have paid dividends. I am able to catch myself when I’m becoming exasperated and losing patience.

I remember that my body is starting to kick into flight or flight mode only because of its association with the fears of my childhood. Being late, for example, is not akin to a tiger rushing at me, even though it rendered punishments in my early years and thus created this pattern of anxiety. This is the science and biology of entraining emotional regulation and new reactions; I have to create new pathways of response.

I find my best course of action is to stay connected to the kids rather than spin off into the reactions that long since became automated. I get involved if we are late, calmly helping them to get ready, reminding myself the world will not collapse and I will suffer no serious consequence if we do, in fact, end up being late on that particular occasion.

Accountability has helped me to clarify my intentions in my relationship with the children, and it has helped me to achieve success in that as the new norm. In going through this process day in and day out with my kids, it’s inevitably helped me in all my other relationships too, because I’m now practicing a pause before reacting.

And the silver lining? Because it was top of my list in terms of what success would look like in my life, it’s brought me both a sense of meaningful achievement and a sweet, blissful peace.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation . To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

I was reading a novel last week by Belinda Alexandra, about the Spanish Revolution, and there were some words in there that really spoke to me:

“No one life is wasted. No matter the sacrifices, no matter the appearance of defeat, it will add to the progress of the human race. In all of history there is one thing that repeats itself again and again: all honourable causes eventually succeed even if at first they fail.

Out of darkness and suffering can come hope, joy and progress. The spirits of good people, even if they die in defeat, return through future generations to continue moving the human race forwards to higher and better things.”

In a world where I often feel like I’m talking a different language to those around me, these words gave me both hope and perspective. Thankfully I’m not suffering the dire circumstances of the people of that era, but I often feel isolated in my thoughts, feelings and ideas none the less.

There was another line in there that also spoke to me:

“Self righteousness is the greatest squanderer of time… time that you will never get back.”

These words reminded me of the futility of resting my gaze too long on what is and resenting, fighting or otherwise resisting it. Instead it is more fruitful to allow my gaze to open to alternate future possibilities and weave those into existence.

I experience deep pain and sadness when those around me can’t see the ordinary every day things that keep our true selves from fulfilling our potential. More frustrating is that so many either don’t see it or prefer to remain silent.

​This is because I am here on a mission, I feel the sovereignty of our being is the most important issue on this planet right now; I make no apology for saying this time and time again – in as many ways as I can express it.

Having kids of school age, I am constantly confronted by example after example of Western education and health systems’ dire need to evolve. But that doesn’t come close to the underlying and drastic need to change the fact that it’s big money - and not what is best overall for our people and planet (and all life that exists on it) - that drives our culture and choices today.

​Then there is the pain of watching people I know and love choosing suffering in ignorance of their real potential. I am surrounded by many who are completely identified with how they think and feel, playing out patterns that emanate from their childhood without any conscious observation of the lack of connection to a more authentic part of themselves and everything around them.

I have one editor who likes me to write only about my personal vantage point, using I/me, but we is my personal experience; I’m intrinsically connected to the whole, which is why the first person grammatically is I and we. Your pain is my pain.

Yet I know my perspective is mine alone, I understand this, it is the lens through which I experience the world. I also know my lens is most oftentimes obscured by my own early experiences in life. So I live in a committed routine of becoming aware of those and seeking to create a new, more authentic experience.

People who are educated in becoming consciously aware of their thoughts, feelings and actions, and the cause and effect between those things, will – I believe – make honourable choices about how to treat others; including our living, breathing planet and all of the life it contains.

However, I am aware that by pointing to the everyday things that are not in alignment with that, and complaining about them is only a starting point. It doesn’t create change, and may not even incite the need for it in others. How can I feel heard or respected when many around me don’t even hear or respect their own authentic selves?

The only way I know to reach that authentic part of each being is through inspiration, not exasperation. Therefore dwelling on whether I feel heard, respected, lonely or in pain is not in the least bit helpful.

Like the words that were scattered through the novel I read, or sometimes it’s just something I hear in a movie, or from the lips of someone in passing, I feel the universe is conspiring to light my fire. It lights my fire by helping me to see possibilities.

That too is my mission, to see the possibilities and to express those. I get glimpses of this, but each time I resist what is in front of me in self righteous indignation, the future alternative possibilities slip further from reach.

This is the process I am in right now, it is a quieter time of emptying out, letting go the impulses to act and react in defence, to allow the greater field of possibilities to come into view.

So if at times you do not feel heard or respected, perhaps it will help to think of Belinda Alexandra’s words “all honourable causes eventually succeed even if at first they fail”. The drum beat will become louder as more and more of us join in conscious awareness of the new world we came here to live in.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Evolve Our World. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

One of the things I found myself contemplating this week was the question “what are you most embarrassed about/ashamed of in your life?” I started to recall a night almost thirty years ago, when a younger, heartbroken me cried uncontrollably in front of my ex’s mates after we had all been out for the evening.

One of his friends said something like “It’s not the end of the world Shona” and I reacted by wailing a distraught response along the lines of “You have no idea what it feels like to have your heart broken!” I was completely mortified by my lack of emotional control in that situation.

There are probably things that are much more embarrassing I could dredge up from my past which – on the face of it – would rate more highly on the scale of shame than this, but I was deeply wounded by that break up, and exposing just how wounded was something I always regretted from the moment it left my lips. It left me feeling vulnerable and weak.

I think it’s also true that many people are uncomfortable witnessing a display of raw emotion like that. I was listening to a rare disclosure from Tami Simon (Founder and CEO of Sounds True) about her personal life. Tami admitted that she finds it extremely difficult to deal with her partner when she expresses her emotions; she wants to jump in and fix things as quickly as possible to get away from the intense, uncomfortable feelings.

In Psychology Today Leon Seltzer says “There are many reasons that we may endeavour to hide or disguise the emotional pain that comes in the wake of negative beliefs about ourselves, evoked by a particular person or situation. But what they have in common is that they are all fear based.”

On the journey to uncover my authentic self these last few years, I’ve discovered that tuning into my emotions is important – critical even - for these reasons:

1. They tend to be reliable indicators of my wellbeing and can lead to sickness, injury and harm if I don’t pay attention; if I do, they can lead me to my best life
2. Healthy relationships of any kind come from expressing my authentic feelings in a healthy way
3. Most of my negative beliefs about myself stem from my pretty normal childhood, raised by well meaning parents

Knowing this, when I was contemplating this moment of shame I had experienced after that break up way back when, I wondered when it was that I had first learned expressing my true feelings was not a safe thing to do.

I decided to go back in time meditatively to see what I could uncover, and sooth the memory by bringing in my more aware adult perspective (which tends to then take the sting out of any subsequent related memories).

After immersing myself for a while in the memories and feelings of that horrible night, I then asked when the first time I’d experienced those feelings was. This wasn’t a process of trying to go back through my memories, it’s more about looking into my mind’s eye as if it’s a video screen that is about to reveal to me something that my memories can’t consciously access.

What I saw and felt took me back to a time in my first year of life when I had contracted bronchial pneumonia. Here are some of the metaphysical meanings attached to that: stirred up emotions, wanting to get rid of the thought that you are not in charge, you want to cut contact with those irritating you but you dare not branch out on your own, and, feeling suffocated by a situation.

I can well imagine that, as a helpless young baby I may have indeed felt this way. Being a parent myself, I am also acutely aware how hard it is to know the right things to do for our children, especially in the face of contradicting advice from family, friends and healthcare workers.

One of the things I remember when my own kids were born was the vehemence with which the healthcare system promoted both natural birthing and breastfeeding, and methods such as attachment parenting. This would have been in stark contrast to the healthcare system into which I was born almost four decades earlier, which advocated pretty much the opposite.

I started off in a cot in my parents’ room, only to move into my own room after a few nights since my snuffling noises kept interrupting their sleep. I was breastfed initially but soon moved onto bottle feeding. Healthcare nurses of the time were obsessed about the volumes being drunk, with advice to keep feeding despite baby’s rejection and spilling (a pretty way of saying the milk comes back up from your stomach and out of your mouth). It is no wonder I was such a huge baby.

When I used to cry, I remember my mum telling me that she often used to switch on the vacuum when she had exhausted all the obvious avenues to soothe (Too cold/warm? Needing a diaper change? Needing a sleep? Needing burped? Teething? etc). She said the vacuum seemed to “do the trick”, no doubt I was terrified knowing what I know now about the effects of noises like that on burgeoning auditory systems.

When my own babies would cry and I could find no reason, I’d assume - after reading Aware Baby by Aletha Solter - they just needed to unload some emotions. A bit like Tami Simon’s reaction to her partner’s distress, I noticed most people around me were uncomfortable with my baby crying, even in her mum’s arms in her own home; everyone was always trying to fix this rather than seeing it as a natural way for the baby to de-stress.

What I sensed more in my meditative state than anything was how I used sleep as an escape mechanism. If I just shut my eyes and fell asleep I could forget the turmoil of this new world. Of course, looking back on it all through my adult eyes, I can see we were all just trying to do our best. At the same time, I can see how easy it was for me to pick up the belief that it was better to keep any emotional distress to myself.

Understanding how these ideas have come about is helpful, just as it is to acknowledge that all emotions are valid; we feel what we feel whether we understand why or not.

Tami Simon’s disclosure about her discomfort around intense emotions’ was while interviewing Dr Christian Conte, who is an expert in meeting people where they are, even when someone is in a state of intense emotional distress. In the podcast, Dr Conte talks about how to make yourself a safe space to receive another person, the keys to deep listening and how the primary purpose of validation is connection.

Dr Conte is clearly well practiced in dealing with people when they are highly emotional and has much to teach. This seems to me the real key – practice. Becoming comfortable with my own emotions, being vulnerable and becoming a safe space for other, these are all things that require practice.
In my former years in the corporate world I learned a lot about communications through leadership training and experience. All of that, though, was from a perspective of being wrapped up in layers of beliefs that truly did not originate from my authentic self, they originated from my upbringing in keeping me safe.

Since then, having discovered a lot more about my true feelings, and coming to a clear understanding that there is no right and wrong, only what is right or wrong for any given person in any given moment, I know that this is a better perspective from which to learn.

I completely agree with Dr Conte when he says “one of the biggest obstacles to meeting someone in emotional distress is thinking they shouldn’t be feeling whatever it is they are feeling”. He calls this living in a cartoon world, a world we make up from the beliefs and expectations we have about how we think people should or shouldn’t feel.

He says that once we stop trying to mold people to fit our cartoon world, we can enter the real world and meet people where they actually are (not where we think they should be). I think this is a great place to start with ourselves.

Accepting myself for the way I acted that night, seen in the light of compassion for the baby whose tears were drowned out by a vacuum cleaner, is a step in the right direction. Rather than going over and over that night, or other interactions with my kids (or others) that I think should have gone differently – especially if I’ve gotten emotional – it’s better to talk in retrospect about what was happening for me rather than not discuss it at all.

When I talk about emotions I’m also aware that words like blame, entitlement and deserve are ones to watch for. Caroline Myss says “if you could extricate those three words from your head you would have no idea how much better you would feel.”

Everything I feel is about me and my journey; my growth towards authenticity and service from that standpoint. Blaming others or feeling that I am entitled to or deserve something other than which I’m getting will only hold me back from that growth.

In time, and with practice and focus, talking about my emotions in real time will get easier and easier. I have already experienced a huge shift over the last few years in terms of what is happening on the inside. With a regular meditation practice, I’ve become more of an observer of these moments instead of being completely identified with them.

I do believe that expressing my true feelings in any situation is a great indicator of where I’ve gotten to in the journey for authenticity, especially when I’m not blaming anyone (myself included) or feeling entitled. And those situations where I’m avoiding that have great depths for me to plunge into and examine and learn more about who I am.

It’s not about just about what I express, but the way in which I express it; I’m driven to master the art of authentic, compassionate communication.

Imagine a world where each of us was aware enough of our own psyche to more objectively examine and understand what was triggering us, and be comfortable in expressing our true feelings without blame or shame? This, I believe, would be a more harmonious world in which we could work together to create a better future; now that is a world I’d like to live in.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Get out of Your Head and into Your Heart, Change Unhealthy Reactions, Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear, Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation …Until You Take Responsibility to Heal. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Usually the expression playing big is about taking risks. However, the specific risk I’m talking about here is being true to your authentic self.

Everything in life works in cycles I’ve noticed. Certainly when I’m learning something new it takes a while for my old habits to disappear, they sort of swirl around like an echo slowly fading as I recognise and observe rather than react. Then finally, one day, I stop even noticing.

Therefore it is fitting in my most recent growth, learning as a student of anger while becoming its master, observing its echoes in a familiar recurring cycle. Each month for as long as I can remember, in tandem with my hormones building up and releasing, I go through a phase where everything irritates me more.  

I was curious about how this would go after doing a lot of work lately to understand and release a lot of anger. As always, I remain grateful my friends and I have cultivated a metaphorical ring, into which we can throw anything we are currently tussling with, in order to gain a fresh perspective.

So as I was busy throwing a lot of stuff in the ring that I was getting really irritated by, I recognised the correlation immediately. Wisely one friend observed how the stuff I was getting sidetracked by, while admittedly annoying, was keeping me playing it small. So what was the real issue? Why has this become a pattern?

I stayed with the feeling of anger and observed that, sitting right underneath it, was a feeling of immense sadness. What reverberated were words from my childhood: “Don’t get too big for your boots” and (sarcastically) “Shona knows it all” and “Shona knows best”.

I recognise that sadness has kept me small, not in the sense that it’s ever stopped me doing what I wanted nor standing for what I believe in, but  the stance from which I’ve played the game. Coming to mind is the image of my youngest daughter yelling “Hi-yah” as she runs around karate-chopping at everything.

The opinions of those around me kept me feeling small and kept me acting from a point of defence as I grew.

Inside, while I never doubted what I knew, I just got sad others didn’t seem to see things the way I did, I felt like a bit of an outsider and was afraid someone might see me as too big for my boots, and neither was I usually allowed to honour what I knew was best for me without a big fight.

So I asked myself, in light of the memory of the childhood taunting, what do I have to say about the “Hi-yah” tactic now? Here is what I heard:

It served you once, but it is keeping you small, play big. Stand tall, step up to the light and take your place. There is nothing to fear.

As soon as I heard that, it unlocked the tension within me, the fading echo was suddenly gone, I could no longer hear it.

Playing it big doesn’t mean I just break rules willy-nilly, it means I take fear for what it is, as the acronym – False Evidence Appearing Real. True fear is designed to trigger me into flight or fight mode, if my survival is being threatened from, say, a tiger attacking me.

The reality of the fear I have mostly felt for the majority of my life, is more an indication of my authentic self screaming for its survival, knowing I’m being tricked into believing something that is not true for me.

To say it more plainly, I’ve spent much of my life feeling anxious because of the contradiction between what my parents/society would have me do/believe (the picture that is painted of what is good/right/intelligent), versus what I know to be true for me.

Playing big means figuring that out and honouring what my inner voice actually has to say.

What are my truths? Might I actually know what is going on in my body without a doctor telling me? Might I not believe in some kind of judgmental hierarchical truth without being struck down or going to some hell? Might there be another way for me to learn than rote learning?

I could go on, and these are all very big questions, just like What Is the Deal with Conspiracies? But it also applies to more mundane issues too. Might a person be able to thrive in this world without a traditional education and career? Might my kids be able to watch TV without it creating some irreversible neurological damage? We each have our own beliefs and they are worth unpicking.

So what is keeping you playing small this life? What are you afraid of? Pay attention to those things, they will be your undoing – and can be in a good way if you can unravel your authentic self. You didn’t come to play small, you came to play big. Even if you are shy, at least when you occasionally stand up, let it be the authentic you that is seen.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Looking Back to See the Clues to Your Destiny and  Build a Healthy Self Concept. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

Years ago I heard the observation “People don’t do things to you, they do things for themselves.” This means if someone is trying to take my power, it’s because they feel powerless. If they are striking out to hurt me, it’s because they feel wounded.

Thinking “poor wee me” is not an attitude that has ever served me well. Nor I believe does it serve anyone else, other than to elicit a bit of sympathy. Casting me as a victim is not just unhelpful, it’s harmful.

I don’t need to condone what another has done, or analyze why I find myself in trying circumstances, I just need to focus on what I can take out of it. Any challenge I meet is not uninvited. By that, I’m not saying I’m sitting around asking people to take a shot at me or have life serve up some stressful situations; it’s more that I’ve held fears that open up the possibility to these challenges actually occurring.

I remember many years ago being on a long-awaited beach holiday; work had been really stressful. A change in CEO had resulted in a dramatic change in my working environment, one where I felt I’d gone from being valued and included in strategic issues, to being marginalized and pushed out. So this holiday was one where I’d resolved to unwind.

I was doing a pretty good job of it - lying on the beach each day, only taking a break to go and splash around in the waves or get an ice cream - until I received a text from a number I didn’t recognise. It said something like “Heads up the boss is on the war path, someone has made a complaint about you and everyone is talking about it.”

This was in the days before devices, my little Nokia phone did texts and calls only and not from foreign lands.
Now my boss, since the CEO had put a new senior management structure in place, was someone who had previously been my peer. He was someone I regarded as having less experience than me as a people manager, and someone that I felt would be a ‘yes man’ to the CEO, rather than someone who would
advocate at the executive table for the customer experience.

I hadn’t adjusted well to this new arrangement emotionally, but had acted professionally. And now here was an accusation that put me in a position of weakness and I had absolutely no clue what was at its basis or if it was even true.

When I finally managed to get to an internet café and email my boss to ask if this was in fact true, he emailed back to say no one had spoken to him and, as far as he was aware, all was well; I should just focus on enjoying my holiday. This was easier said than done as I had, by then, had several other texts from this anonymous number purporting to be ‘an ally’ and weaving tales of gossip and treachery.

Suffice to say the rest of the holiday was a bust. I was totally consumed with what had happened. On the one hand I was worrying that there may be some basis to it, though couldn’t think of a single thing anyone would have to complain about (it was a bit like when you see a policeman and feel guilty even though you haven’t done anything). Then again, if there was nothing going on, I wanted to know who was behind the malicious texts and why they had targeted me.

There was nothing for me to do but wonder and fret and create all sorts of stories in my head and my anger grew. The holiday spiraled into chaos, a signature moment being the process of bartering for a new camera and literally screaming at the salesperson in frustration (such that it cleared the shop) as he kept changing the ballgame.

Using internet cafes, I was able to uncover that the number the text had been sent from was untraceable as it had been set up via an internet site using false details and hadn’t actually been sent from a phone. The company who facilitated this site cut off the number at once.

On return from my holiday I was relieved to find out that there had been no complaint to my boss, but I was still determined to find out who was behind it and went to the police. Ironically if I hadn’t had the number cut off from sending me further texts, the police could have investigated it more but, as it was, they could do nothing.

So paranoia abounded. It was something I inevitably discussed in confidence with my management team, each of whom was clueless as to whom it might be. But my paranoia sparked more paranoia as one of the Team Leaders then thought I suspected her and was devastated by this.

In the ensuing months a couple of staff issues came up that, having previously trusted me to deal with, my boss was now intervening. He and I were spending increasing hours discussing my actions and decisions when it came to our staff.

The whole thing had snowballed from my original reaction to the unsolicited text.

I never did find out for sure who the perpetrator was, though it was commonly believed to be someone who had been seconded to my team for a while. Even that was of no help because, as much as I racked my brains, I have absolutely no clue as to why she would have taken that action. To the contrary, the suspect was someone I valued and seemed to have a good rapport with.

In the end I could only imagine she had overheard something or other and taken it out of context, putting two and two together to get five. Even then, I have no idea what.

As I look back on this whole story as it unfolded, I can see that it was my initial resistance to ‘what is’ (in terms of the restructure and new CEO), that created my vulnerability. For whatever reason - though it will have been more to do with them than me - the perpetrator sensed that and things just spiraled from there.

While I didn’t immediately cut my losses and run, I knew it was time to move on. I could not rewind the clock back to the days I had been working with a senior team whose goals and values aligned with mine.

I had felt things had happened to me rather than being orchestrated by me, and I would think “I am a good person, why is this happening to me? I don’t deserve this.” That was indicative of my thoughts any time a change would happen that as not of my own doing- that was if I even acknowledged what was happening, often I would be too busy telling myself “this can’t happen right now.”

Out of that challenge, when I faced corporate restructures in my later career (and there were many), they no longer knocked me sideward as that first one had.

That whole challenge with the malicious texts taught me to go with the flow more, and to begin to let go of the impossible - controlling other people and controlling all circumstances. Now instead of trying to psychoanalyze each person or situations that upset me in some way, I look for what each challenge is trying to teach me; it puts me in the driving seat.

So when people come to me with their challenges I often think “What does this person need to hear right now that will be helpful?” I know it’s these moments of challenge that are the making of any one of us. Whether it’s for the better or worse is for each to determine, since it’s how we meet life’s challenges that will shape the outcome.

What is challenging you right now? And how will you meet that challenge in a way that helps you to learn and grow from it? 

​If what you read here resonates and you’d like a fresh perspective (and only that, it’s not advice you have to take or act upon) on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me or click here for further information. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

One of the most powerful things I’ve learned from years spent in corporate roles is the role of humility in problem solving. Sure, it’s true that most spend too little time in the definition of the problem also, but it is the lack of humility and involvement in the process that holds at bay some of the most obvious and effective solutions.

Many have an aversion to negative words, drummed in over years of personal development, and ‘problem’ sounds like one. When you have a boss, or a boss’s boss, that thinks you have a problem, it sends a red alert straight to your brain and, generally, throws the best of us into our flight and fight response. Not the optimal starting point.

Before you respond, relax. Seriously, do whatever it takes to relax first, it will open you up to new ideas. Remember, the problem is just pointing to a space to create a solution, likely to lead to something better. It’s not in anyone’s best interests for you to simply spew out a solution then and there; in fact it’s not in anyone’s best interests for you alone to even define the problem.

For those who have been on any self respecting management development, project or process improvement training, you will know the steps in a good problem solving process. It’s fairly simple: first you identify all the facts and assumptions, then you define the problem (making sure you’re defining the real problem and not just part of the problem or symptoms of the problem), from there you flip to the positive and define the objective, before generating alternative solutions, evaluating them, deciding which to go with implementing, followed lastly by evaluation and follow up.

Where we run into trouble is this, ego.  The secret to great solutions is humility. Why?
Think about it, most organizations are constructed as a hierarchy. In that hierarchy you are given certain powers. The further up the hierarchy the more humility is required, yet it is a rare quality witnessed. More often the status quo is that the decision makers are far removed from the problem but either worry that they should know the answer or think that they already do.

This is true from the perspective that they have a more strategic view. But that is only because those further down the chain don’t have the delegated authority to access the information and communications that would give them the strategic view.

For many years I spent my career climbing the corporate ladder, but when I hit the level of head of the function I was interested in, that was the limit of my ambition. While I am wired strategically and found it relatively easy to look at companywide issues from broader perspective, sitting endlessly in decision making forums discussing subjects of very little interest just didn’t float my boat.

When one of the team asked what it was that had motivated me to the level I was at, it made me realise it was control. Pure and simple, I wanted enough control to make a difference. As it turned out, that was based on the flawed premise that positions hold power.

Organisational construct is always evolving, although this idea of hierarchies has been around a long time in human history but it’s no longer serving us. Sure, everyone has a role to play, and not everyone can do everything, but allowing people the bandwidth to contribute and create around the thing they do well is where most companies are missing the boat.

Last year I wrote a few articles about this in more detail, questioning the need for managers in today’s world and pointing towards a more self managing construct that some companies have adopted, where profit, purpose and personal fulfillment can thrive together.
​
At the crux of all of it lies humility, the recognition that others have skills, ways of looking at issues, ideas about solutions that we don’t have.

Even in the traditional hierarchy, rarely do companies train their managers, hone job descriptions and performance management matrix’s to be explicit about what each level of management needs to focus on and let go of, as you climb a hierarchy. Consequently many are doing the jobs of many of their teams, and too few are really focused strategically enough in their roles.

It is common to see a chain reaction from above based on an innocent comment from the chief executive or one of the directors. In essence, people all throughout the hierarchy scrambling to save someone higher up’s ego, someone who thinks they should have known the answer to that question straight off the bat.

Huge swathes of activity get focused on what was deemed urgent rather than important. Executives everywhere are often horrified if they get visibility of the useless activity spurred by an innoxious comment or question. In fact, the bigger the company, the more of this kind of activity is often seen.

At home each member of the team is a fully functioning, powerful, free individual. They look after their own finances, make investment decisions, run households, bring up children, deal with crisis, sickness and death, many are even leaders in their communities or in clubs, sports or other activities. In other words they are both free and whole.

Yet in the workplace, the job description, the hierarchy, treats individuals as far less than whole. It is a rare thing to see those involved in downstream delivery involved in upstream design; it is a rare thing for those closest to the problems to be involved in the definition or creation of a solution to the problem. It is a rare thing for all employees to be entrusted with all the information that is relevant to the allow them to perform to their highest potential in their role.

Instead, feeling a lack of power, our human instinct is to take it back. In organisations activity based on this instinct is rife, activity that serves only to undermine the vision and goals of the company, knowingly or not. Whether it’s unproductive conversations or out and out sabotage, much of the power in the organisation really lies there, because it can either support or diminish what those who hold the positional power are trying to achieve.

At our heart we are creators, let your people create. Great problem solving involves getting the biggest perspective you can on an issue; from that perspective you can get real clarity on what your real problem is. You will often not only be amazed at the real problem, but also the solutions that come forth in answer to it. Even better, given the wider involvement in the issue, the more commitment you have to its solution, and the process of change become seamless. Be humble and you will shine.

​This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/17423713@N03/17426879444">Problem Solving</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)</a>

For most CEO’s, the notion of simply scrapping your entire management structure is a little uncomfortable to say the least. But let’s look at this more closely. Is your management structure adding value, or are managers actually the cogs in a cumbersome machine that is now past its best?

"people today want to be part of something meaningful"

People today want to be part of something meaningful, feel empowered and valued for their contribution. Organisations must move past trite vision statements and values, made trite only because those who ‘do the work’ are often not involved in their creation, so the organization doesn't 'live and breathe' the words written on its collateral. Rallying to a purpose means involvement, which leads to commitment.  

As discussed in my last article on why trust leads to better business outcomes, traditionally we apportion trust in organisations in the form of access to information, decision making power and financial authority. This strips many of the people ‘doing the work’ of any real power, we want those very people to take a more holistic view yet we don’t treat them as whole.

Better Brand and Bottom Line – Ditch Your Call Centre asserts that the role of a call centre is unnecessary, costly, and even harmful. But in Profit, Purpose and Personal Fulfillment Can Thrive Together - A Remarkable New Organisational Construct I discuss a wider - though similar - issue, learning from organisations who have transcended the issues faced by most by adopting more self managing constructs.
​
So has the role of management become another middle man that is perpetuating unnecessary costs? Having been a manager for many years myself, it’s a question I’ve pondered more and more. Initially there was an ego attachment to it, a status that goes with having ‘power’, but then came the responsibility of having to achieve outcomes through others. Quickly I understood the value of intrinsic motivation and the ability to find and ignite it.

There is certainly an art to good management, but the question is whether it's necessary. Do managers simply have to learn these skills because of what has, in essence, been taken away from those in the value chain (doing the work that lies at the heart of the company's existence)? Take away control and many lose that intrinsic motivation to succeed on their own.

In an article, published in Forbes, Jacob Morgan talks of 5 must-have qualities of the modern manager.  He covers removing roadblocks from the paths of employees to help them succeed,  empowering and engaging people, having a handle of what consumers are saying online, which social and collaborative technologies are making their way into the enterprise, using those collaborative technologies to lead by example, being open and transparent, embracing vulnerability and sharing information and collective intelligence.

These are great qualities, but still, I wonder where the value-add is. How many of these things would be necessary in an environment where those who plan ahead and those who 'do' worked together in self managing teams, are these not things that can be achieved by anyone with the right access, savvy and relationships?

“there would be chaos”

Those who are managers may not have faith that all the people they currently manage could self manage well. Some may even think there would be chaos. Yes it could be a bumpy ride at first, but people quickly adapt and evolve given the right support.

There has to be a huge amount of effort put into training managers that move through the various levels of managers anyway, why not invest that elsewhere, cut out the middleman?

Most people manage perfectly well outside of work, in all the other areas of their life, without someone managing them. Those you manage are after all parents, homeowners, leaders in the community, sportspeople and so on. With experts like Frederic Laloux (author of Reinventing Organizations) and Yanik Silver (author of Evolved Enterprise) around, there is plenty of support to create organisations that manage themselves in quite a different way.

"firms that follow these principles have outperformed the S&P 500 by 1000%"

The organisations of the future are those who rally to a real cause (both those who work in the organisation and their customers), encourage the whole person to show up (rather than the narrow professional slice that has become the norm) and have constructs that facilitate collaboration (internally and externally). In the book Firms of Endearment, the authors show how firms that follow these principles have outperformed the S&P 500 by 1000% over 10 years.

If you want to stick with a management structure to achieve those things, you can, though it’s probably not the most efficient use of your resources in the long term. I’m not suggesting you fire all your managers, it’s the ‘managing people’ part of the role that is largely redundant. In the case studies that Laloux cites, the organisations that have transformed to self managing structures retained all their managers but in roles that added more value.

Regardless of how to choose to evolve, evolve you must in order to thrive in today's world and in order to just to survive in the world of tomorrow.

​This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

​photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45393120@N07/5997001123">HA0521-031</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)</a>

While we want our people to take a holistic view, most people in organisations are not treated as ‘whole’. The very construct of the organisation is designed to strip them down to a narrow view, then we want them to be holistic in their day to day interactions. It’s not unique to our adult experience, it starts when we are young. We teach our kids to fit in, follow the rules, yet want them to think for themselves.

What utopia looks like is an organisation where those interacting with customers, or designing interactions, feel that they own a win-win outcome in that interaction and that they have enough skill and acumen to achieve it. That means that they understand the big picture, are privy to the information they need and empowered to achieve the outcome. Sure, there are skills involved in that, but it all hinges on trust.

Talking to a tenured executive this week about the problems his organisation faces in delivering a great customer experience, he cites the common scenario of major stakeholders getting complaints from customers about the lack of help they’ve had from the organisation.

He finds himself bringing together different people, who have looked at things from their constricted viewpoint, their limited span of control, and having to mediate a solution from a more holistic perspective. One that serves the customer and the organisation. Sound familiar?

While ‘the customer experience’ has become a rather trite phrase, it is the thing that makes or breaks perceptions of an organisation when people have to interact with it. It’s the proof point of any brand you want to create and a vital barometer of your leadership. Whether an organisation exists primarily to make money, or is not-for-profit, whether it lives and dies by serving the needs and desires of individuals or is custodian or gatekeeper of a greater good, is irrelevant. All organisations benefit from a good reputation.

Standing in the way will be the basic construct of your organisation, even ‘flat’ structures tend to have hierarchies with the power at the top. The power isn’t just about the level of financial authority and decision making, it’s about the level of input and access to information – important context that can make all the difference for the person dealing with a change that is intended to directly or indirectly help the customer, or simply in the day to day conversing with the customer and ‘doing their job’.
​
The discussion in my recent article on how Profit, Purpose and Personal Fulfillment Can Thrive Together, focused on a new approach to organizational constructs. While this can only be driven by CEO’s and those they answer to, there is room in any construct for leaders to take an approach that allows their people to operate in a more holistic way, one that better serves them and the organisation.

The issue of trust is a starting point. To trust your people to deliver win-win outcomes, aside of the skills they will need to be equipped with, you have to trust them with information, you have to listen to their input, and they have to trust you.

When people trust you, they are willing to ask for help, willing to own mistakes. To gain that trust you have to firstly be willing to be vulnerable yourself, not infallible. Sure, you want to work with people who know what they’re doing, but to never make mistakes or to know everything?

For most of us showing any sign of weakness is out of our comfort zone. Our survival instinct, the part of our brain that switches to flight or fight when we are in mortal danger, has become the modus operandi for the way we live. Although most of us tend not to live in mortal danger for most of our lives, we are constantly using our minds in a way that mimics that instinct.

Notice as you talk to people that you are generally not listening to what they are saying. Yes you may be hearing the words that come out of their mouth, but you’re usually leveraging that to think about what to say next, rather than really understanding what is being said.

Here’s the reason, while you came into the world with an innate sense of what is right and wrong for you, from the minute you are born on this earth others think they know better. Slowly but surely you start to become less of who you were born to be and more of who others think you should be. This thing called ‘ego’ forms, your mind’s perception of you are. Almost immediately we start to fight or defend in some way, outwardly or silently.

Being vulnerable with the people you want to have trust in you is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. Leadership teams that can be vulnerable with each other can start to truly operate as a team and will be a lot more focused and successful as a result. But it is like wearing a very uncomfortable pair of shoes at first. As you get to know and accept your own fallibilities, so you will be able to listen to others and help them with theirs, freeing them to achieve the very things you want them to.

Trusting your people to do their job in a holistic way means treating them as whole people. Any step towards trust in your organisation, even one small step, will be one giant leap towards a better customer experience and better business outcomes.

​This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/122099374@N07/16969244789">Dave Lewis</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)</a>