learning

learning

separation of self from circumstances

Personal Freedom

Reading Time: 2 minutes The separation of self from circumstance is a doorway into personal freedom and emotional integration like no other. To this end, I chose to spend the past 40 days in the deliberate exploration of who I am and what I believe and in the giving up of fast decisions and knowing the answer.

mindfulness and prayer

The mindfulness of Lent

Reading Time: 2 minutes The act of doing so used to be called ‘examining ones conscience’ – which is rather appropriate since my practice started at the beginning of Lent. Considering Lent now, I see it as an opportunity to prepare myself for something in the future. I am curious to know what I finally learn and embody from this experience.

Your Opinion of me

Your Opinion of me is none of my business.

My mother taught me this, for the first time, when I was about 12. Yup, I was at that glorious age when I knew everything was all about me, and that no one else had ever been so noble, righteous or brilliant as I was. (Even as I was falling apart inside over too many hormones!)

Of course, and rightly so, my Mum wasn’t about to let me get away with having a ‘smart mouth’ or making her wrong for all the imagined slights that I had to suffer.

I learned it again at 13; and 14. And finally, when I blamed her for not being supportive enough when my Dad died. He died when I was 6. And between then and much later on I built up a huge reservoir of resentment because my Mum hadn’t treated me the way I wanted.

Never mind that she had lost the love of her life. Never mind she had no intention of ever marrying again. Never mind that in the 60’s in Scotland, that was a pretty radical decision.

I eventually learned the value of what she was trying to teach me – she was teaching me to be independent, to make up my own mind. She was also preparing me for valuing inter-dependence; for having inner strength and for appreciating the humanity in myself and others.

My Mum is no longer alive, and every day I thank her for the learning, and every day, I find myself relearning the lesson, over and over. While I’m sure that my opinion of her still wouldn’t matter, my gratitude and love would.

In Leadership

Everyone has an opinion of a leader – especially when they don’t act in the way we expect, or demand. It is this ability to hold ‘your opinion of me’ without being swayed by it, that is one of the challenges of leadership.

How many times have you allowed yourself to be influenced against your better judgment?
What has it cost you? What did you gain?
And how are these two things balanced for you from a leadership perspective?

The Answer Lies Within

Reading Time: 2 minutes We live – as every generation does – in interesting times. The world is changing more rapidly than ever before. And faster is not necessarily better. Leadership is not driven through reaction, it is driven from a deep well of clarity about what is fundamentally the right action at the right time. It’s about agility, risk, expansion and the chaos of creation.