I love life. I love leadership. Which means I love mystery. There is an element of things greater than ourselves that cannot fit into the boxes of our mind. Growing, maturing, trusting the process is one of the most beautiful gifts. The more I walk along the track of this thing called 4th dimension which is time, the more fascinating the gifts I receive when I lead with curiosity.
This past year has been a year of significant growth for me. It’s been a deep dive into paradoxes in delightful unexpected ways for which I am grateful. One of which I can now maybe articulate even more effectively because of one of my secret guilty pleasures for years which has been to watch Survivor lol!
Last week was an episode of Season 50 which included this player Rizzo who was from season 49 which had been filmed but not aired. They were in tribal council and one of the feedbacks that was given was though he had the experience of playing Survivor what he had not received yet was the gift of how others perceived him.
One of the gifts of this season is the clarity of my inner world’s perception is distinctly different than another person’s perception AND different than what actually maybe happening at a deep level.
How we think we show up, how clear we think we are and how someone else receives us can be and often are two different things. The truth is the both/and. Let’s take the color red. Fact: It is an electromagnetic radiation between 620-750 nanometers. AND how we see red in our brain depends on our brain. If someone is color-blind they experience red differently than a person that is not. But its still agreed upon red. We all see the world through our lens AND we have some common agreements on the world in which we live.
It fascinates me deeply how there are 8 B +/- perceptual realities every day and yet there’s enough common ground that we all continue to co-exist.
So some interesting feedback loops for me this year. Communication is core competency of leadership AND it’s truly hard work. It is a skillset. It takes intentionality. It truly is a both/and.
So some personal feedbacks on communication……Communication that I give. For many years in part of my healing journey, I anchored in the garden of my mind in a way that I had not fully realized. It is beautiful and something that I have intentionally cultivated AND it is very clear to me. AND in this season I am being invited to the ocean shore of life to share it. It’s not as clear to others hahahahahaha.
Secondly, how I receive the communication of life and others is not accurate either. This one is a harder one for me to write about. This has been the area of greatest pain and courage. I know how to anchor and build confidently how to give. But to receive…… Deep fear. How to surrender? A totally different level of trust, especially of the process…… A gift of letting go. AND this month the process/universe/the Lord/Truth/The river of life invited me in many strategic ways to let go and trust…..
In friendships. In leadership. In motherhood. In daughterhood. Truly in every arena of my life. In places where I normally take responsibility instead of allowing others to show up.
AND I want to run and hide….. AND I am in the pause of letting go and trusting and waiting and seeing. AND in the whole scheme of things, this pause, this moment is momentary. As the ocean shore is only 0.2% of the ocean. The pause between letting go and trusting in terms of actual time is minimal time AND the depth of anguish and trust and courage needed to go through this is astronomical….. This paradox/compressed time but surrender is the boundary that often keeps us in bondage.
This Monday as I was taking my kids to school, Viktor was up against this boundary as well. The internal tension of the story of his mind. AND the gift was in the midst of his challenges, he also had a hang nail. So on the way to school, we talked about how much pain he was in for the hang nail. AND he had fear around me pulling the hang nail. So we talked through his pain budget. How there is an illusion in life especially if you are growth mindset or prioritizing the good things of life that it will be pain free. So let’s just own there will be pain in life. So let’s have a pain budget and figure out how we are going to steward it.
So we went through the pain budget of a hang nail. It was causing pain-let’s say 3 out of 10 during the day until he got home to get the nail clippers to cut it. That would be let’s say 9 hours. So 27 units of pain. What if I pulled it, how much pain in the moment would it be? I said maybe 5? He said 7 out of 10. Maybe even 9 lol!!!! So I said V- you have a decision. Either short term 7 units of pain (or even 9) or 27 units for the day? Which would you prefer? He embraced his courage and allowed me to pull the hang nail.
The same principle applies to surrender, letting go. The short term pain feels unbearable AND there is a gift of being a healthy receiver. My issue is not that I don’t give well. It’s that I don’t receive well.
So I am letting go and learning how to receive.