SunAgape's Spot: Why am I a leader?

Showing posts with label Why am I a leader?. Show all posts

Friday, September 25, 2015

Leading the Followers

How´s your vision these days? I'm not talking about your eyesight. I´m talking about the vision for your life.

In the days of yore, I avoided thinking about it. Instead of thinking about how I wanted my life to go, I spent time thinking about all the things I was afraid would happen. I am serious. I made up the craziest, scariest scenarios. I was particularly brilliant at composing my personal horror stories late at night, stomach-roiling, nail-biting tales of terror. I made myself sick with fear and fretting. Tension headaches that hurt all the way down my back. Leg, knee, and foot pain plagued me. I felt so awful I ended up at Mayo; acute, chronic nervous tension! I did it to myself.

I have to say, I fought that idea, that I was doing it to me, with tooth and the proverbial nail. Back then, I believed that anxious, miserable, frightened girl was just the way I was. After all, my life was horrible, so I should feel horrible.

On the one hand, I was committed to misery. On the other hand, I really wanted to be happy. In those days, I didn't have a clue how to make that happen. I spent a lot of time wishing I were happy. I didn't understand that wishing for stuff reinforces me staying stuck. I have to think about being where I am to wish to be somewhere else. It’s how our minds work.

I inadvertently happened on a good Creative Question. Usually we use bad creative questions like, “Why can’t I get ahead?” Or, “Why am I so miserable?” Or, one of my old favorites, “What’s wrong with me?” What I started asking was, “How can I be happy?”

When we find our vision of how we want our lives to be, when we find our passions, when we feel our purpose, things change. We start to feel focus, we feel more authentic. We are, perhaps, born with our vision.

I was clueless about mine for a long time. On the one hand, I was always a thoughtful kid who loved to write. I had mystical visions as a matter of course. I loved to teach. On the other hand, because that was “just how I was” I tended to discount those things as my purpose while searching with a feeling of almost desperation for my “true” purpose.

Why am I a leader? What makes me happy to do what it takes? Why am I willing to be seen?

As I came to accept my vision, my purpose, I found that I relaxed. As I began to do this work, I felt more joyful in my everyday life. As I allowed myself to know what I know, I felt more confident in sharing that knowledge. Allowing my natural leadership to emerge made my life better in so many ways.

We are all natural leaders. We each have special talents, talents that the world can use to make lives better, to help humanity grow. We may have gifts that impact millions, we may have gifts that impact just a few, but living in our own truth, realizing our own vision, brings us into an alignment that we often fight.

When we step into our natural alignment, life gets easier, more satisfying. When we allow that we are natural leaders, we find that we have good opportunities to lead. It may be by example, it may be by teaching, it may be through inspiration, but it will be.

How have I changed from fearing or fighting my leadership to relaxing into my natural role?

Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Life in Miseriopolis

Back when I lived in Miseriopolis, I used to think people were jerks. In general, of course, but also because they didn’t seem to want to listen to me go on about my misery; my angst, my pain, my suffering, how hard my life was, how I was disrespected, blah blah blah. I felt discounted, I felt like my feelings weren’t being validated. That was all about you, you see, and how you lacked in compassion for me.

I am so sorry. I didn’t know.

I had a great deal of mislearning about how to be an adult. I won’t go so far as to say everything I knew about being an adult was a mislearning, but I am a bit tempted.

One great mislearning was that misery was my birthright. I was entitled to feel miserable, with all its attendant benefits, like being able to bow out of things I had agreed to, but didn’t wanna do, by being sick with a migraine or back pain. Who could argue with that? Was I miserable because I was sick, or was I sick because I was miserable?

Another great mislearning was that my misery was somehow your fault. That meant that all my interactions with you had a dash of bitterness and resentment attached. How charming. It’s why I felt okay about being snarky and sarcastic with you. You deserved it for making me suffer. Somehow.

Another great mislearning was that “this is just the way things are.” What a cop out. There is a huge difference between accepting what is and flowing with life, and becoming resigned to X. Flowing with life gives us room for peace, and joy, and bliss. Resignation is not joyful, or peaceful. It’s all full of rust and dust and bitter gall.

Ask many people who have gone from misery to joy how they did it, and most of them will say, “I realized it was a choice.”

Why am I a leader? What makes me positive? How am I uplifting?

Someone will always lead. May as well be us. We set examples all the time, may as well lead by them. We have choices to make a thousand times a day. May as well choose up.

One of the secrets about this attitude stuff is that cheery has a lot more energy than miserable. Miserable takes up loads of energy. We are meant to be uplifted, that makes us feel light, light is high-efficiency. Misery is down and dark. Dark takes up a lot of juice, it is very low-efficiency. That’s part of why we wanna just stay in bed when we feel down.

One of the secrets about this attitude stuff is that my feelings are my responsibility. I know it seems like Joe Blow makes me mad, or scared, or sad, but it’s me acting as his proxy. I am responsible for my feelings. I finally got it one morning when my little fur family was making me crazy. I was ranting at them, and suddenly realized that they were doing what they do every day, it was only my reaction that was different.

Unchoosing misery, choosing uplifted, is one of the most powerful things we can do for ourselves, and subsequently for our families, our communities, and on and on.

How have I changed from being entitled to my misery to choosing to lighten up?

Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 10082014

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Creating the Big Picture

What do you want? The big picture thing, not just good coffee or some extra cash, but the look of your life? We hear this referred to as a goal, or our vision, or intentions. Perhaps we call it ambition.

This one can be a tricky one for many of us. We feel like we just don’t know, or that we have no ambitions. We kinda want our lives to be better, but we don’t even really know what that means for us.

Why do I know what I want? How do I choose? What makes me decide?

Back in the day, I thought that I would be happy if I had more money, was thinner, and had a sweetheart. I thought if I had a car, or nicer clothes, traveled more, or had a better job I would be happy. So I got those things, and I still wasn’t happy. I spent a lot of time wondering what was wrong with me.

Little by little I started to understand that my happiness came from inside, not from outside stuff. The outside stuff sometimes gave me resources, but never gave me happiness. I started to understand that the more relaxed and accepting I was of how things are right now, the happier I felt. And the more I did those things, the more I realized that I wanted to share my experience with you, to create a safe space where you could try on the things that worked for me. To give them to you freely, and as completely as I could.

I had a goal.

From the goal I built a vision, namely, to write to you, and put those writings out there. I started small; a few sentences every now and then about how to use Creative Questions, and what could happen if you did, how your life could get easier.

Why do I have goals? How do I create my vision? What makes me a role model?

When Arne Rantzen, the creator of the Creative Questions cards, invited me to write to you on the Creative Questions page on Facebook, my vision got clearer. I decided to write to you every day, and bit by bit these contemplations came about.

My vision grows clearer of what I want. One of the neat things about doing this every day is that, even though a lot of people see this each day, I am still just writing to you. That piece is important to me. I know Creative Questions and the contemplations work because they help me. I know they help you, because I hear from you. And many of you have gotten your own deck of Creative Questions cards to inspire you to try a new way, to do a new thing, to change your feelings, your attitude, your outlook. I can’t tell you how thrilling that is for me.

When we take the time to think about what we really want out of our lives in the next six months, the next year, the next five years, I put some shape to my day. I have things that are important to me, and maybe only me, but when I spend some time on those intentions, I feel accomplished. I celebrate my little achievements. And then I look back, and see that all those little achievements have made a big accomplishment. I feel successful. And I am a leader.

When we have a vision that we work on, we are leaders by example. As our lives improve, we are leading by example. When I calm down, lighten up, and find joy in my everyday life, I am leading by example.

How have I changed from feeling aimless to having aspirations?

Monday, July 14, 2014

Being the Way

When I was a kid, I did a lot of folk dancing. We had a learning time at the beginning of each dance session, and I learned a lot. One of my favorite lines came from those sessions, “Do as I do, not as I say.” I liked it so much, because that’s what we do. You can preach to me all you want, but if you aren’t living your lessons, I most certainly am not interested in listening to you.

Walking the talk.

We don’t like to think about it, but we are watched. Our kids watch us, and so do our partners, and neighbors, our co-workers, our community members, our friends. You know, because you watch, too. We don’t mean anything by it, it simply that we are interested in each other.

I don’t think about being watched very much. I have my code, I tend to follow it. Sometimes I am doing, sometimes, I am just being. Every so often I think about what I’m doing. How am I the way I want to be? Am I having fun? Do I feel connected? Do I enjoy what I do? Am I following my passion? Is there something else I want to make time for? Is there a habit I want to change? How could I do that in a way that would be easy?

Most of those questions are not Creative Questions, but they are useful questions.

I have learned about me that if I can find a way to enjoy it, I can do pretty much anything. Each of us has our own values. When I identify my top values, like enjoyment, and make decisions based on them, I have a good day.

Sometimes I get caught up in the doing of stuff and I fall into routines that don’t necessarily support me in a very good way. I can usually tell if I don’t feel content at the end of the day. Once in a while is one thing, but when it is day after day, I may wanna take a look.

Each of us has the capacity to be a leader. We don’t have to try, we just need to live most days in a way that feels good to us from the inside out, in a way that we feel good about our day when we go to bed. Living in congruence with what matters to us automatically makes us leaders.

I like to have fun. I like to feel useful. I like to feel generous and kind. I like to learn. I like to create all kinds of stuff. I like to connect. My passion is writing about this stuff, and I do that every day unless there are extremely exceptional circumstances. I don’t always act on all my top values everyday. I love to hang out with my friends and family, and I love solitude, but they don’t go together. A lot of the learning I do is through reading. When I am reading, I am not creating. It’s a seesaw thing, some days this, some days that, and at the end of a while, stuff is pretty balanced.

That balance is important. It’s nice to feel it inside, and it’s nice outside, too. Some of us will lead in the front, some of us from the middle, some of us from behind. Each of those kinds of leaders is crucial to the well-being of our communities. We tend to notice the ones up front, just because that’s where they are, but think about your best communities, and how you see people leading from other places. While I enjoy public speaking, and love to perform in my choir and other singing groups, I prefer to lead in small groups or one-on-one. It feels more like chatting, and I love to chat.

Leading by example is easy. That’s something else I value, easy. I know how to make things hard, but it usually is kind of exhausting, and doesn’t leave me much energy for having fun. When we lead by example, we are automatically an inspiration to someone who needs a little inspiration. We may never know the impact we have, but we can trust that it happens.

How have I changed from preaching to leading by example?

Friday, May 09, 2014

Doing Your Dirty Work

When we look at ourselves with loving and open eyes, we can see a lot. We can see our strengths and talents, we can see and value our accomplishments, we can see, with a gentle heart, places where we could use a little work.

When we look at ourselves with kindness and confidence, we can move mountains, we can carry the sky, we can eat an elephant, we can make weird metaphors.

When we look at ourselves with compassion and trust, we can shed the things that we do to make our lives harder, and nurture the things that make it just so easy.

Why am I strong? Why am I competent? Why am I capable? Why can I trust?

When I look at myself through those eyes, I can also see you through those eyes. I can nurture your strengths, and create a safe place for you to address your other stuff. I can listen with ears to hear you, rather than listening to make my clever answer. I can find the right words to help you let go of old crap.

Why am I an inspiration? How do I encourage confidence? What makes me a leader?

We have choices all the time. We can choose to inspire confidence, we can choose to dispirit with fear and shame. We can choose to create a safe space for emotional growth, we can choose to make a dark and scary place. We can choose to do this for ourselves or for others.

We’ve got the power!

Will I use my power for good or ill?

Recently, I have had several thing happen where I felt really bad, you know, like other people’s words had stabbed me in the heart, or kicked me in the gut. It took me a while to stop gasping at the injustice done me to notice that I was doing major victim response. I had totally bought into the pain those words were meant to cause, and was beating myself up with them. I had internalized those others’ anger at me, and was doing their dirty work.

I am going to lay an awful truth on you. I think you are strong enough to take it.

Every time I feel emotionally beat up, the person who is doing the beating is me. Same goes for you, same goes for all of us.

At some point in our lives, most of us enter into this hideous covenant with “others” that we will feel shame if they want us to, feel beat up when they say abusive stuff, feel anger when they flip our triggers, and so on. We agree to make ourselves feel awful in exchange for them saying rotten stuff to us, or doing rotten stuff.

You can’t make me feel bad, only I can make me feel bad.

When I decide that I am strong, and capable, competent, and trusting, you will not make me feel bad. You can say wretched things to me, I will hear you, but I will choose to feel strong and capable and competent, and trust myself. I will unchoose abusing myself as your proxy.

Hmm, there’s a bit of a feeling of manifesto there.

How have I changed from abusing myself on your behalf to being my own inspirational leader?

If you have entered into this covenant with someone, please re-read this, or maybe even print it out and put it somewhere you can remind yourself.

How do you feel when you are powerful?

Oh, and +1 and share, please, Thanks.

Sunday, December 08, 2013

Leading From the Heart

What do you think about leadership? For years I thought that leadership was about someone who was better than me being the boss of me, the mom, the dad, the teacher, the bully; someone who had power over me who had none.

My belief was that, for the most part, if you had that kind of power, you were going to use it to make things hard for me.

Poor little me. There was so much I had wrong.

Each of us is on a journey, a very private journey, but one that we take in front of each other. That’s our first paradox. We show each other so much stuff just by how we move, how we hold our face, our choice of words. Our whole story is right there, in front of each other all the time. All we have to do is read it. And we do, although much of that reading happens in our unconscious mind.

Leadership is an aspect of each of our journeys. Sometimes we may follow, sometimes we may lead. We may do each of those things well, or poorly. And that role can shift all around, depending on the situation we find ourselves in.

A good leader not only directs our effort for a greater accomplishment than we could make alone, but also sets a good example of behavior, actions, and attitude.

But here is an interesting tidbit. We can lead from anywhere. It’s not like being oxen pulling a cart. It’s not about standing up and speaking in front of a crowd. It’s not about having the power to reward or punish people.

I can lead, regardless of my position, by my attitude and behavior. Face it, we watch each other like hawks. Our kids suck up our behavior as the gold standard of adult behavior. They are aware of everything we do, how we do it, the stuff underlying it, and it will become part of who they grow up to be. Our co-workers watch, too, and so do our neighbors. We have so much curiosity about each other.

When I have a vision, and live my life according to that vision, I am leading from my conviction, my confidence. Sometimes, I don’t have a vision, and withhold my leadership. Sometimes I have feelings about pushing you, or feel like I don’t deserve to lead. Sometimes, I am concerned that by leading, I will attract negative attention and get hurt. Sometimes I feel held back by stuff, or people. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know enough to lead.

How am I safe to lead? What makes me a good leader? Why do I have a vision?

I may not have the knowledge or expertise I would like to have as a leader. I can get that. But I can always lead by example.

I can light the darkness with my attitude. I can model calm and peace for you when things are “exciting.” I can model responding rather than reacting. I can behave like a grown up, creating space where we are safe to try on new behaviors, to shed old beliefs.

Why would I choose to lead from my heart?

If you like a contemplation, please share it. Thanks!

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

How to Use Your Sword of Power

One of the many things I found baffling in the sorry days of yesteryear was the whole idea of personal power. It made no sense to me, mainly because I had no sense of it. Funny how that stuff goes.

You probably already get this, but I gotta say, it was a serious revelation to me. So let’s lift our Swords of Power and get going.

At the bottom of it all, we are each responsible for own selves. Whether we own and act on that responsibility is, of course, another matter.

I can’t actually give away my power. And you can’t take it from me. (Oo, the victim inside me is getting pissed.)

What I do is choose to act as though you have my power. That choice is usually out of my consciousness, based on habits I established a long time ago when I was a little child and my access route to my personal power was just developing. People who had authority over me abused that authority, and royally screwed up my system.

The whos, whys, and wherefores of that don’t fundamentally matter. That’s story. It’s good to tell to get it out, so it’s not a secret, but the telling is not necessary to heal.

What matters is that I correct it.

Once I am an adult, you cannot victimized me. I victimize me in your name. You can be horrible to me, but I have the power to decide whether you will vanquish my spirit. You cannot get inside my mind, I create a version of me that looks like you inside my mind. Then I can blame that avatar, and then blame you, and I get to feel vindicated. Except that I feel like a powerless victim.

Oh, that made me so mad! I fought it for a long time. And when at last I accepted it, I felt such glorious freedom.

You cannot force me to join your rubber room party. If you are inviting me to feel crazy with you, I have to choose whether to go along.

I can choose to be clean and separate from your shenanigans. I can choose to be clean and separate from your anger, or fear, or madness. I can choose to leave, or to allow, or to change. Me, I can. I have the POWER!

How do I know I am powerful? How do I know I am responsible for me? What makes me grow up?

If I want more confidence, all I need to do is take more responsibility for how I feel, and realize that I can choose to think a thought, or not think a thought. This is part of what meditation does for us, and one of the best reasons to practice. I learn to allow my thoughts to flow, and not have to follow them, and if I do follow one, I learn to pull back to stillness, which is the source of our personal power.

When I own my power, I am confident. I don’t need to worry because I trust that I will know what to do as my life unfolds. When I own my power, it is easier for me to love you unconditionally because I know that you can’t make me. So I can let all that go, and open my heart to you.

How have I changed from feeling powerless to lifting my Sword of Power?