Oneness

We celebrated Global Oneness day on October 24th. It made me to reflect on my experience and actions. What does Oneness really means to me? How am I in Oneness with all of myself?  There are several different definitions for Oneness and the one I like is by the Global Project: “Oneness is a fundamental, creative force present in all life, empowered when individual consciousness recognizes and aligns with it.”

When we experience Oneness, we feel in our gut and heart that we are part of something beyond ourselves, that there is harmony and meaning in life, and that every human being and every aspect of existence is uniquely valuable. We live Oneness through respect, compassion, cooperation, and creativity, which naturally support the most fundamental needs of life.

To me Oneness is being in harmony with all the aspects of oneself and to embody the divine being that each one of us are. To realize Oneness I want to live it in my day to day life. Oneness is accepting what is, in moments and situations that I find difficult to accept. Being in Oneness helps me authentically bring Oneness in the world. It is embracing my humanness and the humanness of others in compassion.

Here are simple ways of moving back into Oneness when one feels not in harmony. Take a deep breath and be in the present moment and acknowledge what is. Accept what is without judgment and in compassion and be kind to yourself. Be open and grateful to the experience and lesson it is presenting you instead of getting into fixing or trying to push it down. Oneness is loving what is and choosing to be in harmony with greater whole that we all are part of.

Love What You Do versus Doing What You Love

Often I hear it said that it is important to “Do what you love.” I feel it is so important to do what we love because when I am doing what I love I am able to live a fulfilling life. I notice, however, in myself and others that this can create a trap. We can feel stuck because we are unsure what we love, or do not feel we can make a living doing what we love. There can be a dilemma between making a living and doing what one loves. There are people who love writing or making music and have struggled to get by doing so. There are others who make a good living while doing something that their heart is simply not into and feel a sense of dissatisfaction.


Is there a way out of this trap? Mother Theresa said and modeled the path of “do little things with great love.” So what if we tried to “love what we do.” What would that be like? How will our lives be transformed if we could tackle every little thing we have to do with great love, with attention and commitment? How would it enrich our experience and happiness? What if loving what we do removes the separation between what we have and what we want. Then we can be happy with what is and what we actually have, instead of focusing on what is not. To get on this alternate path, a step is to try to consciously do just one thing every day with great love. Try it for a few days and see what it does for you. This video might inspire you to try.

Change Begins Within: Enhancing the Leadership Effectiveness of Public Leaders

Nelson Mandela stated that “You can’t change society unless you first change yourself.” Two Leadership Essentials program, conducted at MIND, Jamaica for representatives from the public and social sector, helped make this point. The participants were from a wide range of public and social institutions including the Ministry of National Security, Parliament Council, Defense Force, Civil Service Association, Ministry of Local Government, and the Justice Department.

The programs, delivered by myself and Ruby Brown were focused on leading self, leading others, and leading change. The modules and activities were designed to build self-awareness as well as enhanced skills in working with others. While it was easier for participants to focus on leading others rather than themselves they found the process of self-discovery most powerful. We began the program by co creating intentions for the two days. We then worked our way through the Leadership Essentials modules, such as social identity, mindset, mental models, EQ and boundary-spanning leadership. Some of them shared that leadership programs they attended in the past felt like time off from work but this program was about them and drew them in fully. They were not used to “turning the mirror inward” and examining their values, beliefs and perspectives.

At the end of the program most of them shared that the program was a powerful experience that had helped create a deeper awareness of themselves and their leadership preference and style. Some of them who thought they knew themselves well began to notice in a new way their mental models, mindset, their leadership style, including their listening and decision making skills. The participants said they were energized to take the learning forward in their work and life. We ended the two days by asking them to set goals and write letter to an accountability partners. They took this very seriously and made a public commitment to do at least one thing different as a result of the training.

In the final sharing we heard that this program has been the best they’d experienced in terms of content, delivery, interactivity and personal impact. The Leadership Essentials had helped them examine their own approach to leadership and feel empowered to bring about change in themselves and others in their roles in government.

A week at Zen meditation and the lesson of self-compassion

I had the privilege to spend a week in Zen meditation at Bodhi Zendo in India during the 1st week in April 2012. I decided to attend after talking about it for last 8 years or so. I was nervous about not being able to spend 7 – 8 hours in meditation when even 10 minutes seemed difficult as my mind would keep on wandering in thousands different directions. It was taking a leap of faith with much encouragement from Lyndon.

It has been most valuable time that I have spent with myself and really being connected at the deeper level. During this time I realized how and what holds me back from doing what I want to do. The fear of not being able to do it perfectly and the self-judgment. In spite of all the stuff on mindset and mental models when I got connected with myself I was able to see how they still control my actions and behaviors. The other aspect that got in my way was how can I sustain this new development/progress without falling off the wagon and reverting back to my old ways of being and doing. The Zen Master said to me to be compassionate and not to be hard on myself. It was one thing that really helped me to get to the root of my fear of not being able to sustain the change. It really helped me to notice where else in my life it is present.

In my coaching too I notice that often my clients are in this place of not being compassionate towards themselves and really being stuck for not being able to sustain and integrate the change in their lives. It is really very important to spend sometime during the day with ourselves, being connected, so that we can make each moment richer by being fully present rather than being so busy with everything except our own life. I encourage each of you to take time to connect with yourself and notice when you are not being compassionate with yourself. What will be different if we spent just 10 minutes everyday with ourselves in noticing with great compassion. I have replaced empathy with compassion since now it has a deeper meaning for me.

Creative Leadership Conversations program in Chile

I enjoyed working with amazing people in Chile. It has been a wonderful experience. I am delighted that the toolkit we developed has reached different countries and many more people. 

CCL was invited by Vertical to facilitate a Creative Leadership Conversation (CLC) program for 23 staff, consultants and coaches. Vertical is a multi-faceted entity that is part expedition company, part training and development organization, and part foundation for the social good. Vertical believes that these agendas as interlinked. In its work, Vertical guides people on journeys that generate new insights and learning and trace paths to greater social contribution.

For the program, Vertical wanted to convene its staff and partners so they could get to know each-other better and forge a shared vision for the organization moving forward. The CLC model uses conversation as a means for co-creation. Beginning with an exploration of identity and values, the process flows towards envisioning new futures. Participants learn and use the core coaching skills of listening, inquiry, and feedback along with a set of tools that can be used to anchor conversation. It helps to deepen the awareness of oneself, creates deeper bond among participants and provides knowledge, practices and tools.

The 2.5 day program was facilitated by Philomena Rego, Janet Carlson, and Lyndon Rego and delivered – thanks to simultaneous translation – in Spanish. We started the program by setting intentions for our time together. We used memento activity to introduce ourselves to each-other. This brought forth much emotion as people spoke of family connections and loss from the Chilean earthquake and tsunami. This kind of open sharing, we learned, is not so common as there is a wariness about being open. There is a Chilean expression known as chaquetero that means pulling another person down by their coat tails. It is manifest in a tendency to be critical. The CLC program was a process that took the participants in the other direction. It is about appreciation, support and abundance. It is about dreaming about possibilities and exploring how to bring them to life.

By the end of the program we heard that experience was powerful. Participants said it helped them to reconnect with themselves and each other. They had a greater appreciation for what it was to be a part of an organization like Vertical that values people. They felt that together they can make a difference. They expressed how this methodology could be used more broadly in Chile, in government, in communities, and with youth.

Chile is undergoing a period of volatility as young people take to the streets in protest about the cost and quality of education. The CLC model, we heard, can give people a voice and help enable constructive social engagement. There is much need to democratize leadership in Chile, a country that is affluent but with pervasive social inequity. With Vertical we are exploring a number of ways to carry this agenda forward in Chile.

Is Elementary School too Early for Leadership Development?

During the close of the school year, Philomena Rego and Laura Weber conducted a one-day leadership program for 47 5th graders at an arts-based elementary school in Winston-Salem, NC. The program was designed to bring closure for these students as they moved forward to middle school and create an opportunity to appreciate what they gained from elementary school while identifying their leadership skills which will help them adapt to middle school.

The focus of the morning was creating greater awareness of how experience shapes identity and how their school had played a major role in these experiences. These experiences are some of the building blocks for their leadership development. The training design was learner-center and experiential. Throughout the day we wove in artistic concepts to align with the schools’ mission. Following the traditional Leadership Beyond Boundaries Leadership format, we started with o Social Identity mapping (SI) for the students to begin understanding themselves at a deeper level. The SI map has three components, the “Core” which represents who we are at our truest self, “Given’, which represents unchangeable aspects of ourselves, and then the “Chosen” component represents what we what to have in our lives.. We were amazed by what the students put in their ore – to help others, be an authentic leader, to be a good friend, etc. They were asked what Social Identity has to do with leadership. The responses we received got at the essence of what we hear from adults, the 1) the need to know ourselves so we cannot understand others , and 2) knowing our values and what is at our core we can better connect with others. We closed out the morning with a memory walk. The students walked around the school and identified something they wanted to remember that influence their Social Identity and that they wanted to take with them from the school. Self portrait?


After lunch we focused on how they want to be in the middle school and what would help them in this transition. The students were asked to pick a Visual Explorer image card that represented the leadership qualities that will help them to make their first middle school year the best year. The key ideas presented by the students were developing listening skills, having the courage to stand up for their values, and understanding others. This activity helped them think how they can take responsibility to make it a great year for themselves. We also wanted to help them voice concerns they might have. The students were asked to come up with the skit regarding their concerns or fears about middle school and how they would use their leadership to overcome these fears or concerns. It was interesting that most of the students came up with the skits that represented bullying, not being understood by the teacher, or being pressured to do something they didn’t want to do. At the end of each skit we explored what could help them create a positive outcome.

Finally we had a closing circle where each student shared a learning they got and how they were going to apply it. Some spoke about their understanding of their Social Identity and how that will help them in their new school, others spoke about their memory walk and what they want to keep, and some shared the learning from their skit and about not to allowing others to bully them.

What we found was that elementary school is not too early to help young people think about themselves as leaders through exploring their identity, what they stand for, what they hope to become, how to relate to others, and to see life as a journey marked by passages that offer experiences and learning. It was a great learning experience for us as well and fun to engage this thoughtful and energetic group.

Anger

Recently I was reading this book “Peace is Every Step” by Thich Nhat Hanh and the chapter on anger captured my interest. Here is what he wrote “When we are angry we are not usually inclined to return to ourselves, we blame the other person who is making us angry”. This is a powerful statement or thought.

I found myself challenged since I am in this place more often than I would like to admit. Almost by default I tend to focus on the other person as to what they did or did not do that triggered my irritation. This leads to me feeling more angry or resentful and I end up making up a story about this person and exercising judgment rather than curiosity or compassion. As a result what does it do to me? I get angrier. I become unable to be rational or see things from their perspective and unable to engage the other person. It totally blocks my creativity since my energy gets used up on these negative feelings.

Thich Nhat Hanh explains it beautifully wherein he says we must be like a fireman who pours water on the blaze first and not waste time looking for the one who set the house on fire. This can mean taking a pause before reacting when angry. It can also mean not letting ourselves into situations, like being overly tired or hungry, that can give us a short fuse. We can also create more peace by doing things that make us feel more relaxed, whether it is meditation or exercise. Also, focusing on what triggers anger will create the awareness and the ability to feel the emotion. This is so that we can manage our emotion rather than the emotions managing us. The other benefits of feeling our emotions is it keeps us grounded and are able to deal with it in a shorter time frame. We increase our ability to be mindful, to reflect what the emotion is telling us and develop a deeper understanding of ourselves.

I invite you to practice focusing on the emotion you are feeling rather than focusing on the person who is making you angry. Journal your learning to further develop this new mindset.