What is wrong with me? She wondered.
Musings on Heart Powered Human Leadership
Turns out it was nothing in the end, but the misuse of my power to discern. Maybe the same is true for you too?
This Winter has been a bit tough for me. A tricky return from sabbatical followed by lots of less than ideal circumstances – that I completely blamed for my bad feelings. Not enough time/space/clarity/security/quality connection/sun — you know what I mean.
I was pestered by pesky thoughts – like flies buzzing around (in?) my head. Such as…
Why can’t I be happy?
Why is my life so hard?
Why do I not know what I want?
Why do I not trust myself?
Why have I lost faith?
What do I need to change or fix to make myself and/or make my life better — and would that even work?
All these questions (and their answers) looked very serious, important and urgent. Dispiriting. Maybe you can relate?
Plus one of the extra buzzing flies that might be unique to me and my own work…
Why am I not letting Wisdom lead?
Why oh why do I not know what my wisdom/inner knowing/hunches are telling me so I can let them lead?
After all, teaching about wisdom is my life’s work, message and vocation.
So why am I not able to find it for myself?
Should I even be teaching this?
Am I an imposter?
What I also knew, despite having lots to be grateful for, was that it was very hard for me to feel gratitude in my heart.
It has been hard to feel genuine appreciation for what I have, the blessings and opportunities given to me and the genuine successes I have to celebrate.
It has also been a challenge for me to feel generous and appreciative with others and see the good in them (seeing instead the overwhelming challenges or wrongness that catches my eye).
Basically nothing felt like it was good enough for which I was blaming a combination of myself, others and my circumstances.
I noticed with interest (and some relief) there was one notable exception — when I was with others, doing the work that I do (leadership mentoring). This was invariably when all the noise stilled and I came back to the present. I listened to others with natural openness and appreciation from the heart and heard wisdom.
One day I suddenly got the answer to the question – What’s wrong with me?
It was so clear and crisp and beautiful — like newly minted snow — I had to jump right on it and write it down before I stifled the muse and it scampered away.
I realised I had been using the gift and power of discernment against myself. Innocently.
I had been feeling bad about myself for where I was at. Judging me and blaming me. Being very hard on myself.
You see, it’s impossible to feel APPRECIATION for WHAT IS when you are using the gift of discernment to judge yourself or another (for what is not).
They can’t co-exist.
Just in case you need a reminder of how being in judgement feels…
Judgement of Other — looks and feels like blame, resentment, being offended, criticising (as opposed to solicited critiquing which is a healthy use of discernment and feels closer to appreciation)
Judgement of Self– it looks and feels like guilt, shame and generally feeling bad about yourelf (we could call it lack of self belief/unworthiness — even feeling an imposter) – these are so sneaky – as the nature of these is to want to hide themselves.
It is basically a ‘should’. I should, they should, life should be different than the way that it is. This is also known as resistance to what is.
The reason why this is so painful is that our heart closes and we feel disconnected from ourselves and others. Then we often start judging our experience of disconnection, and lose heart. We get discouraged, even hopeless and helpless. Our mood lowers. The more we judge our mood, the worse it gets — till a kind of depression kicks in which is hellish and isolating. In that place Social Media seems to say everyone else in the world is happy and having fun and makes us want to be sick. Memes we might have found inspiring in the past — are platitudes at best and completely unrealistic, irritating nonsense at worst.
Here’s the thing. We are doing it all to ourselves because we are not being present with what is — we are present instead to the noisy brass band of judgement that is sounding out loudly what isn’t and how it should be instead.
Nothing good can get through the walls of judgement.
Certainly not the clear, simple, sweet tone of appreciation — this requires a neutral openness to the moment, and using the gift of seeing. Our being able to use the power of discernment that we all have access to — not against ourselves or others — but to see also what is good and beautiful and perfect about what simply is; right here, right now.
The music of life, the simple things, the food, the smile, the sunbeam, the rain, the snowdrop. Hot water. A hand to hold. A chance to shine, to shop, to play, to lead, to create. To just be.
Perhaps that is why when I am working, all the noise goes away — as my desire to be fully present in the moment with the other transcends any mood I myself may have.
I notice though, that I cannot make myself be appreciative — can you?
Sometimes when the elevator of life is down in the basement on a depressed floor, even the thought of a gratitude journal makes me want to throw something. But here is what I noticed did help…
When I truly saw in real time that my experience was an illusion. That although my thinking and feeling were looking very real and true. They weren’t.
That my bad feelings were not to be resisted, they were simply to be felt fully and embraced; just temporary weather and would pass on their own if I allowed them, left myself alone and simply STOPPED judging and blaming myself and my circumstances.
When I saw that the story I had been telling myself was both a story and that it wasn’t true, I could give it up.
In a way it was like Mary Oliver says..
I worried (judged) a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying (judging) had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
After a little ‘singing’, I noticed that all my circumstances (which remained the same) suddenly and after months — looked completely different. I had thought I had been a reporter just reporting on the bad facts, but the facts themselves started to look different. Manageable. Opportunities. And maybe even something to appreciate. I kid you not. It was like a veil was lifted.
But here is the oddest thing. The day I realised this, everything started changing about my circumstances. Things that had been blocked became unblocked — as if by magic. And yet all that had really happened was that I myself was choosing what to focus my discernment on.
I have a lot more to say on the subject of the incredible power of aligning your energies to appreciation and the Universal Field — (I know if you are struggling, that could feel a little like one of those memes that might make you sick).
For now I will say this; have hope, this too shall pass, your thoughts and feelings are the temporary, it won’t always feel like this. What is at your core — the hidden constant — your true self — will return and when it does everything will look different… everything is going to be alright.
In fact it is all a story you are telling yourself and the story will naturally and effortlessly change the minute you realise for real, for real that you are in fact the storyteller, the one making it all up — and not merely the reporter.
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