Last week I led a week-long intensive training with my Master Transformational Coaching program. In this program, I emphasize personal development work because it’s this work that truly helps us be our best selves. When we do this work, we’re able to bring the best of our selves to our relationships – whether they’re with people at home, at work, or in the world. I’d like to tip my hat to the wonderful people who took part in this training program. They’re doing the hard inquiry necessary to step into their whole selves so that they can help others through this same transformation.
Be Your Best Self In Your Most Important Relationships
We often strive to create healthy and satisfying relationships. But sometimes, despite how much we may try, we’re unable to create relationships that are mutually supportive and fulfilling. When this happens, there are several things we can do to bring our best selves to our relationships, and in turn, bring about the positive change we seek.
Get to Know Yourself:
Love Yourself:
Clear Your History:
Own Your Stuff:
When we’re unclear about how our own issues influence our relationships we’re likely to do unintentional damage. When we’re unconscious of our unresolved feelings about our past, we’re more likely to blame, shame and guilt others when those unresolved feelings are triggered. It’s only when we’re aware of our contributions to the state of our relationships and able to stay in our integrity that we can create environments in which our relationships can thrive.
When it comes down to it, everything I’ve studied and practiced over the past 20 years has been about healing. I’ve looked at healing from spiritual, material, creative, energetic, psychological and physical perspectives. Today, both my business and personal development work focuses on how I can best facilitate and teach healing practices.
And so, for this week’s article, I’m going to talk about ways you can incorporate healing practices into your everyday life.
Paths to Healing
What helps us heal? This is a big question.
From my experience, I can say that healing methods help a person – or in some cases a group of people – heal themselves. These methods often include one or more of the following perspectives or techniques:
The Big YES!
Bring Together What is Supportive
Remove What is Unsupportive
Focus on What We Want
Mend What is Broken
When you bring healing into your life, you’re likely to be working with these basic techniques to promote your well-being. As you become more and more familiar with these healing methods, it becomes easier to build them into your life, business, or environment in ways that maintain and strengthen your health.
I’ve learned a LOT about leadership while growing my business. I cannot say these have been easy lessons. I’ve probably made every mistake in the book. I’ve been too hands off. I’ve been too rigid. My standards have – at times – been out of reach. In those moments, I’ve let my frustration get the better of me.
I know that there are people who choose leadership roles to boost their ego. Yet, I’ve found that leadership is a profound and often under-appreciated form of service.
This post talks about co-creative leadership, and explores the skills necessary for it. I believe these are skills that become more and more essential in our lives as time goes on.
Co-Creative Leadership and the Power of Engagement
We all need to learn leadership skills. However, how we put those skills to work differs from person to person and from goal to goal. While some people want to command authority, others want to inspire and engage. While some people think of leadership as a solitary act, others see it as a part of a broader group effort.
Co-creative leadership is about engaging others to tackle the task at hand. It’s about facilitating growth and change while accomplishing a shared goal. With your family, co-creative leadership can be used to make a group decision about a family vacation. If you’re a part of a team, it might be used to make a joint decision about when and where you’re going to practice. And, in your business, you might use it to find new ways to be more efficient, so that you have more time to spend with family.
Creatively Contribute to the “Whole”
The fact is that people don’t need to be managed most of the time. If they need to be managed in the workplace, they might be more of a liability than an asset to your business. If they need to be managed at home, you might be missing an opportunity to empower your children or to partner with your spouse. And, if your friends, colleagues and acquaintances need to be managed, you’re either taking too much responsibility for those around you or you’re not with your peers.
People need to know “why” they’re doing something. This means that they need to support the vision and understand their role. They feel engaged in making contributions to the vision and feel empowered to grow it. This usually happens when people help shape the vision and when they’re put in roles where they’re experts and respected as such.
Changing Yourself to Engage Others
So if you’re in a leadership position and experiencing difficulty with the people around you, pause and take stock of yourself. Effective leaders are able to take a candid look at themselves. They have a strong sense of when they’re in integrity and they’re able to make adjustments and apologies for where they’re not. Leaders tend to run into problems when they take too much or too little responsibility for the problems at hand. They also run into problems when they take too much or too little responsibility for the actions of others. As in all other areas of life, leadership demands that we first look at ourselves and assess our contribution to the situation in order to be most effective.
Opening Communication and Bridging Divides
Strong communicators have the ability to understand others and use the words necessary to express concepts and plans so that there can be as much engagement as possible. Unfortunately, many people have had negative experiences communicating with others. They’ve had conversations where they did not feel seen, heard, or respected. Because of this, many people do not show up to the conversation. A leader is able to bring everyone to the table, open the channels of dialogue and facilitate involvement. A leader also enables team-members to grow their skills so that they can adeptly handle tasks on their own. This takes a combined effort of personal development enhanced communication skills on the part of the leader.
Creating the Win/Win/Win
Yet, most critical to this aspect of co-creative leadership is the collective development of new ways of thinking about partnership and responsibility, participation and benefit. As leaders, it’s important to put concerted effort towards understanding how things can benefit as many people as possible. When our goal is to support others, we co-create opportunities that have the maximum potential benefit for all involved.