LiVING INSIDE OUT –ON PURPOSE!
Article first published in ReSource Magazine 2005
Most people, most of the time, live outside – in, by accident!
Many have no idea how they’ll feel in two minutes time, let alone for the rest of the day, or the marriage, the team meeting, the argument, the train journey or the rest of their journey through life.
For some, their mood, their very sense of self, invariably depends on things outside their own skin. They seldom, if ever, think, “Well, today I’m going to feel good about my life, my job, my relationship, and even if lots of things go wrong, no matter what, I’m going to feel good about my self!”
I do not deny that accidents of time and place can knock us so far sideways that the pain will forever reverberate through our lives. We will meet with changes and challenges, be asked to give less than we should or required to do more we wish. We’ll fall short of our high ideals or stretch so far beyond our reach that we’ll stumble, tumble and look even more foolish than we feared.
And so what? So we look foolish, or think we do. People will find us ludicrous. We will feel humiliated. Again, I say, “So what!” More: I say, “Who cares?”Well, there will always be people to care deeply for us. Some will support our higher selves and our best aspirations. Others will only reinforce our limiting beliefs about who we think we are and how we’re supposed to act! Good friends and well meaning relatives or colleagues will reinforce our bedrock assumptions about the way the world works. They will line up to make sure we toe the line; string us a line when we get out of line and be ever-ready to read between the lines if we miss the writing on the wall.
And, all too often, what’s written on the walls we hide behind are rules and injunctions that keep us trapped and trammelled in fear-filled patterns of archaic dependency. Like Prufrock, we are ‘deferential, glad to be of use’ .
Even so, on our journey there will be many more accidents of time and space – and we can also seek out or create experiences that offer healing and hope.
Living Inside Out requires that we take responsibility for our internal state, for our thoughts and feelings and for what we choose to do about our feelings and emotions. We can choose to have the world reflecting back to us or repeatedly mirror the world because of our needy dependency.
Teaching, parenting, managing, listening, coaching Inside Out requires being at home with who we are, knowing that the one ‘true belonging place’ is in our own heart, in the core of our being. Knowing that, we can remove the facade that bravado presents and face the world with courage and self-assurance. Inside Out encourages the healthy humility that approaches every situation as an opportunity to learn and every individual as a potential teacher. We need only be ready to learn, willing to listen, prepared to see.
This humility is not the false pride that keeps us stuck, endlessly replaying the Games and running the rackets of childhood. That is Outside In!ON PURPOSE!
I was asked, “What’s the difference between Living On Purpose and living with purpose?”
I think that the latter is to do with elsewhere and else-when; down the road apiece.
Living On Purpose, being in the moment, Right Here; Right Now! follows naturally fom living
inside out, at the centre of our own being; comfortable in our own skin.FROM HURT TO WHOLENESS
Life is a journey and something is amiss if we are not moving forward or upward, growing and evolving.
When we are at peace with our self and healthily connected to others, we can be content with our lot and creatively engaged with the process of living day to day- and there will be problems, challenges and changes.
Loving or fearful reactions will depend on how much you are with yourself.
Are you the director, author or bit-player in your own life-story? Many things will hurt us as we travel through life and our pain might always define and inhibit us.
Others go beyond hurt, their hearts and minds so filled with hate that they can see and say nothing, at home or at work, that is kind, generous, warm hearted, caring or compassionate..
As managers they often blame and seldom delegate. As team mates they compete more than cooperate. As parents they shout at their children more than shelter them, and hit out more readily than they help out. As lovers they whinge a lot, sulk even more and, if that doesn’t work, might become aggressive or violent. As friends they can take much and give little.
Living Inside Out – On Purpose, designed to take us from Hurt to Wholeness via Hate and Healing, is a five stage journey:
1. Forgiveness 2. Blessing the Past 3. Emotional Intelligence 4. Caring Connections 5. Staying On PurposeThe process is facilitated with powerful models and principles of change e.g. Neuro Linguistic Programming, Emotional Freedom Techniques, Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling, Crafty Listening, Thinking Environments and many others.
1. Forgiveness:
Giving up hoping for a better past.
Forgiveness has nothing to do with those who have transgressed against us; it is everything to do with making a commitment to self.
And, as someone once said, and I’ve often repeated; ‘if you haven’t forgiven your parents, you’ve never really left home!’2. Blessing the Past:
Instead of wallowing in self-pity, endlessly rehearsing and rehashing the litany of our painful journey, reliving each step of the struggle, we can learn to transmute painful memories into memories of painful events. The more painful the journey, the more likely it is that we will have developed skills, resources, insights and abilities that serve us well and enrich the lives of those we connect with. Focussing on these strengths can help us to mould a future instead of being forever mired in the past.
3. Emotional Intelligence:
To be self-aware, self-managing and self motivating. If we lack these attributes, intrapersonal intelligence, we cannot truly be aware of others. One of the key components of social-awareness is empathy, without which we will attempt to manipulate or micro-manage others instead of taking responsibility for what we contribute to our ongoing, interpersonal problems.4. Caring Connections:
Being close to others without clinging and not trying to overcompensate when they want to experience and express their feelings openly. Being authentic rather than playing the needy, helpless, “Poor me!” victim.
Being prepared to negotiate honestly and honourably in pursuit of balance and harmony, putting in the necessary effort to find elegant solutions in the context of ongoing, life enhancing relationships.5. Staying On Purpose:
And so, you’ve participated in my Living Inside Out – On Purpose weekend, or you’ve attended the workshop on Managing Inside Out – On Purpose – So What!?Did you think that would sort everything out? Resolve something; solve everything? Did you believe – again! – hope (again!) that you’d be home and dry? Well, that’s not what I’m about, and it’s not what my work is about. Whether with individuals, managers, couples, families, teams, organisations, my purpose is to encourage more love and more courage; Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway!
Staying On Purpose?
Of course you will still feel afraid, still be susceptible to moments of self-doubt, frustration, disappointment, bitterness, vicious sparks and petty meanness, You will still be capable of vengeful acts and attitudes but you will notice sooner, you will be more aware and awake to the possibility that, Right Now, you have a choice.
You can be forever looking over your shoulder and see yesteryear’s shadows bearing down on you, or you can look ahead and see the path you need to take and a compelling future beckoning you on. In that moment or truth, you chose to stay on the path and to stay on purpose.You choose! (that's not an instruction, it's a simple statement of fact!)