I will take the posture of leadership
Dear Soul,
photo by Jehyun Sung
Dear Soul,
“Why do these things keep happening to me?”
Could it be that this the wrong question?
As I watch, listen, feel, try and try again, I notice something:
No one else but me has any idea of what I am experiencing.
So perhaps I am the only one who can take the lead.
Ah, but what about this, that, and all the other things that the world inflicted upon me?
What about all these ugly cards I was dealt that I never asked for?
Dear soul, are you still there?
Why do you fall silent when I ask these things?
Is there really no one who is willing listen?
In your silence, I hear my own voice echoing back to me.
Ah, yes. Now I see.
It is my choice to listen or not.
I may pause life whenever I wish to do so. I may also decide when I’ve heard enough, when I wish to live again, eyes and ears open to the song of the world rather than my own sob stories.
In your silence, dear soul, I feel this opportunity. I wait in this space, knowing that the momentum behind my thoughts sometimes pushes them too soon across my tongue.
Yet, if these words continue to appear when I listen to nothingness then speaking aloud may come to feel more like a relaxation than a compulsive action. Finally, I hear myself say it.
“I will take the posture of leadership in this life of mine.”
Hearing my own words, resonating in the air where others may listen or perhaps only between my ears, there is humor. I laugh at myself without the sting of self-deprecation.
“What took you so long?!” I wonder with a smirk.
After all, every single movement of my body is an executive decision. Likewise, it’s my choice whether or not to be outraged by the outrages of the world.
I get to decide whether the things I imagine for myself are in fact so irrational that I must scold myself for having an imagination.
It’s up to me to decide whether someone else could know better than I do what’s best for me.
I do not lead by thinking I am superior, that I should stand taller than others. Yet to think I must look at my shoes for the rest of time is not leadership either. I must learn the difference.
My first act of leadership that extends beyond myself is the simple recognition of the right of others to take leadership in their own lives - whether they recognize it or not.
I make eye contact, listen, and become genuinely curious about what why this person is saying these things, whether they please me or not. Also, I end conversations that are going nowhere.
I discovered early on, dear soul, how a single phrase might fall into my ear and reshape my life - not because I heard that phrase, but because I found myself endlessly repeating it.
When I take leadership in my own life, I realize it is up to me to shape my inner landscape, to allow the world’s words to endlessly echo inside me - or not.
Yet I also acknowledge that the thoughts between my ears do not knock politely on the door before coming in. These uninvited guests are here already.
Shall I ask who sent them or shall I resent them?
Shall I invite them to get comfortable or kick them out?
No matter what ghosts follow me around, I can always choose new objects of attention, invite new relationships, and reimagine a tomorrow that is more to my liking.
My thoughts are my future, now and forever. It’s my executive decision whether or not to accept any given tomorrow that my mind serves up today. And if that tomorrow arrives despite my desire to avoid it, it will be my choice whether or not to fight with reality
Meanwhile, all those who know me - above all my loved ones who have not yet embraced leadership in their own lives - will be watching to see what I do.
I did the same for so long, dear soul, watching others who I thought knew better than I.
Seeing this pattern makes it easier for me to accept this reality, to embrace the leadership that my life offers to me. It is not only a gift to myself, but to everyone that I love.
Self-leadership begins with self-knowing.
Yet the self dynamically changes moment-by-moment in the ongoing dance with an unpredictable world. So self-knowing means sensing the rhythm of shifting patterns.
The Presence Mantra is a powerful somatic technology for self-knowing that can be practiced in any circumstance whatsoever because of its simplicity. These 5 words could change your life.
Nice piece, Seth.