In theory it makes perfect sense. Of course we should not wait to be happy – nevertheless many of us do. We understand that we should take time to smell the roses – the reality is most of us are too busy in our lives and minds to see any roses let alone smell them. Unfortunately it’s often the occurrence of unpleasant or traumatic events that wakes us up to how good our lives were prior to their occurrence.

So just for today, instead of waiting to get “there” imagine that it feels good to be “here”.

I would be a strong supporter of myself -that is, I would demonstrate a sense of allegiance to myself.
I would not expect perfection. Rather, I would give myself a break and stick by myself when times were trying.
I would have a deep faith in my ability to dream the grandest dreams and create the greatest future.
I would have a solid and grounded belief in the inherent rightness of my being.
I would not engage in attacks on myself, either in the form of undermining comments or self sabotaging actions.
I would not be a “fair” weather friend to myself -rather I would tell myself what is true and trust in my intuitive instincts to alter my course and guide myself back on track when I head in directions that are not in my best interests.
I would know what I was capable of achieving and hold myself to delivering on that.
I would encourage myself to have more fun and enjoy life more deeply and passionately.
I would demonstrate a lot of old fashioned warmth and kindness to myself.
I would fully accept who I am, warts and all.
I would like and love myself -a lot- particularly the warts!

In contrast (and acknowledging that it might sound surprising to a sceptical public) Smith observed that when he joined GS 12 years ago the culture revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by their clients. By the time he left GS the focus was on how much money could be made from the client. “Make the client the focal point of your business again” was his wake-up call to the board of directors.

Although at first hailed for his moral courage, reports soon emerged that “a source” at GS had suggested that Smith’s response was a direct result of being passed over for a promotion and/or bonus.

So, should we presume that this “bombshell” article (as described by Bloomberg View columnist and former investment banker William Cohan) was in fact the poisonous work of a deeply resentful former employee? Or is it possible that Smith was really so uncomfortable and alienated by the culture that he could no longer work there?

Let’s consider that there is even a small amount of truth in the second scenario; that is, let’s suppose that the culture at GS is less than ideal. A natural deduction would lead us to question the competence and style of the current leadership. Smith believes that GS changed the way it thought about leadership. “Leadership”, he comments, “used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing.”

Indeed, among other critical factors, that is what defines good leadership. So what tips the balance? What is it that is capable of souring and spoiling an organisation’s culture?

In this case I can only deduce that it’s the “me” or “I” factor as opposed to the “we”. What’s in it for me? What do I get? How do I ensure, at any cost, that this situation benefits me?

Interestingly, leadership that inspires is not about removing the “me”. Rather it’s about fully acknowledging, understanding and accepting the ego-centric nature that is “me”. That’s what good coaching does. It allows the leader to take care of the “me” so the focus at work can be on the “we”.

Unsurprisingly, organisations that have found a way to soothe and tether the “me” tend to be very effective at harnessing the limitless potential of the “we”.

Actually it’s none of these- the single most critical relationship required for inspirational leadership is the relationship each leader develops with their self.

What do I mean by this? What is a relationship with the self?

A relationship with the self is about the way we view ourselves-our insight and perception into the many parts that make up the whole that is us; It’s about the way that we communicate with ourselves and the feelings that we hold about who we are; It’s about the way we treat and take care of ourselves; the judgements and beliefs we hold; the excuses we make, what triggers and trips us in the external world, the internal chatter that fills our mind as well as our ability to sense or intuit the profound intelligence and wisdom that is embedded deep within us. It’s about accepting and taking responsibility for everything that we are as we envision everything that we will become.

I am convinced that this is where the most significant and evolutionary leaders of history began their journeys. They knew that if they could see, accept and understand their internal world that would equate to an increasingly powerful, intelligent and resilient presence in the external world.

I am also convinced that the quality of every relationship in our life, be it personal or professional, is directly proportional to the quality of the relationship we have with our self. If we are messing up in relationships in our personal world the answer lies within us. If, in our professional world, we are troubled with ongoing conflict and/or are unable to retain high performing staff then again the answers lie within us.

It is not easy to look within. One of my highly talented clients declared to me a few weeks ago “This is the hardest work I’ve ever done!”

But the outcomes of building a powerful and insightful relationship with the self are immeasurable. When we open our eyes to what drives and controls us we are finally free to consciously recreate ourselves.

Our world is in desperate need of leaders who have done their own work, who have become competent at leading themselves. They are the only people who will be evolved enough to have a chance at re-balancing our teetering planet. And so I ask you again…who are you leading?

I want to focus on the ego today only because my personal experience of unknowingly allowing it to rule and govern my life has caused me such extended periods of despair and frustration. I also know that becoming aware of the nature of our own ego and choosing to release its control from our life is the speediest way to self-acceptance, peace of mind, and peaceful relationships with those around us.

The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung would describe the ego as believing it is at the centre of consciousness and from my perspective it is very clever at hoodwinking us into believing that it is indeed the centre of our consciousness. Here’s how you will know if your ego is running the show:

It has a constant need to question, analyse and rationalise every aspect of your life;
It identifies with “things” of all kind ranging from clothes and money to cell phones, cars and houses;
It has a a constant need for MORE things,
It identifies with the body (and the aging process!),
It is reactive and resentful;
It has an overwhelming need to be right and to make others wrong;
It needs to be/feel superior to others;
It’s quickly and easily made to feel insecure around others and has a constant need to compare;
It is unable to be in the present moment, rather it references the past and looks constantly to the future for happiness;

Many psychologists, however, believe the ego forms a vital function for humankind. It ensures that we can know and separate ourselves from those around us; it protects and and provides safety to the entity we know as “me” and it will ensure our survival at any cost.

So, in this sense, we can rationalise the need for the human ego. But how do we differentiate the dysfunctional ego nature -the chattering voice in the head – from the essence of our true nature?

You see what if there is a deeper “something” within us that much better fits a description of who we really are? It could be called inner wisdom, deeper consciousness, the greater intelligence or perhaps the spark of spirit. When one is able to quieten the noise in the head and shrug off the whining and demanding of the ego then it is possible to experience a stillness, an essence, that lives within us. We can do this by simply breathing deeply a few times and having the intention to connect with the deep and profound stillness that lives within us. With practice it becomes easier to gently slip away from the “radio static” of the ego and connect to a more gentle and infinitely more peaceful inner world.

So why would we want to examine our own shadows, you may ask? The answer lies in our ability to accept ALL of who we are. As Carl Jung the Swiss psychologist described, the gold is in the dark. The gold Jung refers to is the feeling of wholeness and completeness that somewhere deep within them all individuals long for.

Unless you are a pathological and rare human being you have a shadow. Think of the qualities you most dislike (or detest) in others. Perhaps it is their arrogance or their rudeness. Maybe it’s their indecision or their weakness. Or you might find them self-centred or lazy. Now turn the outward gaze back to you. What are the qualities that you don’t like about yourself that you try to hide or deny? Maybe it’s jealousy or occasional fits of rage? Perhaps its your tendency to gossip or to criticise others?

Know that whatever negative qualities you can find in yourself and whatever qualities you can see in others, they all have a common link. They all live in you and me. I’ll repeat those words. They all live in you and me. If you can see, conceptualise or experience a negative quality then it lives in you. At birth we were not given a sprinkling of certain positive and negative qualities. Within us lives the seed of every negative, dark quality and every light aspect. This is what it is to be human.

Yet when we fail to acknowledge our own shadows, they have a habit of bursting out of us at inappropriate times and causing great embarrassment and shame. Have you ever (like me) left a social event wondering why you said what you said or did what you did? You may have felt confused, disappointed and ashamed of yourself. Well I can promise you that you experienced one of your shadow aspects. A part of you that you deny or repress was triggered and took the opportunity to take control! One of the greatest experts on shadow work, Debbie Ford, will tell us that what we can’t be with, will not let us be! In other words, if you don’t acknowledge, accept and make peace with your shadow it will continue to sabotage and control your life.

Acknowledging the shadow aspects of ourselves can be a shocking and humbling experience. But to find the gold within each of our dark aspects is worth all the pain of finally recognising that the quality we have most loathed in another lives within us. When I first acknowledged and began to accept my own jealousy I was able to understand that it showed me the things in life that I wanted to experience. When I recognised my own arrogance I was able to see how, turned down a little, it could give me a great sense of confidence and the anger that irrationally burst out of me would fuel me with energy to take on worthwhile projects in the world.

Can you find the gold in your own dark? Will you have the courage to look and allow yourself to experience the peace of mind that comes with knowing, “I am that; that is me”. It is only when we bring the light of consciousness into the darkest recesses of our being that we will find the sense of wholeness that is our innate right.

In the past I made these feelings mean something about me. They were wrong. I shouldn’t have them. I had no right to feel that way; they were not “normal” and I should try and shift them as quickly as possible.

But as I’ve come to know, making my feelings wrong does nothing to shift them.

I remember not so long ago I was having a very flat day when I joined a call with my great mentor, Debbie Ford, who was interviewing the mystical scholar, teacher and poet, Andrew Harvey, about his new book “Sacred Activism”. Andrew was able to create an immediate shift regarding the self-serving feelings that were lingering within me. He reminded us that we must break through our trance of denial and our sense of helplessness with ourselves and/or the state of our world and rise up and find our true greatness and purpose in this lifetime.

Today, however, I understand more clearly than ever that living one’s best life does not make one immune to feelings of flatness and disconnection. The ego’s propensity for isolating and separating can strike when we least expect it. That is its nature: divisive and analytical. Nothing pure and divinely beautiful was ever envisioned or created from the ego mind.
The act of fully accepting the dark recesses of the shadow, however, can be very comforting. The dark qualities are a part of us all and Carl Jung knew that “what we resist persists”. Once confronted and accepted, the dark feelings are a powerful leaping point into the lightness of spirit and into the intuitive wisdom that lies within us all. Nothing feels as good as stepping out of the darkness into the light.

Therefore the next time the dark feelings pay me a visit I will take my guidance from the great 13th century poet, Rumi. I will welcome whatever comes, even if it is a meanness or a depression, for what do I know? As Rumi describes in his poem The Guest House, they may be clearing me out for some new delight. “Be grateful for whoever comes,” urges Rumi, “because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”

It is this exercise of self-understanding that allows clients the opportunity each week to look at life through different or new eyes; they are looking through the eyes of the intellect, the emotions and from their spiritual connection (their place of inner wisdom). When I asked Debbie Ford about this she commented  that “We can bring the light in and connect with our deeper vision of ourselves.  We can take action in the outer world which reflects our inner world.  When we are living in consciousness then we are fully awake.”

Living within consciousness brings us back to the concept of possibility, the life that might be possible for an individual when  key conditions for transformation are present and the transformative process is allowed to unfold, unencumbered.  It is this idea of possibility that is so engaging; that which might be possible for individuals who open themselves to the coaching process and the possibility for humankind that may ensue from their onward journey.

For those clients who open themselves to the process, who do the work the program demands, any one of these analogies may seem appropriate. As I coached a client through session fifteen today, a week from program completion, she shared with me that for the first time she can remember she is waking up without a sense of fear or anxiety in her life. When I asked her what it was that had moved in her life to precipitate this change, she responded that she had a sense of trust in her self and in her life that she had never experienced prior to the program.

The analogy of fragmentation to wholeness seems particularly relevant to me here and I believe there are powerful integrating factors at work that begins to move clients from the uncomfortable experience of fragmentation towards a sense that they are more successfully holding together or uniting the various factions of their life.  I have no doubt that the practice of accessing inner wisdom is an integrating one; or that a relationship between ego and Self (even in its infancy) is integrating; or that the practice of mindfulness and taking actions from that place of mindfulness is integrating; or being held in a supportive yet challenging relationship is integrating; and it would be difficult to argue against the fact that all of these factors combined have a highly integrative influence on human consciousness.

References

Frager, Robert. Spiritual Psychology Lecture Series (Los Angeles, University of Philosophical Research)

In summary, it is clear that there are a number of factors at play in the Essentials coaching process that contribute to the client’s transformation in consciousness. I think it is highly probable that it is a combination of all of these factors which contribute to the transformation — and I should note that there may well be more factors at play than the ones I have chosen to focus on in this exploration. It is possible that for clients who satisfactorily complete the program, some concepts and practices are embraced and integrated more fully than others; some may seem to be more relevant or to have more meaning, but because the program works at both the conscious and the unconscious levels of the psyche we have no real way of knowing which factors might be considered to be more or less influential. Because the integration process for many of these factors may take place at the unconscious level of the psyche, the clients may remain unaware of the level of processing that is, in fact, occurring for them.

 The factors, which I have termed “change agents,” which appear to be most influential in Essentials are as follows:

• The quality of the information that is provided for clients via the distinctions, guiding them to live a life aligned with integrity
• The structure of the program itself, which provides a strong foundation where the client is able to experiment with new ways of thinking, being and doing
• The exploration into the place of inner wisdom and the regular dialogue that takes place, albeit in a limited sense comprehensible to the egoic mind, with the Self
• The development and maturation of the ego structure that occurs in a structured yet flexible environment of trust and support
• The initiation of a dialogic ego-Self relationship
• The focusing tools to open to inner wisdom including the use of breath, relaxation, centering, language and intention
• The use of the imagination in the form of guided imagery to create a powerful vision of a new reality
• Mindfulness brought about by attentiveness to negative thoughts, beliefs, feelings and actions
• Taking action conceived from the place of inner wisdom
• Having the willingness to assert the will and become self-responsible, thus releasing human potential and entering into the process of self-actualization
• The  coaching relationship which provides a powerfully fertile environment for human growth and maturation