Fighting Pain with Pain Doesn't Work

Fighting PAIN with PAIN doesn’t work.⁠

[Plus my thoughts on the value of PATIENCE & CAPACITY in leadership…]⁠

There's something fundamental to my make up that needs to lead and share my truth, even & especially when my truth is unpopular or controversial.⁠

This rebellious, need-to-lead aspect of me is something I love & cherish about myself.⁠

AND YET as I look back on times when I have stood for truth in my not-so-subtle ways, I see a trend...⁠

I see that my boldness, insistence, & shock-tactics have served me,⁠

AND I see that my leadership in the past has failed to bring about the extent of change I truly desired because I did not have the PATIENCE & CAPACITY to bring my insights to others more skillfully.⁠

By making others “wrong,” demanding radical & immediate change, and prioritizing blunt truth over tact, there were many times my insights could neither be RECEIVED nor IMPLEMENTED.⁠

Basically, I was trying to change systems that created pain, with a voice fuelled by my own pain.⁠

I felt disempowered, and thus my leadership approach promoted MORE disempowerment.⁠

IN ADDITION: I was keeping myself in the VICTIM role because I was insisting that the outside world needed to change for me to be at peace within.⁠

(The IRONY of this, is that any changes implemented from this perspective would actually KEEP others in victim role too… as the NEW system created would be founded on the frequency of disempowerment… “I can be empowered ONLY IF these things are in place”…)⁠

Look, everyone’s pain is deeply VALID. In fact, if we have to start prioritizing who’s pain is more/less important & valid, we are surely not on the right track to true empowerment for all.⁠

As leaders who desire to empower all, the greater our capacity to be present to our own discomfort & triggers without reacting, the more space we create to CLEANLY HEAR how we are being called to take action.⁠

Do you want to continue fighting pain with pain?

Or do you want to lead?⁠

I know where I stand.⁠