Wise Wednesdays

Last week, I was asked how much risk to take on when stepping out of a comfort zone and shared a few thoughts online. If you’re trying out a new approach or tool, how do you know when you’ve gone too far? For example, if you’re practising bold asks and expressing yourself more freely rather than censoring yourself out of fear of what others may think, how do you know how much to share? [Read on or  watch the video on LinkedIn ]   First, let’s remember that we live in times of heightened  uncertainty  which is intensifying our emotional life. Second, a certain amount of  risk  is inevitable in life. You cannot side-step it. If you do, you’ll find that your life shrinks and that you feel constantly anxious or simply collapse and freeze in an avoidant stance trying to keep everything under control. So the real question becomes: can we trust ourselves to engage with risk wisely? As Rachel Botsman puts it:  trust is a responsible engagement with the un...

  Some of the most common questions I hear start with: ‘How do I…’ For example, ‘How do I figure out my next steps?’ It’s a tendency that will be exacerbated by uncertainty, including in these times of uncertainty, reckoning and re-evaluation of our entire way of living. Uncertainty the fight-flight-freeze reaction and fixates the mind on the practical and immediate: ‘How do I get out of this trap now?!!!’ It revvs up the amygdala and shuts down the frontal cortex’ imaginative, reflective and insight faculties that bring true solutions. You may have heard that focusing on ‘why’ questions is more important than the ‘how’ and read Simon Sinek’s book Start with Why. But did you know that the word ‘how’ derives from the Proto-Germanic *hwō which has the same root as hwæt (‘who, what’). The word ‘how’ is also related to ‘why’. It’s a great analogy for what happens when people open up to deep inner-work rather than mindlessly chasing external goals that lead to burnout. In other words, ...

Controlling the uncontrollable? So I don’t read the news. Never have really. I get my news through the people around me. In January 2017, I heard that the (UK) Prime Minister had made a pronouncement on Brexit and that this has caused a good deal of anxiety and possibly re-traumatised people in various ways. And that Trump has been inaugurated... The reason I avoid the “news” is that it tries to tap into my personal emotions thereby making the issues personal to me – which they mostly are not. The attempt to weave a flood of information into my own life narrative through exposure to sensational stories is a good way to sell more “news” but it doesn’t align with my aspiration to live a more peaceful, tolerant and compassionate life. What’s more, coming from a generational history of colonial rule (and two world wars), then gone through a violent independence war, fallout from the cold war and lived in a brutal civil war, it’s hard to take political events too seriously.This week, we...