Our relationship with ourselves

How our reactions as leaders serve as clues and doorways to our healing.

The Cairngorms in Scotland

If your wounds
are still open
trust they are doors
to an answer
and walk through

Andrea Gibson

I remember feeling scared a lot when I was a kid. Sometimes at night I would be wide awake in what felt like such a big, dark house. Too afraid to go into my parents room and ask for comfort. Too young to know how to soothe myself. The fear made me feel so alone.

I was born in the late 70s. The unrest of that time took up permanent residence in my bones. My parents — carrying their own unhealed wounds from what their parents didn't have the awareness, capability, or desire to support — couldn't always offer the solace I needed.

I had to teach myself to feel safe. A quiet and sensitive kid, I had so many big feelings and emotions that I didn't know what to do with. In my family we practiced judgement more than empathy. We practiced distancing ourselves from our emotions. I kept mine lodged in my throat. I was always so afraid to ask for what I needed. It took me into my early forties to stop stuffing everything down.

It's probably no mistake that I chose work where I support leaders in learning how to move through the fear, feelings, and tension of uncertainty. On the surface, this work appears to be about our work lives — the logistics of leading teams, creating the conditions for collaboration and accountability across cultures, building the courage to solve problems together, and redesigning systems and processes to allow for more humanity, momentum, and flow.

But actually, my work is about showing these leaders — these brave humans — where their unhealed wounds are. When we have the courage to look at this, the work becomes a gateway to rebuilding our relationship with ourselves. This gives us the permission to be more of who we are in every part of our lives. Finally facing our unhealed wounds is what brings out the most amazing leaders in each of us.

We all have unhealed wounds. They come from accumulated pain, trauma, and unresolved hurt that has built up across the experiences of our lives — not just as kids, but also as adults. The unprocessed emotions of these experiences often comes with reactions we're not proud of — or don't know what to do with — so we ignore them, we stuff them down deeper, we keep hustling. Over time, it gets harder and harder to cope when things get hard at work:

• When we get dismissed in a meeting and instead of speaking up or having a brave conversation, we go silent, yell, cry, or back channel with others. 

• When the pressure to hit targets increases and instead of acknowledging the fear and finding the way together, we disappear or micro-manage every move our team makes in an attempt to control the uncertainty.

• When we keep not getting what we need, but we don't build the courage to ask for it, and instead we tolerate the frustration by demonizing other people.

• When we're so tired and depleted — but too afraid to make the space to rest because our worth is tied to being needed — so we sacrifice our health, well being, and relationships with ourselves, our family, and our friends.

• When we can't hear — or won't allow — the truth in feedback we're given because we're scared to face our shame or growth and the story that we don't or won't ever be loved or belong.

Our reactions to these experiences can become self-sabotage and cause permanent damage — to our careers, to our cultures, to our souls. But they can also serve as clues and doorways to our healing. Crossing that threshold is nurturing the most important relationship we will ever have — our relationship with ourselves.

"I'm terrified that I might never have met me."

Noah Kahn | Growing Sideways

More than anything, what keeps us from our relationship with ourselves is fear. Fear of spending time alone with ourselves. Fear of what we might learn if we slow down and listen to our hurt or our regret. Fear of not liking what we might notice about ourselves when it's quiet. Fear of not being able to cope with all the things we've never had the capacity or courage to feel.

But if we can't be with ourselves, how can we become leaders who can speak up, be trusted, or ask for help? How can we become leaders who have the integrity to acknowledge and own our mistakes, or have the courage to rest so we have the resilience to pave the path with others?

And how can we lead others if we don't know what it's like to connect with that place in us that is wise and calm and can find the way through the constant uncertainty?

How can we lead others if we don't have a relationship with ourselves?

As I've faced the fear of learning to love and be there for myself, there have been some distinct stages I've traveled in and out of: building awareness, building capacity, and building compassion.

Building awareness

I've spent a lot of my life being a scared, soft-spoken kid who didn't use her voice or get the support she needed because she didn't know how. This was understandable when I was younger. It was normal and natural to rely on my parents, my teachers, more courageous friends, and other adults in my life that I trusted to lead the way. I didn't know I had that same power and choice.

But there came a time in my adult life where I had to start taking responsibility for what I didn't learn or get from my relationship with my parents. My coping mechanism for my sensitivity and big emotions as a kid had become blame, but as an adult, all that did was leave me feeling powerless and lost. I struggled to be curious or generous with others because I was too busy judging and criticizing myself.

On the outside, I was capable. I presented with so much confidence. Like I had it all figured out. This perfectionism was heavy as hell, but it always helped me fit in. On the inside, I was hurting and hard on myself. I felt so scared and small all the time. It felt like the world was out to get me and I just wanted someone to tell me it would all be OK.

That someone had to be me.

I started to notice there was a pattern to my recurring emotions and reactions. It didn't matter what was happening in the present. Every reaction I had to the experiences in my life came with deep hurt, sadness, fear, defensiveness, and loneliness. And also stories: This happened because there's something wrong with me. I'm on my own in this. It's all up to me. I have to make this work no matter what.

These feelings and stories didn't really have anything to do with what was happening at work or in my relationships. They weren't coming from what was in front of me. These feelings and stories were coming from what I had unintentionally left behind.

I started to give myself permission to notice the emotions I was feeling. Instead of blaming someone for something I wasn't getting and melting into abandonment and hurt, I would stop, breathe, and ask myself: what are the emotions you're feeling? And I would name them. Every single one of them.

This awareness — this noticing practice — was an important exercise in being accountable for my emotions and also for myself. Just by noticing my emotions were even there, I was learning to rely on myself and give myself exactly what I had needed for so long: acknowledgement that it was OK to have this experience; validation that I wasn't damaged or wrong or bad; understanding that all of this is just part of being a human being. And I was allowed to be emotional about it.

As I did this, I started to feel some space. Some relief from the constant stress. From the pressure to be perfect. I started to feel powerful and that felt more like me.

It wasn't until I built this emotional awareness and took responsibility for what I was feeling that I could start to learn how to actually feel.

Building capacity

Once I was allowing the awareness of all the emotions I had been avoiding, I started giving myself permission to feel them. No more stuffing things down. No matter where they came from, I would make space in my day to feel my emotions by sitting. Sometimes I made space to do this before work so I could ground and center and set intentions for what I needed that day. Sometimes I made this space intermittently throughout the day, in between meetings and the things I wanted to get done. I just made the commitment with myself not to skip this time.

At first when I sat, I had to practice reducing my dependency on my intellect. I had to build the capacity to be in my body rather than getting caught in my mind. Because I had neglected my relationship with my emotions for so long, I was always thinking my way through my feelings. I would meditate or journal or listen to guidance when I was in struggle as if it were a task I had to complete. But I still wasn't allowing myself to feel. I wasn't being with myself. I was doing all of this stuff in my head. But nothing was getting into my heart.

The bridge from my head to my heart was giving myself permission to cry. But not crying as a weapon to get what I want — which I was practiced at — or crying to access this familiar victim place in me where I couldn't ever see my way out of hopelessness and helplessness.

This crying was different. It was like my body was so ready to be free of the reasons. The justifications for actually feeling something. My body just wanted to finally release the pain and pent-up emotions that had been stuffed down for so long. I didn't need to tie my tears to stories or wounds. I just needed to let them pass through and love myself in the process.

I built the capacity to be with and feel my feelings by paying attention to how I felt at all times. I knew I needed to go sit and be with myself and let myself cry when I felt numb. When I was overly quiet for long stretches of time. When I couldn't quite hear my own voice or articulate my desires or needs. When I was frustrated and irritated and I could feel the weight of the world in my neck and hips.

To get out of my head, I would access my heart with breathing and music. I would use somatic practices like holding a hand over my heart. Supporting myself by holding the back of my neck. Hugging and rocking myself. Holding my face in my hands. Breathing deeply every time I was moving through an emotion that felt like I was drowning.

I can be with this.
I can feel this.
I can stay here in my body.
This is a door to an answer and I can walk through.

I got really good at not attaching any stories to my feelings. I just let myself feel the feelings without going into the depths of despair where I believed stories that said I was never going to be or have enough.

Day after day, reaction after reaction, emotion after emotion, I built the capacity to feel my feelings. To be there for myself as all of it came through. And over time, as my resilience grew, so did my wisdom and sensing. I could trust and rely on myself for what I needed most: calm and strength. Compassion and love.

Building compassion

Unlearning the story that it's all my fault, it's all up to me, and that I have to carry the whole world on my back has been a hard habit to break. I have been so invested in seeing the world through these stories that it has kept me from curiosity. It has kept me from compassion for myself. It has kept me from connection with others.

But as I've mended my relationship with myself, it has been easier to put these stories down. I can trust and rely on myself to ask for the support I need when I need it, rather than let that scared, quiet kid convince me that the only way through is to stuff my emotions down and do it all on my own. Even though it's well ingrained, I'm getting better at not demonizing others for what I'm not getting when I haven't even had the courage to ask. I know that I no longer have to keep quiet. I also know that the answers are in me and that I can trust myself to find and lead the way.

As my compassion for myself has grown — and I don't need to eject myself as often from the discomfort of my emotions and experiences — I have stopped interpreting the things that are unfolding in my life as bad or wrong. When something uncertain or challenging happens, I'm getting better at not listening to that story that says the world is out to get you. I'm learning to trade criticism and judgment for letting go and trusting myself. Now, when the urge to fix or force or hustle or control comes, I slow down, I get centered, and I ask: what is this experience trying to show me?

More and more, I'm trusting the relationship I have with myself to show me the way. I'm building the awareness, capacity, and compassion to be with all the feelings and fears and stay. This is where my power is. This is where all my sensing comes from. This is how I access my wisdom. This is how I shift from doubt to having faith in who I am and what I'm here to do in this world.

I will love myself well
I will treat my energy like a precious resource
Loving myself well helps me serve people well

Yung Pueblo

What are the emotions that are typically present for you in your reactions to things at work and in your daily life? What are they trying to show you? Are your wounds still open? What have you left behind that is asking for your attention and love?

I have made the commitment to prioritize, love, and tend to my relationship with myself. And I am done breaking this promise.

How about you?