Change Yourself Before Trying To Change Others

And before trying to lead anyone else,

You must learn how to lead yourself and your life first,

To see what is happening internally within you.

Every thought that you have,

Every emotion that you feel,

Is something that you can lead.

And if you want to step into better leadership,

We need to learn how to navigate our inner landscape first,

Before we try to navigate other minds.

We need to learn how this mind is working,

How we can utilize this mind,

Our own mind,

First,

So it works for us rather than against us,

Before we try to handle other minds.

Every mind is a beautiful garden.

And every thought that we have,

Every emotion,

Every feeling,

Is cultivating that garden.

There are seeds that we're planting in that garden.

And so we need to take charge of that first,

Before we try to plant seeds in other minds,

In other gardens.

And this starts with really leading the self.

And this is where self-mastery becomes of utmost importance for anyone who wants to lead the life intentionally,

Directed,

And wants to know 100% what's happening within themselves,

Is directed consciously and intentionally.

It is much easier to control what is happening within ourselves and guide and direct our response to every situation,

Rather than trying to control the response of someone else.

The other day I had a call with my client and I saw how our mind naturally tends to try to want to change the other person's response in a certain situation.

Because everyone we get in touch with,

Everyone that we try to communicate with,

Everyone that we connect with,

Has their own way of feeling about themselves,

What they think about themselves,

And their self-image in many different ways.

So whatever they're saying,

Whatever words they're saying,

Whatever words they're using,

And how they are communicating,

Leaves an impression upon our nervous system and our mind,

Our inner landscape.

And it makes us feel in a certain way.

And sometimes that feeling is not really something that we perceive positive.

And if we perceive something negative,

For example when we get critiqued,

We tend to get triggered.

And that trigger response leads us to respond in an uncontrolled way,

To respond with anger or with frustration.

And the words that come out of our mouth when we allow the anger to take over,

Is most of the time not really nourishing or cultivating a harmonious relationship with the other,

Even though our intentions might be the opposite.

Because in that moment when someone critiques us,

We want to feel the opposite.

We want to feel accepted,

We want to be acknowledged,

We want to feel like we belong,

And be seen and heard and felt.

Be seen and heard and felt.

And so if we do not set out our intention,

That we want to bring that quality in our responses,

What we end up cultivating is the opposite.

When we use words of anger and frustration,

The only thing that we cultivate in that relationship is anger,

Frustration,

Resentment.

But if we can know that to become aware in the moment we experience anger and we get triggered,

We feel the emotion of how someone lets us feel by hearing their critique.

And we can allow ourselves a moment to just allow the anger to be experienced without immediately responding and expressing words that you don't actually want to say.

And we can do that by simply allowing ourselves to feel the emotion first.

Notice how that made me feel in that moment.

You don't need to immediately respond.

There's no need for you to immediately react towards what someone has said to you.

Let it a moment in silence.

Turn inward and feel into the emotion.

How did what someone said just now to me affected me?

How do I feel about it?

How does that make me feel?

And observe the emotion.

This is not about judging the emotion for good or bad.

It is simply about acknowledging the emotion.

And I'm saying this because oftentimes we think we need to just be positive and we can only be positive.

That is not the point.

Balance essentially means knowing all your emotion and still choosing what you want to express independently from how you feel.

That means you become an alchemist to what you feel or how someone made you feel or has made you feel.

You're using the emotion and you intentionally direct it in the direction that you want.

And if someone makes you feel like you're not good enough,

If someone makes you feel like they're better than you and they know better,

That means it's their own wound.

It's their own way they feel about themselves.

And so oftentimes we're here to just be compassionate.

And compassion in this context,

In the way I approach it,

Is by simply allowing yourself to consciously respond rather than react.

That is the best kind of compassion we can give to someone by knowing how that made us feel and by that knowing how they feel about themselves and then still cultivating the intention that you're setting out.

Because what do we want to feel?

Acceptance.

We want to be acknowledged and accepted.

So how can our words now be coming from a place of acceptance?

How can our words be creating harmony and kindness and acknowledging energy in the conversation?

How can we create harmony with the next words that we're bringing into the conversation?

How can we make them feel accepted?

Because if they made us feel not good enough,

That means they're craving the feeling of acceptance themselves.

Because they have once received the same energy.

Someone has made them not feel good enough.

And so now they're sharing that energy too.

They don't know how to feel acceptance by themselves.

And so if you don't want to continuously cultivate not feeling good enough,

If you don't want to perpetuate the pattern if you don't want to perpetuate the pattern in the relationship,

Start by bringing intentionality in your relationship and seeing what is the emotion that the other wants to feel that I want to feel instead of not feeling good enough.

And so by seeing that you also want to feel accepted.

You don't want to feel not good enough.

What are the words that would bring that energy into the conversation?

What is it that you can say now from a place of acceptance that makes you first feel as well accepted rather than not good enough?

So you're just thinking about how you want to feel in the conversation.

You do not try to control the opposite side.

You don't tell them you should say and be more accepting.

It's not about trying to control their response.

It's about acknowledging what you felt acknowledging what you felt and then deciding how you want to feel in the conversation if you want to continue the conversation.

And so think about the words that would create acceptance and feeling enough within yourself.

What would you like to hear?

And now don't put them out to them to say this.

Say it yourself.

Say the things you want to hear from them yourself.

And so by that you bring the energy within you the harmony within yourself.

You alchemize the anger into harmony and naturally now the opposite side that felt that acceptance because now you have acknowledged them.

Now you have made them feel accepted and good enough.

Naturally their response will be influenced.

That doesn't mean that they're 100% gonna also relax but it will definitely be supportive in nurturing off the energy you want to cultivate within yourself.

So it's about taking charge of how you want to feel in conversations rather than waiting on the responses of someone else to make you feel in a certain way.

Because if you continuously wait for the right response in order to feel good in a certain way you always give away your power to the other person and they're becoming in charge of your own emotion.

You're giving your power away of how you want to feel within you.

And so we want to take that back.

We want to take charge of our own emotion in every situation.

And this is not something we can only apply in a conversation,

In our relationships,

But in every situation in life.

We are beings that can respond consciously.

We do not need to react unconsciously.

We have the ability to respond in a way that cultivates and nurtures that which we want to cultivate within us.

And that doesn't mean that we need to avoid or push away anger or negative feelings.

It's about acknowledging them,

Noticing them,

Accepting them,

And then alchemizing them through acceptance into harmony.

Because on the other side of every emotion there's an opposite side.

And so if we can see both sides we can create harmony and balance.

And that is to me compassion.

And you see compassion doesn't just apply in a social context.

It applies in every moment of your life.

Because you are continuously in conversation with the whole cosmos,

With everything you get in touch with,

Everything that you encounter from a table,

To a bug,

To a bee,

To a cat,

To a dog,

To the sky,

To the tree,

To the leaves,

To the flowers,

To the streets,

To the bikes,

To the cars,

To everything that is around you,

Surrounding you.

You're constantly in response with it.

And this is not an idea or a philosophy.

This is not a mental concept.

Right now you can see it experientially.

We inhale what is outside of us and exhaling what was just within us to the outside.

So there is an inhalation exhalation.

There's a responsiveness that is continuously happening,

A connection that is always there,

That keeps our system,

Our body and mind in a certain way,

In a certain state of balance.

If this connection wouldn't be there with the environment around us,

Our bodies couldn't find that state of balance or homeostasis.

But because this responsiveness happens in the inhalation and the exhalation,

The inner and the outer,

There's a constant adjustment,

A constant communication.

And that is what we can tap into as leaders.

This is what we can tap into if we want to be tapping into an intelligence that is beyond our logic and the framework we're usually operating at when we're in automatic responses.

Because automatic responses is what keeps us enslaved to our own mind.

And if you want to be free in our expression,

You need to learn how to respond consciously to everything around us,

To everything we encounter.

Because everything makes us feel in a certain way.

And so by acknowledging that,

You become more in tune with yourself.

Everything has to say something.

If you listen,

If you can listen,

Everything can be a guide,

Everything can be an insight,

As long as you can pay attention.

And so it starts with the self.

Being a great leader starts with yourself.

And self-mastery in its essence means to be able to observe without judgment,

To be able to see something beyond its likes and dislikes,

Beyond its sights,

But to see it as a whole.

And if you can see something as it is,

As it is,

You will naturally realize its beauty.

Its beauty even beyond its usefulness.

Because in a way,

It is a mirror of yourself.

Everything around you is mirroring some quality of you.

And so everything becomes a guide,

A lesson,

A message.

And if you can pay attention,

If you can observe,

You're slowly stepping into mastery.

The main difference between someone who has mastered themselves and someone who is a slave to their own thought and emotion is the reactiveness,

The automatism,

And trying to control that which cannot be controlled.

So I invite you today to become aware of your own thought and emotion with everything that you encounter,

Especially in your relationships.

And set an intention for yourself.

What is the kind of conversation,

The energy of the conversation that I want to cultivate when I am speaking,

When I'm using words,

When I'm expressing myself,

When I open my mouth and I'm using words?

What is the energy that I'm cultivating?

And so next time I feel triggered by someone that someone says to me,

I acknowledge it.

I allow the anger to be felt.

I accept it.

And by that,

I harmonize it.

And now I come back to my intention.

What is the energy that I've tried to cultivate here within this conversation?

And if it's harmony,

I will use words that create harmony within me.

Thank you for being here with me today.

I'll see you on the next episode.