Everyone is a leader, when they consciously choose to hold the course of their inner compass in relationships, while staying connected
Why Leadership?
Because everyone has an impact on others, whether they want it or not; but leadership is deciding what type of impact you want to embody and inspiring people through your coherence. They follow you because they recognize something good in you.
Kevin Kruse from Forbes magazine (here) says that Leadership stems from social influence, not authority or power.
So what type of human being do we want to be, so others recognize what we have in common? Are you the leader you want to be?
Bronnie Ware (a terminal patients' nurse) dicovered from her work of working with patients on their dying beds, that we all really want: to spend time with our loved ones (beyond cultures), and to live our own lives (according to our own compass).
So human beings need an atmosphere of:
- Safety & Predictability: because they know we need to feel safe in the collective, and
- Openness & Trust: we need to be free to be/act different, in peace
Let's sum it up: Loving connections + Peacefully Free Individuals = We All need to Be Loved For Who We Are
So what is Leading with Love?
Leading with Love is Loving yourself first. Why?
Because when you (*really*) love yourself, with compassion for your shortcomings, with enthusiasm and care for your assets, loving others comes easy. It's always just you doing the noticing...!
Because when we love ourselves with all our quirks and fallibilities, we love others more, in their human-ness (that is, not perfect); then they love us more, and it is a positive feedback loop that is contagious across our networks!
We want to develop a loving network of caring friends, family, colleagues and more, to foster resilience (the ability to get up when you fall down), because the reality of the larger support network allows our pain to be contained, to be carried when we need it the most.
Mayan wisdom sees the other as 'another you' - we are all made of the same fabric, interconnected:
How do I start Loving Myself?
Make it a practice!
Louise Hay's Mirror Work book was a revelation to me: but the long, painstaking work of loving myself was really worth it. It involves looking in the mirror every day for months on end and telling yourself nice things such as 'I love you', 'You deserve ...', etc. Excruciating at first (I couldn't do it, then left it for months, did half, then got back to it a year later and completed it - now it is still a resource).
Really, any self-loving activity will do : I love my 'spa days', where I pamper myself for hours in self-care and love. You can take care of your self through physical activity, emotional well-being, spiritual alignment (journaling, therapy, taking the time to think about what you would love, in detail), exposure to Nature, and connecting with people that will support you having a loving self-image (because they love your specific traits and strong points, love themselves at the same time, and are able to tell the difference, and to accept it).
We can learn unconditional love ourselves, loving who we are no matter what. Take care of ourselves, listen to ourselves, and reinvest the sphere of our own body, personality traits and our soul (or embodied values: the immaterial feeling turned into flesh, presence and movement in the here-and-now).
Look at ourselves like a loving mother would see their child: perfect, right now, beautiful - a piece of magic, really -, atoms maintained together in the delicate and energy-flowing balance that we are. Shining.
One practice is to go back to elevating emotions (that call for the strength of the heart's field): love, gratitude, bliss, hope, etc.
Then our whole body functions much more effectively, our brains think clearer, and we have access to much more information.
We get 'hunches', aha moments in this pleasurable flow. We are also more likely to help others, and thus to reinforce good feelings in the first place.
When we are safe, we think with all the information and emotion available to us: we are a full human being, with heart and mind (with our fully integrated brain - both hemispheres).
So make it a priority to create, maintain, and reestablish a safety bubble for yourself, which will act as a buffer from which to handle pain (because then the relative size of the pain or discomfort becomes manageable, if experienced against a backdrop of loving connections and self-compassion). In proportion to the extent of the goodness that is, pain becomes manageable. Make sure your awareness of the good things is large enough to allow you to take in and handle the challenging aspects of the human experience.
One of the ways is to practice gratitude; breathing exercises, body awareness work; another would be to start looking, really looking: the Magic of the Presence of who We Are is stunning, in all that is. Study cells, stars, atoms, light, consciousness. Or to get familiar with more unifying and uniting perspectives - about yourself and about the world.
What do you feel right now? What matters to you? What do you care about?
What's the first step you can take to go in the direction of the fulfillment of that need? What can you do to embody that value into your body, into your world?