I awoke in the middle of the night gripped by fear, my heart racing.
The gist of my dream involved a swirl of disjointed images and colors that captured my attention and left me unsettled to my core.
My fear seemed to revolve around the experience of change itself.
The heartbreaking, ugly kind of change that upends all we’ve come to know and hold dear: our families, our ways of working together, our experiences of one another in public and private.
Traces of fear stayed with me throughout the week until I found myself looking out the window over a beautiful valley.
From this vantage point all I could see were the lush mountains in Massachusetts where spring is flush with life, and beauty was unfolding as I was writing this piece while participating in a retreat.
The soft breeze and filtered light reminded me that there’s more to Life than my ‘next steps’ or 401K portfolio performance or what’s going on in the news.
All are reasonable concerns, yet, what’s top of my mind is a question about how we show up be together – today – as members of our human community.
Especially when we’re scared. It’s an essential question to ponder.
Earlier this year I wrote about heartbreak as a bridge, wondered about the notion of power itself, and concluded that working with life’s tensions is the way to go. This includes remembering what we know to be true about life.
Which is why I signed up for the retreat: to remember what I know about life, to resource my heart and mind and body, and to create space for just this kind of pondering and reflection so I can work with the tensions that live within me about the times we’re in now.
The words of Francis Schaeffer, a Christian philosopher, “How shall we then live?” kept coming to my mind.
Schaeffer reviewed the impact of Christian values throughout history, including Western Civilization, art, and thinking. He concluded that it’s important to return to a worldview rooted in truth, compassion, and care by engaging with culture.
That’s not what we’re witnessing today, writ large. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
I am clearly impacted by a not-so-subtle sense of fear running through me. How about you?
My own journey to grapple, understand, and explore those tensions over the past months has resulted in what author Susan Ban Breathnach calls “Divine Discontent,” those moments when we “…claim our own lives and wrestle our futures from fate. . .when we realize we can live by our own lights if we access the Power.”
If I can hold an image of a beautiful pearl that was created out of the grit in the oyster, I find I’m less judgy about my inner tensions and experiences, and other people too.
Last week on retreat, a new friend guided a few of us through a meditation on the question: ‘What’s in this new season?’ after she asked us to look out over the vista in the photo you see above.
She integrated our responses from the natural world into that practice, pulling in the ‘popping buds’ the ‘broad vistas of possibility’ and the sense of the gentle breeze we experienced together.
Afterward, I felt energized, emotionally resourced, and clearer on what I could do to channel my experiences of agita into something of service.
A few suggestions for you from my week away:
- Get outside in nature. Even 10 minutes is transformative. Breathe.
- Turn off all devices for a period of time. Notice what happens to your tension levels.
- Take time to pause and reflect on what’s true for you about ‘What’s new in this season?’
- Commit to one step you can take to support yourself to ‘accept life as it is.’
Let me know if fear is creeping into your dreams or waking moments or both. I’m open to connecting about what might help. Reach out to me at DrChris@q4-consulting.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABOUT THE CREATOR OF The Leadership Pause
I’m Dr. Chris Johnson, I coach changemakers and leaders with practical tools to pause, feel, and zero in on their old strategies to renew their energy, extend compassion, make clear decisions, and create real change by using their power skills. Learn more at: Q4-Consulting.com
I publish The Leadership Pause newsletter bi-weekly on LinkedIn. If you’re not already subscribed, click the Subscribe button to follow me too!