Without awareness, there is no choice.
My yoga teacher said this in class yesterday as we entered our eighth (and final) wheel. Exhausted, I felt this truth bomb explode in me.
I connected it immediately to my coaching. Coaching begins with Discovery, the purpose of which is to increase your self-awareness – who you are and how you’re perceived by others.
Awareness
Knowing who you are starts by identifying your values. It’s about learning how you self-sabotage under stress because I guarantee you have specific strategies and defences for handling your fears that you use habitually. In coaching, you figure out what motivates you intrinsically and how you show up when you’re at your best and, conversely, when you’re not.
The gift of awareness, as my yoga teacher instructed, is realizing you have choice.
Discomfort
You grow personally and professionally by facing resistance. Remember that friction and resistance are inherent to the process of change.
Some fear change, expecting it be painful, and while it can be, most of the time it isn’t. That’s just your saboteurs yapping. In fact, change usually engenders discomfort.
Notice the distinction between discomfort and pain.
Consider exercise. Warrior II causes discomfort as your heart pounds and your breath naturally wants to constrict. You learn how to breathe through the discomfort of Warrior II but are recommended to shift to child’s pose if it’s painful.
Choose discomfort but not pain.
Awareness helps you identify the source of your discomfort. Without awareness, you may not recognize you have options. You may feel stuck or obligated instead of empowered to find the right outcome for yourself.
Awareness in Action
Last night, I woke up at 3 AM thinking about all I needed to get done.
With self-awareness, I recognized the worry pattern. I was thinking AGAIN about something I couldn’t resolve in the middle of the night. My thoughts looped in circles leaving me in a frustrating, fear-based state.
To shift out of it, I penned a message on a little notepad I keep beside my bedside table. Writing helps me release my worry because, in truth, I also worry about forgetting my worry!
Then, I practised my 3-7-8 breathing. It drew me out of my head and back into my body. I had to do this cycle of worry/breathing a few times to settle down … but it worked.
In the morning, I wrote my Morning Pages and made a list of everything I needed to do, prioritizing what was most important. I reminded myself that organization is the strength of the Stickler, my primary saboteur.
Positive Intelligence teaches that each saboteur has a strength associated with it. I explain to clients that the saboteur’s strength weakens when used to the extreme, like the law of diminishing returns. Functional becomes dysfunctional.
In Sage mode, the Stickler brings organization and order into ambiguity and chaos. Taken too far, however, the Stickler becomes an anxious perfectionist who experiences relentless frustration with self and others.
Choice
I’ve shared how to respond to saboteurs using PQ reps. Choose the ones that work for you. Writing works for me. It grounds me and then I can proceed.
As my earlier illustration shows, I still get tripped up by my saboteurs (although less so now than before). I’ve learned it’s not about what happens, it’s about how you respond to it. In your response – when you’re in Sage – you’ll discover you have choices.
In sum, you get to choose your response: positively, with love, or negatively, in fear.
My recommendation is to choose love.
Header Photo by Jose A.Thompson on Unsplash