Self Reliance and Victim Mindset

Last month, I attended a Coaching/Leadership Mastery Course with Your Infinite Life, called Self Reliance. The focus in the course is about identifying situations where you may be using a Victim Mindset, and moving yourself towards Self Reliance. It was a profound learning experience, and one I'm still working on integrating. Below are some takeaways that I captured.

1. Hope as an inspiration but not Hope as a need

A lot of our weekend was focused on the idea of giving up hope. No, I'm not kidding. And that's not to say that 'having hope' is a bad thing. Hope is inspirational. Hope can be a source of aspiration. But it can also be a source of desperation. It can be the figurative act of beating your head against a wall. It can be a distraction from seeing what's possible, and a way of keeping yourself stuck in what cannot be. Where are you stuck? Are you holding on to hope as a need?

2. Accepting the Truth over Wanting Things to be Different

This is where letting go of hope serves us. If we put our energy into constantly wishing that things were different, we're wasting our energy. This act of showing up self-reliantly, and seeing others as self-reliant, means that we accept others as whole, capable people. Remember the Popeye episode where the old escalator stairs flatten out and Popeye and Olive Oil fall to the bottom of the stairs? That's the feeling that letting go of this tension reminds me of. Holding on to this 'wishing that things were different' has us continually trying to make it up the broken escalator and falling back to the bottom. Accept the truth of what is, and work from that point, rather than keeping yourself stuck in wishing things were different.

3. Detached Yet Connected

In coaching, there's a important tension to hold (or let go of): being "Detached, Yet Connected". A big part of coaching for me, has been a journey of learning to SLOOOOW DOWN and Connect. Real, true, open-hearted connection with the people/teams/ organizations I'm coaching. It's been a learning process, and frankly I'm still learning about this. I probably always will be. Sitting with the intention of detached yet connected has me not longing for the person to find some truth that I think I have for them or imparting some wisdom on them. It's about connecting, open-heartedly, to the truth they have within them. I'm detached from their outcome, but connected to them and their truth, whatever that might be. I don't own the work it takes for them to achieve their goal (detached), but I'm connected to them personally, and I care about their growth and serving them in that growth. Everyone has their own hero's journey to travel upon.

4. Stepping Into Our Power yet Accepting our Limits

There is incredible power in holding space for someone in an open-hearted, connected way; in showing up, and truly listening. Not listening for what you want to hear, but listening and sensing what is being said and felt. The power of witnessing the unleashing of a person's creativity is invigorating. And yet, we are limited in that power. Sometimes we have a inkling of and we are able to see something that the person, team, or organization we are coaching is not ready to see. We are limited in what we can do to get them to see that thing. In fact, this is where we are truly powerless. You know the old story about leading a horse to water. As they say, we can't make them drink.

Where are you stuck? Where might you be limiting yourself through 'holding on to hope'? What situations are you in where you have need for it to go a certain way, despite your limit in making that way come to pass? Let it be. Accept that the escalator is broken. Come at it from a different angle, but don't bring along that feeling of need or desperation. That feeling comes through in your interaction. Through that feeling, you take away your client's ownership of the problem/solution, and you take away their power.