How to put you in control
And keep you from feeling helpless
Sometimes the hardest thing is to look someone else’s suffering in the eye. We may even go out of our way to avoid it.
Like crossing the road when you see them coming. This happened to a friend of mine, whose child had died in an awful accident. He saw people actively avoiding talking to him about it, or saying things like “I hope you’re feeling better now?”
Those people are not inherently uncaring. They probably care very much and want to help. They just don’t know how.
My friend was struggling, and so were they.
When we remember that within every one of us is a human being struggling to find their way, moments like this get easier.
In any difficult situation, we can turn away or we can engage.
The key to engaging well is thinking, feeling, and acting with compassion.
Let’s be clear: compassion is not for wimps. It’s not a ‘feel-good emotion’ (although it does feel good). It’s about summoning the courage to do the right thing, no matter how hard it feels. In difficult circumstances, it requires us to dig deep.
This may be approaching a friend in pain. Or having a difficult conversation with a colleague at work. Or disagreeing openly with your boss. Or standing up for what you believe in, when no-one else is.
With the eyes and ears of compassion, you see what’s needed, you recognise it’s hard, but you don’t feel helpless. You put yourself – not your difficult feelings – in control.
I call this Fearless Compassion. It’s how we cultivate the courage to speak and act truthfully, with the human being in mind.
It’s the third foundation of my leadership framework, Mindful Command. Because compassion is a vital instrument of sustainable success.
When you give compassion - not fear - the upper hand, you’re cultivating the courage to do the right thing.
Fear is everywhere, and it shows up in many different ways. It’s an intelligent emotion, until it isn’t.
Fear is also deeply personal; we all experience it differently. What triggers one person’s fear of failure, for example, may only register to another person as a minor blip. What matters is that we acknowledge our own fears and understand their impact on us and the people around us.
Common to many leaders I work with is an unconscious fear of failure, of inadequacy, or of rejection. These often show up emotionally as anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, or anger.
“Although most of us have been deeply conditioned by fear,” says writer and meditation teacher Jack Kornfield, “for the most part we’ve avoided directly exploring its nature. Because we’re not aware of its workings, it’s often an unconscious driving force in our lives.”
Your job as a leader (and as a parent, partner, friend) is to recognise when fear is present and not let it take control.
Fearless leaders cultivate the capacity to quieten all the voices in their head and speak only from their own true voice. They are at one with themselves. When they speak, people listen.
Compassion is what gets them there.
When fear is in the driving seat, the other parts of you – the clear, grounded, stable parts – are in the passenger seat.
You can reverse that.
How?
By creating a little space inside for the quality you need in any moment to surface and grow. Here’s one way to do that in the moment:
Pause;
Place a soothing hand on your chest (your heart centre);
Breathe consciously in and out;
Imagine you’re creating space inside for the quality you need more of right now.
And breathe that quality into your heart.
Perhaps it’s patience, or tolerance, or understanding, or self-belief, or love.
Whatever it is, this simple act of self-compassion reminds you that you’re not your fear, you are larger.
To paraphrase musician, activist, and former Beatle John Lennon, you’re giving the peace within you a chance.
With love from the mountain,
Sally-Anne