The Art of Letting Go in Leadership
Suffering is an integral part of life alongside joy, love, pleasure, and desire. It permeates our existence as we pass from infancy through our adulthood to leaders.
Fear is universal – often we believe the deeper and the more we think, the better we can overcome it. But in fact, it is solely a state of mind. So, it is not what we think but rather how we think. But do we really understand fear as leaders? Do we understand and accept the circumstances under which it is normal to be afraid at all? Constant fears prevent us from letting go and forgiving – which is an essential leadership criterion.
The only place where fear can exist and grow is within our thoughts about the unknown. It is a by-product of our imagination. Causing us to be afraid of the situations that are not present and may never exist. On the other side of our maximum fear are all the best opportunities and options you can ever wish for.
That is why fear is a choice. Anything we thought was impossible, we find beyond overcoming fear.
How do we overcome fear? In peacefulness - the highest human energy we bear in ourselves. Peacefulness is experienced as perfection, bliss, effortlessness, and oneness.
It is a state of non-duality beyond any separateness and beyond the intellect, as in the peace that passes comprehension and hence acceptance. It is the illumination of deep insightfulness, a rare human realm that leads to imagination, awareness, ingenuity inspiration, visualisation that eventually is turned into a vision.
So how do leaders overcome the failure of success? How do leaders tackle the fear of being mediocre? How do leaders overcome the fear of success? How do leaders stay in peacefulness and face the fear of the unknown? It is their mental capacity not to think or to seek but to feel and believe in it. Because the way leaders think impacts their feelings and who they become.
Peacefulness is any leader’s seed to overcome fear and anxiety. 99% of people who become leaders never let that seed blossom into anything. It is the trials and tribulations through their life that either makes them become that seed or not at all. Naturally, we all fall as leaders several times until we realise the importance of that seed. The question is, do we get back on track through peacefulness or rather effort and ambition. That is why it’s ten times more important to experience that feeling of failure and vulnerability than faking or copy it. Because when we are confronted with fear, the sensation of fear will keep limiting us to feel things beyond than rather embrace what we think at that moment instead. This limits our consciousness.
That is why no one ever wants to experience fear but rather fake, escape or ignore it. But behind any fear is your persona - you who simply want to be a leader.
Too often we are lulled into believing that success is a marathon of life with the steps going higher, further and faster. The success of leadership is formulated through the experience of overcoming fears, failures and finding peacefulness within oneself.
Letting go of the kind of experience, knowledge or teachings you were taught, believed, behaved or even reacted to. Because some former experiences may limit you to see what is instead. In dealing with the inconsistency of the high ups, success, brutal unexpected failures and misery is where true leadership qualities take place. That is where the inner work takes place.
The real challenge in leadership is to be mentally, emotionally, insightfully and intellectually stable when we get knocked down. True leadership growth happens in how we handle such situations. Ask yourself as a leader, are you going through over and over again and again or are you growing through learning to alter your paradigm that leads to different comprehension? Are you, therefore, bigger and better because of your new paradigm? If yes, do it with grace.
This means through facing your fears you are going deep, deep down. You are overcoming grief, apathy, guilt, and shame. It can’t get any further. Overcoming in peacefulness and insightfulness creates true leaders who become champions.
Today’s true leaders are not defined by success, they define success themselves. They overcome their inner fears and anxieties and create safe and secure havens for all.
As leaders, we must not think anymore, plan or predict anymore, or escape anymore, ignore anymore, blame others anymore or rationalise anymore. Instead, stay in peacefulness, be aggressively determined and move forward all the way.
To read more about leadership and mindfulness: https://www.bondingandbelonging.com/