How To 'Mend' Your Inner Leader

I’ve failed to find a film hero(in)e to write about, so I’ve decided to share a different story...

Recently I’ve witnessed lots of ‘break downs’ – people, relationships, talks, whole countries – all breaking down.

It’s led me to consider (Option A) how we mend ourselves when we feel broken.

Option B is to carry the jagged pieces that keep triggering the pain inside us.

Option C is to try to throw the broken pieces out, but I have a ‘recycling mindset’ these days.

Option D is to break more things by acting out based on our outrage, anger, and revenge.

There are probably more..

Last week a dear friend shared a harrowing tale of two life-breaking events her daughter has endured in the last year. Her daughter is 13. It’s not my story to tell. I wondered - what does it take to heal at such a formative age, or at any age?

For me, the Japanese art of Kintsugi offers a useful metaphor...

Kintsugi?(金継ぎ, "golden joinery”)?is the art?of mending broken?pottery?by sticking the pieces together and filling the cracks with?lacquer mixed with gold,?silver, or?platinum.

This honours the breaks and repair as part of the history of the object to create a richer thing of value and beauty rather than trying to hide or disguise the cracks or

throw the pieces away.

As humans we all live with the reality that hurt, loss, grief, pain, and breakdowns are inevitable. But how do we mend? What helps us to gather the broken pieces of ourselves, put them back together, and recover after a ‘breakage’?

Often we have a strong human instinct to ‘Keep XXXX And Carry On’, ?‘work harder’, ‘distract’, ‘let time do the healing’, ‘have a few stiff drinks’, ‘cop an addiction’.

These are all forms of superb denial. And, I suspect, when we do this, the broken pieces travel inside us with their jagged edges still exposed. These sharp edges still hurt and easily remind us of the breakage. We get triggered. We relive the pain. We fail to reach a state of peace. We have no ‘closure’.

In contrast, if we choose to actively mend we ‘take the edge off’. The break remains visible but the jagged edges aren’t exposed, and no longer hurt us. It's an alternative to denial.

How do we do this? When we take time to STOP, examine the breaks, notice all damaged fragments, feel the hurt, and take the time to gently put them back together we are less likely to take our pain out on others and cause more breakages.

Here are some questions to consider if you feel broken right now…

1. How can you gather up the pieces and take time to have a good look at what’s there?
2. What support do you need? Sharing your story, asking for help from friends, family, or professionals, sharing your recovery journey, reaching out to know you're not alone…?
3. What’s the 'golden glue' you can use to mend yourself – kindness, self-compassion, time to grieve, crying, allowing your anger, sadness, disappointment, hopelessness, powerlessness to be – letting all the emotions wash through you like the tide going out?
4. What do you need to do to honour your pain vs paper over the cracks?
5. How will you let yourself see your strength to survive and to learn from the damage?
6. How will you re-make yourself, keep the cracks safe, and see the character in them?
7. Most of all – how will you see yourself as something of greater beauty?

Within this there is one simple idea –

kindly mend yourself with care. ?

Avoid the urge to rush into something new, distract yourself, or ‘try’ to force a quick fix.

I believe that mending is at the heart of leadership. By honouring our breaks and mends we become stronger and more valuable leaders – in our own lives. From here, we are better equipped to lead others with compassion, to accept their breaks and mends, and value them.

So right now…

• What ‘breakages’ are you carrying?
• What will you do to bring the pieces back together and make something more beautiful?

This is who you are as a leader.

This is leadership.