Void if detached

I promised to experiment and share those experiments here, together with the inevitable failures. This time I want to share experiments centred around one of my hardest struggles: expressing myself. I don't mean talking eloquently. What I do mean, is speaking my mind, sharing what is important to me, and talking about my emotions.

This is not something I started experimenting with recently. I've been consciously working on my emotions for at least 10 years now. At first it was simply accepting that I have emotions instead of trying to get rid of them, and trying to understand what I was feeling. That's still something I struggle with, but I am much better at it than 10 years ago.

Who I am: my values and behaviours

More recently I have started digging into who I am and what is important to me. My thinking is this: if I want to speak my mind on issues that are important to me, I had better figure out what is important to me. My key values seemed a good place to start, so I did an experiment to identify my top 2 values, using an exercise from Brené Brown's "Dare to Lead". I started with her list of values, and reduced it to my top 2 values. Then I wrote down some behaviours that support my values, as well as some "slippery behaviours": actions I'm tempted to do even though they're counter to my values.

Getting the list down to 2 values was extremely hard work, since so many values on the list appeal to me. But as Brené Brown says: "If you have more than 3 priorities, you have no priorities.". I'm still not convinced that I've nailed it, but it is good enough for now. My top values are compassion and growth. With growth I mean learning and personal development of myself and others. I found it hard to strike off authenticity, caring, connection, courage and respect. They are important to me, but for now I think compassion and growth sums up what I stand for.

Coming up with the supporting and slippery behaviours was even more difficult: I couldn't just choose things from a list, I had to discover them myself. At first, I came up with some bullet points like "asking questions", "being present", and "giving feedback". I am deeply grateful to my buddy who reviewed my example behaviours. Clearly, I could improve on what I had. I borrowed some of her examples, like "Trust myself to be okay and still be able to grow." A big improvement, but I'm still not completely satisfied: the slippery behaviours didn't feel like me in my worst moments. I have an appointment with a certified Dare to Lead coach in September; getting clear on my values and behaviours is one thing I hope she can help me with.

Expressing myself in difficult conversations

To help me speak my mind and show my emotions, I started reading "Difficult Conversations". The book includes the warning: "Failure to Express Yourself Keeps You Out of the Relationship". That resonates with me: I tend to hide my emotions and opinions (less so these days, but I still hide my emotions more than I should). Part of the advice is about expression: "Speak for Yourself with Clarity and Power" is the name of one particular chapter.

This made me think a lot about the apparent contradiction between my value "Compassion" and not showing my own emotions and opinions. How is it that I can be compassionate yet at the same time appear detached? It made me wonder if I am as compassionate as I think I am. I guess I value compassion, but I don't always know how or dare to show my compassion.

I've started a simple experiment with this advice in mind. I want to show more of myself, to avoid appearing to be detached from my colleagues. I hope to become more compassionate by being less detached. Since I've just started a new assignment, the introduction meetings seemed the perfect place to start.

I asked the department secretary to schedule 1-on-1's with each of the management team. I also scheduled 1-on-1's with each of my team members. I intend to use these to explore their values and share mine. I consider that a first step: talking about values is a way of giving myself permission to show my emotions and opinions later on.

I've only had a few of these 1-on-1's so far, with a few more scheduled each day from now on. The results so far are encouraging: simply sharing my key values has made each meeting feel more personal and meaningful than similar meetings on previous assignments. I've shared more about myself than usual, and because it was related to my values it didn't feel awkward. It is too early to say if this will help me to show my emotions. I hope to share that in a future post.

Learning more about myself

As I reflect on these two experiments and what I've learned, I see that there is a lot more to learn. For example: I'm not convinced I've picked the right values (my inner critic is whispering "compassionate? honestly!"), I'm still struggling to identify my emotions (there are so many of them), let alone speak about them (I don't seem to have the right vocabulary for emotions). I still struggle with difficult conversations (I'll do that tomorrow).

And yet, even though all of that is true, it is also true that I'm doing great. I'm more aware of my strengths and weaknesses, I sometimes manage to express my emotions, I do occassionally take on a difficult conversation. I feel I'm speeding up my learning, thanks to the feedback and support from my inner circle: coaching buddies, coaching circle ("Intervisiegroep"), workshop partners, and many other people I work with.

I've been investing more time in strengthening my inner circle this year. Now that I've started to experiment more, their support and feedback is invaluable to help me celebrate my successes, and to see my failures as learnings.

So even if I haven't figured out my true values, and if my introduction meetings don't help me show my emotions and opinions, I'm sure each experiment helps me along in some way.