I’m not sure at what point in my life I started to listen. Growing up my behavior was always self-destructive
and I found it difficult to listen to people and take advice. It seemed I was always either on the
defensive or on attack mode. Now,
looking back, I realize that this was all brought on by my low self-esteem and lack
of self -confidence. I believe that
personal growth started for me when I began to listen to others as well as
listen to myself. When I was able to
crawl out of the self-preserved cocoon that I had built, I realized that people
were not yelling and criticizing me all the time like I thought. They were actually trying to teach me. I think the first lesson when trying to
develop and sustain change in your life is that you have to listen. This brings me to my first big “a-ha”
moment. When I first met Polly, my Reiki
instructor and mentor, I was severely depressed. In fact, I went to her for a healing session
because a friend of mine recommended her.
I remember lying on her table while she laid her hands on my body and
“activated” my chakras. At the time, I
had no concept of the energetic being that I was. I had no idea that my body was made up of
more than just the physical sensations that I could feel with my human
senses. I wasn’t aware of the power of
my intuition. And neither was I aware of
how, years to come, my intuition would be a part of the foundation of my
personal growth and journey. This was my
first lesson in “listening”. Polly
taught me to listen to myself and trust my instincts. Whereas before, when my instincts kicked-in,
I would run like a bat out of hell in the opposite direction, I learned to be
mindful of my thoughts, feelings and intuitive feelings and use them to think
more critically. This helped me to make
better decisions and also improved how I related to other people.
Nora Vimala, my yoga instructor, was another mentor and what I
like to think of as a life coach. Under
her guidance I learned the concepts of “mindfulness” and “meditation”. Although Nora was far from being a traditional
business leader, her teachings and relentless observance of living a “mindful”
existence increased and shaped my emotional intelligence. In fact, one study conducted by researchers
demonstrated that there was a positive connection between the practice of yoga
and the enhancement of emotional intelligence (Adhia, Nagendra, & Mahadevan,
2010), At the time, I was undergoing a complete personal transformation and
trying to heal my emotional wounds. Nora
took me on a journey within and helped me see who I was with all my strengths
and weaknesses, or as McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston (2008) labeled the Real Self. Once you know who you are and where you are,
with the guidance of a resonant leader, it is easy to follow the path towards
where you want to be and become your Ideal
Self (McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston, 2008). During my training with Nora, I was unaware
that she was leading me through what McKee et al. (2008) describe as the process
of Intentional Change. Through this
transformative process I learned and experimented with new behaviors, creating
new and positive habits. I believe that
I was able to sustain these changes in my life because the environment that
Nora created for us was safe and felt free of judgments (McKee et al., 2008). These
teachings later would be another building block for my professional
transformation and I would learn to apply them to my work.
Although I feel that I am still a work in progress, I have
realized that my emotional intelligence has increased over the years because of
resonant leaders such as Polly and Nora.
The ability to identify my emotions, put them into perspective, manage
them has all made it easier for me to build trusting and integral relationships
with people (Boyatzis & McKee,
2005). I feel since I’ve gone
through the process myself of intentional change and it has made me more
empathetic to others who I wish to lead.
In fact, my own personal journey, which includes all my successes and
failures, makes me a stronger and more compassionate person when it comes to
leading groups of people and motivating them towards a common goal.
References
No comments:
Post a Comment