Recommended Read: The Infinite Self by Stuart Wilde
Sheri Lynn Fella
Most of May and so far, all of June, have felt like a roller coaster ride. No . . . not a roller coaster, they at least always stay on the tracks. It has felt more like whitewater rafting to me – no tracks, little spots of calm, euphoric celebration, terrifying drops with no bottom in sight, and teammates overboard while others keep paddling. Yea – that is it. whitewater rafting.
Leading and living by my values is hard, righteous, tricky work. Not on the inside – on the inside values give me clarity and grounding. But on the outside? That is where the white water is. It’s where my boat of values gets pelted with unexpected terror and energy drains. And yes jubilation and the thrills that only a team can creatively experience. As the captain of this boat that I call Bloombase, I have felt every ounce of the energy it takes to lead every hour of every day.
I don’t say that with gloom or with joy. I say it because it just is. I have felt both of those emotions and everything in between, and yet I lead. And I lead because of the decades and decades of learning that has come before this. I have leaned into my own discomfort and learning edges year after year, and yet I still find more and more to learn. I guess this is what Stuart Wilde meant back in the ‘90s when he wrote, “Infinite Self.”
Stuart’s book is where I first learned about the term “maya” – what the Eastern mystics call the illusion of an ego-driven world. I had no idea what that meant. I also knew little about what Stuart wrote, and yet it stuck with me. I have revisited this book many, many times over the years, and each time I read it a little more soaks into me. What I did get is that I create my own reality and that what energy I put out into the world I got back – internally and externally.
Reading it helped me to understand that no one is above the human lived experience. Understanding that I had the choice to “fight” hard things or transcend them was a massive pivot for me and my life perspective. It opened up possibilities for me on so many levels of my life.
While I still have work to do on my own harsh self-judgment, it was one of the first instances I remember giving myself a break. I also started noticing adjectives like good, bad, high, low, etc. and started asking more questions like how, what, and why.
Stuart tells us, “Looking at yourself can be uncomfortable. It’s difficult to learn to control the ego and discipline the mind without it reacting.”
I understood this passage theoretically but to practice it – that was a whole other level of understanding. Like whitewater rafting, you can watch it on tv and understand it, but to be in the boat doing it yourself is a helluva lot more daunting.
Leadership is the same. Reading some of the books on leadership with their external step-by-step plans seems theoretically straightforward. Living your own leadership practice? That’s whitewater – inside and out.
