The power of compassion is changing the world in many wonderful ways. I know that many people reading this are part of that change.
However, over and over again, I see the most compassionate people I know unwilling to extend compassion to themselves. I see it because I know exactly what to look for. I used to be pretty void of compassion for myself for alot of years! We have compassion for humanity at large but beat ourselves up when we stumble or feel inadequate in business or family relationships or life.
I invite you take a moment and imagine the following:What if there was nothing more to learn, no future growth possible? What if we were as competent in all areas of our life as we were ever going to be? Think about that for a minute ……………. okay now stop thinking about it– Yuck. Pretty abysmal thought ain’t it? But day in and day out, many of us live as if this were true in one or more areas of our lives because we believe we can’t change. We may even feel we are unfixable or broken in some way or that ‘fixing’ would require risking a vulnerability we are just not willing to deal with and that it probably wouldn’t ‘work’ anyway. When we do this to ourselves we are living as if no future growth is possible so why bother even discussing it? This is the big lie we tell ourselves.
Now I am not suggesting we walk around in T-shirts announcing our weaknesses to the world. I am suggesting, however, that when fear of feeling inadequate, or stupid, or weak, or like a failure, stops us from going after our goals; when we invest more energy and emotion in making sure we do nothing that exposes our chinks, instead of living fullout and learning what to do about chinks as we go along, then we are wasting a whole lot of our life and our energy on things that are worth neither time nor energy.
The truth is we all have chinks in our armor. It’s part of the human experience As we begin to see our own humanity, we begin to see that the chinks in our armor are not defects but gifts to us that help us remember that we are by nature, learners and growers.
Do chinks keep us humble? you bet they do. Yet when I think of all the leaders I truly admire, all of them were humble, capable, passionate and had weaknesses that they neither boasted of nor denied — most of them made mistakes as they grew into becoming who they were meant to be and all were great life long learners who understood they were capable of growth in all areas of their lives. Just like you.
