In a recent conversation with a friend, I admitted to something I’ve been feeling embarrassed about lately. While working with the book The Four Agreements, I have been meditating and journaling on the first agreement, “Be impeccable with your word,” and it occurred to me that there is one area in particular where I struggle with this quite a bit.
As is sometimes the case, though, I didn’t notice this struggle in myself first. It took recognizing it in another (and when I say “recognize,” I mean “judge”) for me to realize that I, too, struggle with this issue. I was in conversation with someone who was really rubbing me the wrong way, and when I later explored why that might be so, I realized that they were exhibiting a characteristic that I don’t like within myself (well, hello there, projection).
While their particular brand of behavior was a bit different than mine, the underlying theme was the same: Our egos were in charge of the conversation, and the results weren’t pretty.
Is your ego running the show?
I can recognize times when I am communicating, not from a place of building connection but from a place of building up my ego, and these conversations have a distinctly different feel to them.
A few things that feel different about these ego-driven exchanges:
- I feel the urge to control–control my message, control how the other person receives it, control the outcome of our exchange. (Some dead giveaways: Obsessing over how I phrase things in an email or judging people for not taking my advice.)
- This control leaves me with an aftertaste of nervous anxiety, the hallmark of grasping and striving, because once I try to control something, the stakes feel higher since there’s now a chance that my desired outcome won’t come to pass. Before, I had no expectations, but now I do and I really wanna make them happen.
- I tend to go into analyze-and-judge mode. I assess what I think the problem is, and I feel very invested in people adopting my solution. A friend kindly pointed out that they feel like they’re “under the microscope” in these conversations, and it’s no wonder–they are!
- While I start out motivated by caring in these exchanges, this caring morphs into controlling, and I become disconnected from love–love for the other person and love for myself–and I communicate this not only through my words but my body language and energy as well.
This in and of itself was a lightbulb and a half, giving me something juicy to work on in my communication with myself and others. But this morning, another insight sprang up, and it feels really exciting to look at things this way.
Back to the embarrassing part
So, remember the embarrassing admission I mentioned earlier? Well, I admitted to my friend that it feels really important for other people to know how disciplined I am. In those ego-driven exchanges, I find myself becoming less focused on listening, supporting, and expressing my truth in a loving manner, and I am more concerned about portraying myself as a bastion of get-shit-done.
The conversation clues I was noticing were mentioning how long I have been doing such and such, or how I do x daily, or I always do this or never do that, even when that information wasn’t really relevant. I want to see myself as someone who follows through on my word and reaches my goals through disciplined action, and thus, it becomes very important to make sure everyone within earshot is aware of this, too.
Now, to be fair, I’m painting a pretty extreme picture to drive my point home, and there are many conversations where this motivation isn’t coming into play, but those ego-driven exchanges are something I deal with more often than I’d like.
The path from pride to passion
The insight that came through this morning, however, is giving me another way to look at this situation.
First, I need to honor and recognize this quality of discipline that I admire in myself. When I look at my life, I have abundant examples of things that I have created or maintained through discipline, and I have been consciously minimizing those achievements (both in my own mind and in rejecting compliments from others: “Oh, it’s no big deal…”) while subconsciously yearning for recognition. I vow to give this recognition to myself, rather than constantly seeking it from others. And when people do give me compliment, I’ll accept it gracefully!
Second, rather than using my discipline as a means of feeling superior to others, I can use it as a means of serving. This shift is a key that can unlock my purpose and allow me to manifest it in the world. How? Well, for example, rather than lording it over other people that I meditate every day, I can just shut up and meditate everyday. And whatever insights or lessons I learn from that practice, that is what I am being called to share, not how often I meditate and how awesome that makes me.
This idea of looking at how I most want to be seen (and how I most want to see myself) as a clue to my Soul’s calling feels really potent to me right now. It reminds me of Danielle LaPorte’s brilliant message of figuring out how you want to feel (identifying what she calls “your core desired feelings”), and then going after situations that will help you feel that way.
By figuring out who I am craving to become or be seen as, I am given clues as to how I am uniquely suited to serve. I’m craving to be seen as a disciplined person? All right, then–I can use that discipline to make the world a better place, not to build an ivory tower of superiority and isolation. Interestingly enough, this shift has delivered further insights in the form of projects I want to do and career changes I want to make, which I’ll be blogging about in the future.
How do you want to be seen, and what does that tell you about how you are uniquely able to serve?
