How to Look After Your Leader 2: Listen and Learn
We’re constantly surrounded by voices. The culture we swim in influences us through an endless stream of messages. And each of us is a leader with our own distinct voice.
It takes practice to turn the volume down on all the other voices and just listen to yourself, your leader. What Other People Want You to Do, What You Think You ‘Should’ Do and What You ‘Have’ to Do will all still be there, but making space to listen to What You Really Want is a vital part of looking after your leader.
The invitation is always there to pay attention to the signals arising in you. And the temptation can be to quickly interpret them, make a snap judgement and move on. But what happens if you stay a while observing, a silent witness, bringing curiosity, suspending judgement?
You are an intelligent system. The more deeply you listen, the more your internal universe begins to unfold and offer new information for you to learn from and use in your life.
You can practice listening to your leader for as little as a minute at a time, anytime, anywhere. Draw your attention in to yourself and start to explore the many layers of your experience…
What’s on your mind? And what won’t get out of there?
Our thoughts are usually the first, loudest, fastest thing we’re aware of, and we can get so fascinated by them that we forget they are just a part of our whole human experience. Thank you, mind.
How do you feel? What emotions are present?
How is your energy level?
What physical sensations are you aware of? Slowly scan your whole body. Notice the rhythm of your breath, of your heart. What’s your gut feeling?
And now that you’ve taken time to survey the landscape, pause. Write it down or draw it if you like…
What do you notice? What themes or patterns emerge? How’s your weather?
How are you interpreting your observations? What are you telling yourself they mean? What other interpretations might you consider?
What do you want? What are you longing for?
And then ask yourself, given all that you’ve observed…
What is the most loving thing I could choose for myself right now?
There are no right answers here, only right for you.
The more you practice listening to yourself, the more skill and sensitivity you’ll develop in attuning to the vast spectrum of your experience. And the more you’ll learn about the leader that lives in you.
Keep listening.
If you missed it, How to Look After Your Leader 1 offers some compelling reasons why you might want to do this.
I’d love to hear how the listening goes and what you learn. Let me know.