Part 1: Moving from one year into the next ...

Let my history then, be a gate unfastened to a new life and not a barrier to my becoming.  David Whyte   We humans are such funny creatures.  We have stories about everything and everyone ~ even ourselves!  Maybe especially ourselves.  And unfortunately, we ~ I ~ stick like crazy glue to that story.  Think about it.  When was the last time you surprised yourself by allowing some otherness, some unknown frontier to rise up and … arrest you?  Alter your path?  Carl Jung called that God.  We often think it is the devil!  How dare life deliver anything but our expected results, right?What is also true of us, is that most of us have a story that often differs in small or large ways from others’ stories about us.  Today, on the eve of a new year, we invite you to step outside your story about your history and who you are and who you can be.   Who exists beyond that story?  Discover your unknown, your unclaimed otherness, your becoming.…not known because not looked for…(T.S. Elliot)  So, why not consider seriously aligning with the call of 21st century life?  To trust and welcome the unknown, rather than resist it.  “To learn to love the unknown for itself, to take it gladly like a lantern to help you see where ordinary light will not go.”  For me this line suggests we align ourselves with a positive expectancy, similar to what we felt on Christmas morning as children.  What would be under the tree for us?  Our most cherished desires or something else, yet still wonderful?  Maybe more wonderful?  You are leaders, whether you are leading just yourself, into authenticity or an organization of hundreds.  You are leaders.  And you are 21^st century leaders, living in challenging, uncertain, and unpredictable  and terribly complex times. Now, how do you find your way to say YES to that fierce embrace?

EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

AND

EVERYTHING IS AT STAKE.

What an amazing time to be alive and part of history.  If anyone needs to become comfortable in the unfamiliar, the unknown, it is us: we rational planners and doers. I invite you to place, who you think you are, what you think you love, and what you think is possible for and through you, on your right side.  Set them down.  And allow your left side, your own dear unknown, to offer, to reveal, to announce itself to you.  As you move from this year passing away, it matters to name what is done and complete for yourself so that you can create the space to invite new growth and imagination into your life in 2013.  Consider using these questions to help you become clear about what needs to recede or die back in your life:

1. What is finished, complete in your life now? 
2. Where have you achieved substantial mastery and need to allow that particular gift to recede in order to create space for your next level of growth?
3. Where in your life might you be taking a strength of yours and over using it, or applying it to something that doesn’t need it?   For example, let's say you are a good idea generator.  You have most of them at meetings.  But what if NOW it is time to develop discernment.  The ability to pick between ideas, the one that will really hit it out of the park.    That means listening and observing and reflecting.  Opposite of the idea generator mode.  But if you keep going to the “creative” idea generator, it will actually become a liability.    This is an example of over-doing a strength so it becomes a liability.