'DO NOT BREAK FAITH WITH WHAT YOUR AWAKENED HEART KNOWS TO BE TRUE': Discovering the key to what will UNLEASH me?

This is the last in the current series of my articles on Dr John Scherer's "Five Questions that change everything". 

Q1: What CONFRONTS you?
Q2: What are you BRINGING?
Q3: What RUNS you?
Q4: What CALLS you?
Q5: What will UNLEASH you?

These five questions form the central design around which the generative and transformational leadership development intensive (LDI) is designed.  You can find my reflections on the previous four questions here

As we come to the conclusion of the LDI, or indeed, our exploration of the powerful questions, I reflect here on Q5:

• What will UNLEASH you? 

In his book, 'FIVE QUESTIONS THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING': LIFE LESSONS AT WORK, John writes that both pain and possibility are essential ingredients for transformation, one without the other is not sufficient.  He states that for 'fundamental change to take place in your life, you must:

1. feel some pain, some turbulence, experience of a breakdown of some kind,
2. see and want a new possibility,
3. but not know how to get there,
4. be committed to discovering a new way of thinking, and
5. open up to the possibility of transformation.

As I reflect on this question and John's points above, I am reminded of such a moment in my own life when I first attended the Tavistock Institute's Leicester Conference (LC).  The LC is not a 'conference' in the conventional sense of the word.  There are no keynote speakers, no seminars or workshops.  It is a deep experiential event held over 14 days, in which members and staff alike explore what it means to exercise authority, and take up leadership and followership roles in the service of a primary task within a temporary institution.  Without the familiar structures associated with a conference, members and staff are confronted time and again with not knowing.  There are invariably moments when it is a challenge to hold on to one's sense of self or a sense of reality. This is intended to offer up opportunities for learning about ourselves as well as group and organisational dynamics. 

During the 2nd week of this particular conference I felt overwhelmed and, quite frankly, lost.  I couldn't think clearly, I had no idea what I was trying to do or what I was supposed to be learning.  It seemed to me that I was stuck in an all too familiar rut of self doubt and confusion, while watching everyone appear to be absorbed in action and seemingly knowing what they were doing!  I decided to get outdoors and take a walk around the garden grounds to get away from it all.  Initially I was full of self reproach but as I slowed down and allowed myself to fully acknowledge my feelings of overwhelm, confusion, and self judgement, I gradually felt myself surrendering, letting go of my need to know, to understand or even to pull myself together.  I gradually experienced a gentle self compassion. For a brief moment my world slowed down and I entered a kind of liminal space.  What was most surprising for me was that at the very moment I began to let go, to simply BE, an idea began to crystalize in my mind, an idea about some small experiment I could make within the experiential event that would further my learning.  I relaxed, felt mobilised and able to return to the group with a sense of agency.  

Over these last few years, I've learned to trust these kinds of experiences.  As I have reflected further on this, I am reminded of the deeply powerful words of Dr James Finley, spiritual writer, and Pscyhotherapist: 

"Do not break faith with what your awakened heart knows to be true."  

Keeping faith with what's awakened in me is what continues to UNLEASH me?  

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