by Heather Plett | Nov 1, 2010 | Leadership, Uncategorized
As life and time take me further and further away from that incredible circle of women who met by a lake last weekend, I continue to reflect back on the powerful things that can emerge when we sit together and imagine “what transformation can we birth if we share our hearts in circle and story?”
Let me share one of the stories I’ve brought with me from that weekend…
In the middle of the afternoon on our third day together, we had free time to replenish ourselves in whatever ways we needed to. Two beautiful older women (“crones”, we came to call them, and not in a negative way) who brought the wisdom of the labyrinth into our circle invited me to join them in creating a labyrinth out of the fallen leaves outside our meeting room. I was eager to join them, but knew that first I needed some time to myself to wander in the woods.
The golden energy of so much wisdom and authenticity and yearning and love that had been shared around the circle that afternoon carried me off into the woods on a cloud of peace and fullness. Or perhaps, to use a more personal analogy – carried me off on a horse named Sophia. We had been sharing that afternoon about how much we yearned for more feminine wisdom and energy in our workplaces, our halls of learning, and our communities.
Punctuated throughout our circle time that weekend, and again as I headed into the woods for some personal time with God and Gaia, were the sounds of gunshots from the other side of the lake. Geese hunters, we presumed.
The sharp contrast of the circular, gentle, feminine energy on one side of the lake and the violent, loud, masculine energy on the other side of the lake was a constant reminder of the tensions that exist for all of us. Not only in society as a whole, but within each of us individually, there exists both masculine energy (animus, from Jungian psychology – rational, direct, practical, assertive qualities) and feminine (anima – creative, intuitive, feeling, visionary qualities). Both have beauty and yet both have the possibility of becoming corrupt or too all-encompassing.
As I followed the path through the woods, and listened to the rustling of the leaves, the honking of the geese flying overhead, and the occasional gunshot across the lake, I found myself yearning to (figuratively) row into the middle of the lake to meet the men for a pow wow. To move past the tensions and find a way for the masculine and feminine energy to co-exist without either swallowing the other up. To encourage both men and women to embrace their feminine side along with their masculine side. Yin and yang together in a circle.
Despite the gunshots, the walk through the woods replenished me as I knew it would, but then something happened to deplete my energy once again. Near the end of the trail, someone had dumped a lot of big household garbage – an old couch, old appliances, etc. Standing there with the tranquility of the woods behind me, and the jarring presence of garbage in front of me, I found the sadness welling up within me. This garbage suddenly represented oil spills, the plastic island floating in the middle of the ocean, and all of the other travesties humans are causing all over the world (including, shamefully, the garbage that comes from my own household.)
What blights we allow to appear all around us when we stop caring about the way we treat our earth!
Carrying on down the path, I spotted a path marker – a weathered old wooden sign standing with its back to me. When I reached it, and read what was written on the front, I stopped short. Just one word – “Lifeline.”
In that moment, God whispered in my ear “You are called to offer a lifeline. All of those things that saddened you back there – the tension with the (distorted) masculine energy across the lake, the garbage marring the face of Mother Earth – they represent a lot of lost and hurting hearts. They need a lifeline. Badly. And it’s you. And your circle of powerful women.”
Wow. That’s a pretty huge calling! I felt a little shaky. I had to stand there for a moment before I was ready to move on.
As I got closer to the retreat centre, I paused for a few more photos in the woods. On the ground, half buried in dry leaves, I spotted something white that was clearly not organic. Moving the leaves away, I realized it was a bowl.
I almost ignored it, but then the voice came again “you can’t do anything about the couch or all of that big garbage, but you CAN do something about this bowl.” Right. Just do my small piece.
So I picked up the bowl and carried on. As I fingered it, though, it became more than just a ceramic bowl someone had discarded. It became a begging bowl, like the ones the Buddhist monks carry into the village every day, trusting that it will be filled with just enough food to sustain them for that day. It was a reminder that, if I am called to offer a lifeline, I also need to trust that God and my village will sustain me with the energy and hope that I need every day.
Back at the retreat centre, I found the women near completion of the labyrinth. I rejoiced with them as they swept the last of the leaves into their designated circles.
And then, because it seemed like the right thing to do, I walked to the centre of the labyrinth and danced with my begging bowl, honouring the labyrinth, and honouring this incredible circle of women who were filling my bowl with so much goodness to sustain me for my journey away from the circle and into my future.
Note: it is never my intention to point blame when I talk about “masculine energy” or to imply that men have it wrong (gunshots) and women have it right (circles). That would be far too simplistic and not at all what I believe. I do, however, believe that we have not sufficiently learned to blend the feminine in with the masculine when it comes to leadership and organizational structures in our politics, communities, businesses, and homes, which is why I am working on launching my Sophia Leadership site soon.
by Heather Plett | Jun 30, 2010 | Leadership
This morning I rode my bike to work for the first time in about a week. Soccer schedules and grad dinners and ceremonies kept getting in the way, and so I road the bus for a few days.
Yesterday, on the bus ride to work, I found myself filled with all kinds of sadness and worry – a lousy way to start the day. When I stepped off the bus at the office, I knew exactly what I was missing and why I felt so ill prepared for my work day. I needed movement. I needed fresh air. I needed to pedal my concerns away and spend a half hour in meditative motion before tackling the things that were stressing me out.
This morning, I cycled, and it was good – very good.
I started out this morning feeling stressed out, worried about the annual performance reviews I have to do with my staff this week. It’s no secret that I detest the annual cycle of filling out performance reviews, meeting with each of my staff, going over the same things year after year, and then seeing no significant changes in the staff or in my relationships with them. I’d spent most of yesterday afternoon wrestling with the template and forms I was supposed to use, and I’d finally gone home in defeat. This morning at 8:30 sharp was my first meeting, and I was seriously ill-prepared because I hadn’t gotten my paperwork done.
As I cycled, I tried to give myself the annual pep talk. “Just get through it. Do the stuff you need to do, have the dreaded talk, submit the forms to the HR files, and move on. You can do it! Just like last year and the thirteen years you’ve been a manager before that!”
But despite the pep talk. I was miserable. This wasn’t working. Nobody was gaining anything from this. WHY did I have to “just get through it”?
And then I heard a little voice that sounded a lot like my very own wisdom… “It’s not working, so don’t do it. Scrap the old way. Ignore the HR rules. Do it YOUR way. Make it work for you and your staff.”
What? Do it MY way? Surely this was foolishness! How could I ignore the “right” way to do things? And what could I put in its place?
“Just have a conversation,” wisdom whispered. “Just admit to your staff that you don’t trust the old way of doing things and let them set the tone. Just ask them how things are going and how they’d like to see things go and see what happens when you leave an open space for them to speak.”
It felt like a cop-out – a lazy way out. Just a conversation? No forms, no templates, no agonizing over a prescribed process? Buck the system? Ignore the “right” way to do it?
But… because I’m working harder and harder at trusting the wisdom voice when it pops up, I decided to go for it. At 8:30 this morning, I began the first new version of the “annual conversation” with one of my staff. “The old way’s not working,” I began. “I have very little to say, and no form filled out. I just want to know how you’re doing, how you feel the year has gone, what some of your hopes are for next year, and how I can help you get to where you need to go.”
And then we talked. And talked some more. It was open, it was relaxed – it was truly one of the best conversations I’ve had with this employee in six years. We wrestled with some things, I did some deep listening when he admitted some of his hurts and struggles, I admitted where I could have managed things better, I coached him to see some new paths for some tough relationships, and we never once wrote anything down on a form. It was brilliant, easy, and constructive.
What did I learn today?
- Move! When your body moves, your mind clears and things click into place the way they should. Wisdom likes to show up in an active, engaged body.
- Trust the wisdom that comes from your own experience and your own truth. Don’t let the negative voices over-rule it. (For a truly inspiring post on this, visit Julie Daley.)
- If you need to, overthrow the “rules” and the “right way to do things” and replace it with the way that works for you. In the long run, everyone wins.
- Just because something feels too easy or downright lazy doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do! Sometimes the best results come from the easiest solutions.
- Listen. Don’t fill all the silences with your own words. Just listen deeply and wait for what needs to emerge.
p.s. This is the kind of thing I’ll be writing more of when I launch my new big idea… SOPHIA LEADERSHIP! Watch for it at the end of the summer.
by Heather Plett | Jun 21, 2010 | journey, Leadership
Michael Chender, ALIA
“Bring your vulnerability, your tenderness, your fear. Bring your questions – bring the things that puzzle you. Be prepared to hold ambiguity – to sit with the ‘not-knowing’. Open your heart and your mind to yourself and to the other people in the room.”
That may not be exactly what Michael Chender (one of the founders of ALIA) said in his opening speech, but it’s the way that I remember it. I wrote this in my notebook: “Wow! An opening speaker who welcomes our vulnerability!” His speech has stayed with me ever since.
How often have you sat in any workshop (especially one focused on leadership) and been told that your vulnerability is a valuable place to start? The leadership training I’ve received in the past tends to focus on strengths, confidence, vision – certainly not vulnerability. That’s for weaklings.
I think it was about that time at ALIA when I felt the tears well up in my eyes and they stayed pretty close to the surface for the remainder of the day. In the past, when I’d followed my intuition and used my vulnerability as an asset in my leadership, I had almost always been faced with resistance and blocks and my own fearful gremlins. And almost every time, I’d tucked my courage and convictions away and gone back to putting on my “confident and unshakeable leader” face.
The challenge didn’t stop with Micheal Chender. Later that same day, at the beginning of our “Leader as Shambhala Warrior” workshop, Meg Wheatley’s first question to us was “What breaks your heart?” Really? What breaks my heart? This is the starting place for a journey toward warriorship? Indeed it was! The things that break our heart are the things that drive us forward – that give us purpose, vision, and strength to carry on.
During the week at ALIA, the term “strong back, soft belly” came up often – especially during meditation practice. When you sit in meditation, you are taught to sit with your back straight and strong and your stomach relaxed and vulnerable. This is not just a statement about posture – it’s a statement about how we are encouraged to live. Every day. Our strong backs remind us to have courage and strength in the face of adversity and fear – to hold firmly to our values. To be warriors. Our soft bellies remind us to make ourselves vulnerable to each other – to show compassion and extend understanding and forgiveness to ourselves and others. To open our hearts.
Today was one of those days when my “strong back and soft belly” were put to the test. In more than one situation, I was in the position to extend compassion to people who needed it, and yet at the same time was required to establish boundaries and to maintain an unwavering commitment to protecting and serving as a warrior for other people who were being negatively impacted by the same difficult situations. If I said I was completely successful, I would be lying (I had to fight hard not to let fear and anger play the parts they wanted to play), but I did my best and, with a combination of prayer, meditation, and turning to other people for support, I made it through the storms to the other side.
Sometimes, we choose either strong back OR soft belly and forget that we can hold both at the same time. Sometimes we treat people with too much kindness and forget that they also need us to hold firm to the boundaries in our relationships. Other times, we put up strong walls to protect ourselves or others and forget that compassion is also necessary.
I say this to you… Bring your vulnerabilities. And bring your strength too. It’s what every good warrior (and a true “Sophia leader”) does.
(Yes, in case you’re wondering, I’m thinking that the next step in the journey is taking me toward “Sophia Leadership”.)
by Heather Plett | Jun 17, 2010 | art, beginnings, change, Creativity, fearless, journey, Leadership
I don’t remember the question that we were supposed to discuss at our table group, but I remember where it lead us. One of the women at the table was the newly appointed head of a women’s program at a university. She was wrestling with where she needed to lead the organization after the departure of its founder.
She’d had an a-ha moment that week and had come to realize that what was ironically missing in the program was a truly feminine approach to leadership. It was modeled too closely after traditionally masculine styles and needed to evolve into something new. I think it was during our conversation that she had the even deeper realization that she had, in fact, been hired because her background in engineering made her well skilled at thinking like a man.
What she said touched me in a place so deep I didn’t even know it needed touching. “Yes!” I said. “YES! That is a systemic problem! I see it everywhere! It’s the major flaw of the feminist movement – that it poured so much of its energy into getting us access into men’s role and teaching us to adopt men’s wisdom and leadership styles that it forgot about what it SHOULD have put energy into – raising the value of women’s voices, women’s roles, and women’s wisdom and leadership styles.”
Spilling out beneath my words were so many memories of the times I’d tried to introduce things like “feeling checks” into staff meetings, or clay molding into annual visioning exercises – the many times I’d intuitively felt compelled to introduce a more feminine style of leadership. BUT almost all of those times I’d been met with so much resistance that I’d simply given up and fallen back on old models. Oh, I could write a book about the times when I let the fear hold me back from what had always come so naturally. Too many times I saw those things dismissed as frivolous, or “just a silly girl’s ideas”.
During the course of our conversation, something rather magical happened. I don’t think I realized just how magical it was until it was done. There were markers at our table and a paper tablecloth. As I so often do when I’m sitting in a meeting, I picked up a marker and started to doodle. The man at the table asked “can I add something to your art work?” and I said “oh certainly!” And then, with a gesture, I invited our other two tablemates to join in the fun.
It seemed innocent enough, but it was transformational. Soon, we were all animated and energized in both our conversation and our art-making. Each of us added our unique flare to the tablecloth and each of us built on something the other had done. At one point – though I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it – the man at the table tried to put a square black border around the area where we were making art. Something bubbled up from within me and I resisted, scribbling all over his border as he drew. The other women joined and soon we had spilled over the border into every direction. Defeated, but with a good sense of humour, the man happily added to the “outside the box” art. (To be fair, at another point, I ruined a sun that the man was trying to create by prematurely drawing a line around it.)
By the end of the discussion, we’d filled the whole tablecloth with art, and we’d helped the leader of the woman’s program realize some of the steps she’d need to take when she got home. On top of that, I think each of us at the table had a unique a-ha moment that emerged from both the art and the conversation.
Mine didn’t fully evolve until later. I knew that something significant had happened, but I didn’t at that point know just HOW significant. Some day I think I will look back at that collective doodle art and remember that it represents the moment my life changed.
Because, my dear friends, that moment was the culmination of so much wrestling, so much thinking, so much struggle to find my focus, my truth, my place of belonging. Remember the necklace metaphor – how it wasn’t the struggling that untangled the necklace but the slipping from my hands and dropping to the floor? Well I think that moment was the “dropping to the floor and untangling my truth.”
What am I talking about? I’m talking about THE VERY THING that I’ve been grasping for. For years now I’ve known that my greatest energy comes from sharing wisdom – through facilitating workshops, writing, public speaking, etc. – about the things I’ve learned about creativity and leadership. I’ve known that somewhere in all of that lay the nugget that would lead me into the next phase of my vocation. Only… I couldn’t seem to find the right shaped nugget to fit me. It all seemed too general, too vague – too unfocused. I thought I found a few times, but it never felt quite right.
And now, after a week at ALIA, and especially a remarkable moment of doodling, I have clarity that I’ve never had before. The purpose that is evolving for me is TO TRANSFORM LEADERSHIP THROUGH FEMININE WISDOM! There it is! Bringing more creativity, compassion, art, soul, and holistic truth to leadership. AND helping those people who think their feminine passions and gifts – art, spirituality, motherhood, body wisdom – do not make them qualified for leadership recognize that the world needs them to help in its transformation.
It’s simple and yet it makes so much sense. Look around you – wars, oil spills, climate change, oppression – isn’t it clear that we have a leadership crisis on our hands? Isn’t it clear that the old models aren’t working anymore? It’s time for a new model and I believe that new model includes a much bigger space for feminine wisdom. I’m not saying that all the male leaders need to be replaced by women – I’m simply saying that both men AND women need to learn to trust their feminine wisdom more.
It’s an idea as old as the Bible, and yet as often forgotten and marginalized as so many other truths in the Bible. Sophia. Wisdom. FEMININE wisdom. It’s what Solomon wrote so many sonnets about. It’s the feminine wisdom of God.
THAT is the power I’ve been called to stand in, the wisdom I’ve been called to share. It’s time to get busy sharing it!
How will this evolve? I’m not quite sure, but I am excited. I know this… I am not really “fumbling for words” anymore. This is something new and it will need a new space. Maybe it’s “leading with your paint clothes on” or maybe it’s “sophia leadership” or maybe it’s something else I haven’t thought of, but I’ll be spending the summer thinking about it and hopefully by September something will have emerged.
Hang on for the ride, because it will most definitely be colourful and exciting!
by Heather Plett | Jun 14, 2010 | change, journey, Leadership, travel
My head, heart and body are full of the memories of last week at ALIA. I have been changed.
I have been transformed by the many people who brought their vulnerability, their longings, their spirits, their truths, their hurts, and their gifts from all over the world to a common space in Halifax where all of us dreamed together of what the world could be like if we would put our heads/hearts/bodies together and work for transformation. I have sat with people from Sri Lanka, Brazil, Czech Republic, Chile, Poland, California, Alaska, Holland, Denmark, Ohio, Zimbabwe, and many places in between, holding space for beauty, wisdom, and goodness. I have moved my body with greater freedom than I have for a long, long time. I have sat quietly and listened to the wisdom of the earth. I have shed tears over the fears that have blocked me. I have stretched myself and delighted in the stretching of those around me. I have been comforted, inspired, encouraged, and changed.
It will take me weeks to fully distill all of what last week was for me. It will take even longer to let the changes and wisdom sink fully into my being. These things I know for sure: I felt like I was coming home, and I knew I had found “my people”.
There are lots of posts to be written and many conversations to be had, but none of that needs to happen quickly. For now, I am mostly just sitting with it and letting it seep into the deepest parts of me.
For now, while words feel inadequate, I am playing with images. Last night I put together this simple video of photos I took during the week. The words come directly from my journal – notes I took from workshops, presentations, and conversations.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nPAuZwW6cw]
Photos are available here.
by Heather Plett | Jun 3, 2010 | beginnings, journey, Leadership
I am excited beyond words about the trip I will take to Halifax next week to attend Authentic Leadership in Action. I have been to a lot of conferences, retreats, and workshops before – some good, some bad, and some indifferent. This one, in addition to the fact that it feels like conference/retreat/workshop all beautifully intertwined into one entity, feels like it just might have the capacity to blow the lid off “good” and plop itself comfortably into the rare category of “very good”.
I know it’s not right to judge a book by its cover (or count your chickens before they’re hatched), but there is something about this one that feels uniquely like “going home”. All of those other conferences/workshops/retreats felt like they intersected with one part of my brain or responded to one part of my “professional development plan”, but this one… well, it feels like it’s something new. Something that’s willing to spread its arms out to me and wrap every part of me – body, mind, and soul – into a comfortable embrace.
How do I know this already? Well, for starters, they speak my language. They talk about things that matter deeply to me – leadership, transformation, authenticity, compassion, justice, and creativity. For another thing, they don’t just TALK about these things, they embody them. Imagine going to a leadership conference that starts every day with mindfulness meditation? Or one that offers a sea-kayaking trip as an option? Or one that includes art and theatre and aikido?
It’s brilliant, and it makes SO MUCH SENSE, but it’s OH SO RARE. There are still so few conference organizers who have figured out that they should do anything more than offer you a bunch of academic talking heads (with perhaps a networking event or two thrown in for good measure).
I am excited, but you want to know a little secret? I’m nervous. Even a little bit scared. It’s not that I’m worried I won’t enjoy it – it’s just that I’m pretty sure that it will challenge me, shake me up, and call me to something BIGGER.
Recently I talked about the Pheonix Process that Elizabeth Lesser describes in Broken Open. Well, the little person inside of me – my scared little ego – is terrified that this conference is going to call me to BLAST OUT of the flame, with my colourful wings flashing toward the sky and RISE UP into something new. Something bigger. And something freakin’ scary.
I don’t know what that is yet. And here’s the bottom line. Here’s the little question that keeps niggling at me.
Am I worthy?
Am I really worthy of a bigger calling? Am I really ready to do something more bold? Am I willing to give up things (and possibly relationships) and risk the life I have for something scary and unsure? Am I willing to be authentic to my calling, make myself vulnerable, open myself up to the world, and then take the slings and arrows that will probably come with that?
What if I AM called to that, and people think I’m showing off? What if I stumble and fail and people say “well, if you didn’t think you were such a big shot and you’d just stuck with the old wings that were perfectly serviceable without being all flashy, maybe you wouldn’t have come crashing to the ground?” What if the naysayers say “well, we never thought you were that bright to begin with, and now you’re just making a food of yourself?”
Like Pema Chodron says (in The Places that Scare You), it all boils down to fear. Fear of who we are. Fear of what we’ve been called to become. Fear of what people will say of us.
Last year, I made a video about fear. Some of you will remember it. I think it’s time to watch it again. I think it’s time to add a new chapter.
“When I am fearless, I will believe that I am worthy of what the Creator is calling me toward.”
(Oh, this is a little bit freaky… I just realized that the kite that my daughters are flying toward the end, where it says “I will soar…” looks like a Phoenix!)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_vLDSJnNh8]
