On The Original Bargain

The "original bargain". This is what my teacher Patrick Connor calls the tacit agreement we each make to see ourselves through the eyes of our early caregivers. Of course, virtually all of our parents and guardians will not have had a chance to do their own trauma healing. The implication of that, therefore, is that our self-image (in loyalty and fidelity to them) will be shaped by their pain and their karma and their inability to see us clearly. That means we wind up imbibing their criticism, believing and internalizing their subtle hints to make ourselves smaller and their reflections that shape our self-esteem in distorting and damaging ways.

Executives come into leadership programs with a cloak over this internal war against themselves. They only slowly come to understand the harshness and brutality of their inner conversation. Most of us make ourselves wrong all day long in the quiet recesses of our interiority. We suffer mistakes, we punish failure, and we put ceilings on our greatness and luminosity and courage in the hopes of keeping ourselves in some safe zone and not taking up too much space.

My teacher Thomas Hübl, PhD has a beautiful definition of humility that I love. It is refusing to occupy the right size that life asks of you. Not playing small and certainly not acting grandiose. Just a willingness to occupy your natural space and gifts.

When we can start to see how these dynamics operate under the radar screen all the time and listen deeply enough to discern these overly critical voices we can begin to accept them, integrate them, and let them go.I believe this interior dynamic is a critical leadership challenge because this self-talk occupies the same space in our mind as would otherwise be free for intuition, emotional attunement, imagination, sensitivity and care.

In recent decades much has begun to be spoken in the personal growth field about shame. John Bradshaw. Brené Brown . Most recently my friend Rosi Greenberg 's wonderful book Everyone Has A Sam.