Recently, I had an opportunity to share something from my life with a small group. I was recalling the time that I first experienced being on my own in the world and how that had shaped who I had been being in my life from that point.
I am seventeen on bivouac as an Army Reservist.
With two whole cans of beer on board, that’s right two, I made a complete fool of myself and was roughly ejected from the group assembled around the campfire.
In hindsight, that was required as I might have been part of the fire if I kept stumbling around and being a jerk!
Of course, I took it hard and a short time later I had wandered away, out of sight, and into some long grass.
Shielded by the grass, I reflected on the troubles with my parents and my deep anxiety about my father’s health and longevity.
My father had been diagnosed years before with full blown Lupus and had been given about four years to live.
For me, my experience was that my father could die at any moment and that was a deep fear and burden I found hard to bear.
In the absence of conversation in our family about such matters, there was no outlet or any place to go for resolution.
So, as I lay in the grass with the dual anxiety of my father’s future and my parents’ failing relationship, I broke down in my solitude and cried my eyes out!
While doing this, with what seemed an unbearable emotional weight and pain, I consciously cut the love for my parents off.
While you cannot interrupt filial (family) love, you can do what I did and pretend the worst has happened and your parents have gone already!
Do this and you spend much of your life separate, unable to form and keep loving relationships or deep connections.
Fortunately, life provides opportunities to learn, grow, and release these inauthenticities.
Having shared this in the small group and now with you through this post, I will come to the point.
Another participant in the group, private messaged me and said, “… it is great to know you, beyond colleague!”.
I believe that individual and organisational performance is directly proportional to the extent to which authenticity can thrive and people go “beyond colleague” to truly connect and thrive at a human level.
Our pretence of being handled in the world, requiring domination and control, has been painful and costly on every conceivable dimension.
Consider, if your whole life is lived in an assumption that you are on your own, then the cost of this in your relationships, families, communities, and the workplace is unmeasurable.
If an individual in the workplace is stuck in the experience that they cannot do what has been asked or they cannot resolve an upset out of fear of being known, then what is the cost of this?
To my colleague I say, “Thank you!” and to anyone who has read this short article or meets me, I say, “Go beyond colleague.”.
Joy and Success, Alan 😊
PS:
If you are stuck with something, reach out, I can get you moving!