How do you build and cultivate your relationships? What do you do to create trust? When building relationships with clients, it is essential to build rapport with them as soon as possible. And deepen that rapport through empathy and trust. The same applies with work colleagues.
So, how do you create that initial sense of trust, reliability, authenticity and credibility with clients and colleagues?
Relationships are the most fulfilling part of life. And simultaneously the most challenging. How you show up in your relationships is essential to your life success and your personal sense of connection and belonging. Be it at work, relationships at home as partner, parent and sibling, or with friends, archetypes can help enrich all your relationships.
There is an old samurai saying, “Adversity makes the man”. Challenging times build resilience. It is all too easy to get lost in fear and despair. So, it is good to know what signs to look for if you stray that way. And to have a North Star by which to orient yourself so that you can move towards greater confidence, resilience and leadership. Archetypes provide such a template.
The point of this blog is to highlight some of the aspects of four archetypes so you might navigate your way through lockdown. And be able to look back and say I did well in lockdown and contributed in a positive way towards my own well-being and that of my family, friends, community and beyond.
**I’ll put in bold the aspects of each archetype**
All life events are an opportunity to live within your values and remain focused on your chosen purpose and direction in life. Covid-19 is no exception. A plethora of opportunities are opening to follow and expand your purpose as a values-focused warrior. Warrior will keep you on focus and make sure you stay on purpose. But Warrior will hold you entrenched in particular thinking and action because “it is the right thing to do” when actually it would benefit you, family and business to pivot and do something different.
As long as it does not compromise your values and purpose, your creativity (Magician) will take you to new and fascinating places. And because you remain aligned to your purpose and values, it still feels heart-felt, passionate and inspiring to take this new path. For example, the fruit and veg wholesaler who overnight had no restaurants to buy his stock. So, he delivered free food parcels to local homeowners so that the food would not go to waste. Now he is inundated with orders for fruit and veg boxes during lockdown. He is making more profit as a result than he ever made dealing with restaurants.
As Nietzsche said, “if you know the why, you can live any how”. In other words, stay true to your driving force and principles and you can live with integrity in any life situation. Look at all leaders. They have had to pivot and have done so successfully by staying true to who they are. Steve Jobs for example, co-founded Apple on one of his visions of using computers for creativity. When the Apple Board kicked him out, he founded Pixar soon after, which creates computer-animated films.
Personally, during the 2008 financial crash, I lost two thirds of my clients overnight. I did not adapt fast enough to make ends meet, had a painful time of it financially and floundered in the subsequent years. This time, I am more adaptable, and have used the opportunity to go online more and promote myself and my brand by offering free support and training. The connections I make now may lead to new opportunities post-Covid. We will see. But I am staying aligned to my values and purpose at every pivot I take. Therefore, it matters less whether it leads to business in the future. And more about whether I maintain integrity and true to myself. It’s much more fun that way!
I think people appreciate the loyalty and steadfastness of Warrior. People trust the person who is reliable, true, honest, consistent, principled and unshaking in a cause or purpose. Are you feeling the strength and confidence of Warrior during lockdown?
How are your relationships doing with social distancing and self-isolation? Are you finding it hard to say “yes” to things that are supportive and “no” to things that undermine your well-being, safety and confidence, so that you maintain your boundaries? Are you using this as a time for self-care or are you caring for others?
As your life takes on new rhythms during lockdown, how are you managing your relationships? Are you able to get the time and space alone you want? And how are you using that time? Some time alone is important for your well-being. To take time to connect inward, be that meditation, writing, walking or exercising alone, contemplation or reflection, reaffirms your relationship with yourself. And that always you to keep centre when you are in relationships with others. Lover can be prone to giving to others without thought for oneself…… which ultimately can lead to resentment, burnout and fatigue. Or to be self-centric and give no thought to others. How are you managing that balance?
Which really comes down to boundaries. How is lockdown impacting your capacity to say “yes” to the things that support your well-being and relationships? Are you able to ask for the time alone you feel you want? Can you ask for help when things are overwhelming? Or even better, before they become overwhelming, so that you can avoid unnecessary stress and anxiety. And how are you doing with saying “no” to things that do not serve you? Can you push back on the demands made by others for your own well-being?
Travelling to work on public transport may pose a threat to your health. If this worries you, can you ask to work from home or take furlough? If there are social events, can you attend and maintain social distancing? We recently celebrated Victory in Europe (VE) day in the UK marking the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. There were street parties and celebrations. In our street, we made a point of keep two metres distance from each other and still enjoy the festivities.
And I have noticed that people are using this time to connect to new communities online. I met someone on an online embodiment event who was saying that he has always felt an outsider in the communities he usually connects with. Lockdown has given him the opportunity to find new communities in which he feels a part and included. He will come out of lockdown with a new collection of friends that more deeply appreciate him, his gifts and contribution.
There is always the option of living from fear through the Covid-19 situation. More often than not, the News promotes the negative view. And many people seem to focus on bad news. But there are many positives coming from lockdown at a personal level, for community and the planet.
Our inter-dependence, the fact that we all impact each other, is coming to the fore perhaps more than ever before. Our fates rely on everyone doing their part to be responsible for self-isolating for the benefit of the common good. There is a larger cause here that we are daily being asked to consider when we take any action. And that larger cause means we are being kinder to each other. It means we are driving and flying less which is allowing the environment to recover and heal. We are seeing tremendous acts of bravery, be it frontline healthcare professionals or war veterans walking to raise money for charitable causes.
For the first time in human history, humanity is united against a common enemy. What healing can be done from this place of peace, unification and kindness? The world could become a very different place once lockdown has passed. Things could go back to where they were before. But when Magician responds to this pandemic, there is a look towards doing things differently and finding solutions that will heal many of the challenges we faced before Coronavirus hit.
There is an opportunity to rewrite how we work, care for the sick and elderly, look after those closest to us and our neighbours, support our communities, manage stress and mental health, govern with compassion, take our responsibility as custodians of the planet, invest financially, cultivate relationships and much more.
It’s easy to go back to the old ways. But, many of those old ways are not working right now. Perhaps we are paving the way for a new way of being? There is no precedent for this. We are going to have to work it out as we go. Turn inward towards our intuition and gut instinct and feel which is the best way to go.
In the old traditions, Magicians were wise men of counsel, like Merlin. They saw the bigger picture and advised the sovereign so that he may rule with wisdom and compassion. And perhaps Magician’s greatest counsel was not to be swayed by the fearful minds of lesser men. But rather to be guided by your personal inner strength so that you may live with gratitude, wisdom, respect, compassion and above all, love.
What order are you creating through lockdown? Or perhaps you feel like things are in disorder? Quick and radical changes have thrown many of us into disarray and it is taking time to reestablish order. So that we feel safe and able to flourish. And as things continue to change, so we are being asked to shift our structure, organisation and order to accommodate shifting sands.
Order offers freedom. Structure and organisation give a framework around which freedom, adaptability and versatility can thrive. This could be an opportunity to take action on your own initiative and authority. There is the opportunity to do something new.
By your own direction, you can determine your routines, the order in your house, the care you take of yourself. And your capacity and willingness to support others and empower them to tap into their own sovereignty. Self-sovereignty is about having dominion over your own body, mind, emotions and spirituality. I have spoken before how self-awareness empowers choice which leads to freedom. And freedom is a hallmark of self-sovereignty. Freedom allows self-authorship. In other words, the power to write your life the way you would like it to be.
It takes Sovereign to mark out the routines, order, structure, plan, strategy and tactics to make that happen. And Sovereign recruits the other archetypes to make that possible. Sovereign calls on Lover for boundaries and relationship building with self and others. Warrior to move forward and stay on purpose in a values-driven way. And Magician to balance the heart and the head and live in service of something bigger than personal success.
I’m also hearing a lot of people are taking the time to learn new things. Knowledge increases your capacity to adapt, lead and be more compassionate. Covid-19 has opened the internet to so many free learning opportunities and expand your sphere of influence.
How are you using your sovereignty and self-authority during lockdown? Are you using it to create order so that you and others can flourish? Or are you abusing your position and using your freedom to limit the freedom of others? Are you using it to lead with a sense of vision of how lockdown can be better for us as individuals, a society and the planet? What can you do so for your family and community at large?
How are you doing? What areas of your archetypes do you feel you are doing well in? Which archetypes do you think you’d like to work on? What archetypes do you want more of? And which ones are dominant or over-bearing? Which archetypes do you want less of? And which archetypes would it be beneficial to step up to? What areas of your life would you apply the archetypes? What of the archetypes could you do more of and take into your life beyond lockdown and Covid-19?
Phew!!!! That was a long one!!!! If you found this blog useful, please pass it on.
How do you deal with emotional pain in your relationships? Do you allow sad or disappointing moments to get in the way of your relationships with people? Are joyous and fulfilling situations left uncelebrated, pushing you and your loved ones further apart? Or are you able to use these highs and lows as catalysts to bring you and those dearest to you even closer together? And even overcome the blocks and barriers that might have developed in relationships with family and friends?
Conflict is not bad. It is an opportunity, more than any other, to allow relationships to grow.
There have been various events in my family history that had the potential to bring us closer together. They didn’t because we were all consumed by the pain, fear, anger and despair we were feeling and trying to push away as well as nursing our own wounds. How do I keep going? What can I do to make this better? How can I get over this? How could this happen to me? Why do I feel so angry or numb or disconnected? None of us were willing to come out of that place of hurt enough to actually talk about it and connect to each other. The emotion would have been too overwhelming, exposing the scar too painful and sharing the grief too raw.
And so, it gets pushed aside, ignored, swept under the carpet in the pretence that all is fine. Everyone knows it’s not, but no one is willing to take the first step to talk about it and get things moving. Years and decades can go by like this with families remaining distant from each other because they cannot bring themselves to talk about how they feel. So, the resentment and sorrow remain and people who could truly and deeply love each other remain strangers to each other instead.
Just because you love someone, does not mean you share intimacy with them at an emotional level. You may love your parents and siblings but how deeply do you know them and how fully do you allow them to know you? I can say from my own experience that keeping those close to me at arm’s length has felt more comfortable than getting to know and accept them with all their foibles. Or share with them my fears, hopes and dreams as well as my moments of weakness and strength.
It doesn’t have to be this way. I learned this recently on a coaching training course. One of the participants shared how the death of his brother had encouraged his family to talk more, listen more and accept each other- worts and all. It was a beautiful mirror to how my family could have reached out to each other and nurtured our relationships. Instead these events pushed us further apart.
Pain is a powerful force. People feel compelled to move away from it. The mind makes no distinction between physical and emotional pain. You react the same way by pulling away. Pain is deemed something bad and we are programmed to move away from it. That behaviour has its value. Yet the source of the pain has not changed or gone anywhere. That’s why you get triggered when similar events occur. You’re bringing the pain of the past into the present, amplifying your reaction to this present event.
For example, I have a challenge with my family where I do not feel they listen to me. It has always been that way. For many years it has frustrated and angered me. So, whenever I do not feel like any person is really listening to what I’m saying, I can get inappropriately frustrated and angry which does not serve either of us. I lose control and they think “who’s this nutter?” and it doesn’t make them want to listen to me any more clearly and try and understand me any better!!
Coming to terms with that pain has done wonders. Rather than fight it, instead I go into the pain. The blocks and feeling stuck, unaccepted, unappreciated and misunderstood have given way to understanding why they find it hard to accept, appreciate and understand me. The answer lies in their past and with that my compassion makes it easier to accept the situation. Compassion is a huge value of mine as people first and foremost need to be seen, heard and understood. My understanding brings down my barriers which in turn lowers their barriers and suddenly we have a more open and loving relationship.
So, my new learning is that every event, whether deemed positive or negative, has the ability to be used as an opportunity to bring people closer together. By sharing our feelings with people, we show our pain, hopes, dreams and aspirations. When listening to people share, we witness their humanity and may even recognise it in ourselves. The key is to listen to each other and share in our vulnerability, where our deepest feelings lie. This bonds us and connects us far deeper than pretending that everything is OK all the time. From this vulnerable place, people open themselves up at depth so that they can both get where the other is coming from and resolve their differences.
When everything is OK share that, celebrate, whoop for joy and revel in the joy you witness and share with another. And when things are less than OK, share that too- cry with them, be with them, be angry together and be in sorrow. It is part of being human. When there is conflict between two people, it is an opportunity for both of them to take responsibility for putting it right. It is a chance to grow themselves AND the relationship. What role do you play in this situation? How can you understand the other more deeply so that they can take responsibility for themselves and their role in the situation? When you accept responsibility for yourself, it enables you to retain the freedom to be fully yourself.
We all have times when we are perhaps unlovable, or someone is perhaps being unlovable. Only by giving extra love will we be able to find our love for them at this challenging time. I harboured resentment towards my parents for many years. Yet, by understanding them more deeply, I found greater love for them and it has brought us all more peace and deeper connection. Conflict is not bad. It is an opportunity, more than any other, to allow relationships to grow. You can learn more here:
It builds relationship. And everything is about relationship. My sister was like a mother to me. She is 14 years older and moved abroad when I was very young. For many years I harboured anger, hate and resentment towards her. Only recently have I begun to share with her my feelings- not in a blameful way, but simply to listen to her side of the story and share a little of my pain. For the first time I heard HER pain of leaving me behind and missing me growing up. It was like the stuck emotions between us dissolved away.
Notice that I gave her the chance to speak first and showed a willingness to understand. She felt heard first. THEN she is in a place to hear me and more deeply listen and the healing can take place.
I will admit, I am blessed with a sister who would actually share and listen. It has made our relationship far deeper ever since and the relationships I have with her children. Yet not all people are willing to listen. Even when they may say they are trying, you can feel whether they are or not.
Then, it is about coming to understand them as best you can and healing the pain you feel inside for your own sanity, peace and well-being. Try to understand how they have come to be as they are- there is ALWAYS a painful story there and hurt people hurt people.
Would you like to be closer to friends and family members? What things might be getting in the way? How would you like your relationship to be? How do you feel about sharing more of yourself with family and friends and knowing them more deeply? What have you done to build bridges? What worked and what didn’t? How could you go deeper? If you’d be willing to share, I’d love to hear from you. Happy to make it public. Please post in the comments box or on social media. If you’d prefer a private conversation, you can always DM me or e-mail at david@potentialitycoaching.co.uk
If you know someone whose relationships and well-being might benefit from stronger and more open relationships, please pass this blog on and help those relationships heal.
With clarity of life purpose comes the power to take action and live on purpose
Do you notice how in spite of your success in life, there is a nagging feeling inside that there is ‘something more’? A career, a calling, a thing you feel you must do and then you will feel a sense of contentment, like you have arrived. That feeling is the desire within you to live life on purpose.
You may push the idea away, saying that it is foolish- you have a good job, family life, friends. Why would you rock the boat or risk that security to follow such a crazy dream? Maybe you think what you have in your life should be enough and that you are selfish to dream bigger and go for something more?
And yet, regardless of these ‘common sense’ and ‘sensible’ arguments, the idea keeps returning, jabbing at you or sticking pins into you. That purpose continues tapping you on the shoulder and reminding you that it is there.
I know these feelings. I have been there many times in fact. When I had a successful career in science at Cambridge University, I founded a martial arts centre and later gave up my career in science to pursue that path more fully. The martial arts centre runs in Cambridge to this day.
Later I discovered I had more to give and started life coaching, firstly as an additional strand to the martial arts training I offer and now as a stand- alone business as well. Each step has been a step towards greater fulfilment and self- expression of my gifts, abilities and desire to share.
And what I discovered in taking those steps in my self is that I had many of the skills already. Those I did not have I developed along the way. Once the feeling was strong enough and the message clear enough, I found the courage to take that first step and then the next and so on. The worries of ‘not being good enough’ and ‘I’m afraid to take the risks’ still surface and I know will continue to surface along the way. They are challenged and made weaker every time I take a step towards living my life with more clarity and purpose. In later blogs I’ll share how I got that clarity and how you can get that clarity too.
I’d love to hear your story about how you took that step towards realising ‘something more’ inside. Perhaps you have not taken it yet- what does it feel like to hold on to it and to contemplate taking that step? Whether you’re teetering on the edge, free falling or standing safely on solid ground at the bottom of the cliff, or the top, let’s share our stories and support each other in realising our potential. Is it change in career, a new hobby or relationship? The possibilities are endless.
If you found this article useful and interesting please pass it on to other people you think would be interested and spread the word. I would really appreciate it. And if you are new to Potentiality Coaching, why not sign up to the e- mailing list at https://www.potentialitycoaching.co.uk/ and get an e- mail straight to your in box when I post my monthly blog and be first to hear about news, information and insights at Potentiality Coaching. I’d love to have you be part of the community.
And if you’d like to talk to me about gaining clarity and taking steps to get rid of that nagging feeling so that you can live your life with more meaning, fulfilment and purpose, please contact me in privacy and confidentiality on +(44) 7980 204946 or at david@potentialitycoaching.co.uk
At The Embodiment Conference, listen to David talk about archetypes and an embodied system for inner leadership and self-empowerment.