No barriers to peace
By
Earlier this week, I was exploring the paradox of courage and vulnerability and looking specifically at how it takes courage to be vulnerable. I’m a Cancerian and just like a crab, I have a tendency to hide behind a crusty shell for fear of being hurt.
A few days later, I was sitting waiting to co-lead my first workshop on values-based leadership when I heard this song playing.
Something inside so strong by Labi Siffre
My ear immediately tuned into “the higher you build your barriers” because that’s what I’d been exploring earlier in the week. Hiding behind barriers is easy to do and yet there I was waiting to run a workshop which required me to open up and be vulnerable.
“Something inside so strong, I know that I can make it”
Somehow these words reminded me to be myself, to be bold, courageous and vulnerable all at the same time. I co-led the workshop from a place of full authenticity. I bared my soul to the room; I dared to fail spectacularly, to look like an idiot, to be rejected and instead I gained only love and understanding from the group.
When you have the courage to be vulnerable, what is available to you?
What do you gain when you let your barriers down?
When we keep personal barriers up to protect ourselves, we keep other people out and risk being misunderstood by those around us. That can lead to conflict and disharmony.
“Something inside so strong” was written by Labi Siffre as an anti-Apartheid anthem. I feel strongly about world peace. I want to do something to resolve conflict in the world and I feel compelled to change things for the better. Perhaps that change starts with me. When I let down my barriers and become better understood, I’m at peace with myself as well as those around me. Perhaps that’s the start of world peace?
What is it like to be at peace with yourself?
What’s available to you from this place of peace?
I coach people who are looking for peace – with themselves, in their relationships, in the workplace and in the world at large. My clients all share one thing in common. Although many of them do not know it when they first come to me, they are all bold, courageous and vulnerable. That’s where we connect on a deep level and I believe that’s where the peace begins – for us as individuals and for the world as a whole.
With love,
Jude. x
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