Leaders - New Year's Resolutions Require An Internal Space Of Grace

The 3 Cs are outward manifestations of inward grace: care, compassion, and confidence.  “Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace”, are words filled with wisdom by Karl Barth. With our divine quiet grace, it shines like an outward beacon. The confidence comes from our surrender, knowing we are guided by the powerful hand of God. Confidence is one of the elements that draw followers to great leaders.

Warning!! Confidence is not arrogance.I love the Merriam-Webster definition of arrogance: an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions.

You will notice that I emphasized all of the ego-related words in bold. Yes, arrogance is seeded from ego, whereas confidence is seeded from authenticity, from grace, from God.Care and compassion are grace manifested in outward behaviors toward others. Sir Francis Bacon reminded us that grace is fulfilled when shared, “If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.” He spoke of a heart filled with love and grace. Grace, too, is demonstrated through acts of sincere kindness to each other and all living things on earth. Care and compassion are vibrations of love.

Rabbi Heschel described grace under fire when he said, “In every moment something sacred is at stake, and even in that moment being attacked something sacred is at stake. Can I choose, or be awake or aware enough to see that going on and to say I need an imaginative, creative, loving response that keeps my power rather than give it over to that person and just act the way they want me to act.”Living in that state of imaginative, creative, loving response described, is living in grace. Reclaiming and retaining our power is the power of grace. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi lived in grace, retaining their power, while teaching love and peace. Rev. Ed Bacon describes grace manifested as a unifying breath. Grace allows us to break the cycle of violence and turmoil that exists within our everyday lives.

As you begin this New Year, how are you allowing grace to manifest in your leadership and life?

With love,

Maria

P.S. This is a modified excerpt from my book, if today’s blog resonated with you, I HIGHLY encourage you to dig deeper and complete the insight questions I have throughout Love-Based Leadership.

Openness As We Approach Our New Year's Resolutions

Living with two bulging, herniated discs can be a pain (no pun intended), especially in our rainy season, when my back seems extra sore. During a family barbecue, my sister, who is an RN, asked if I was experiencing pain. When I asked why she inquired, she said that I looked like I was guarding.

Guarding is a medical term indicating when a person has pain somewhere in their body and they become rigid as though to protect the area from further pain or injury. We do the same in our lives with our minds and hearts. We protect ourselves from perceived pain…basically, we guard.

To be open, for many of us, means to be vulnerable. We’ve been open and we’ve been hurt--at least that explains some of our experiences.Ego loves it when we stay closed and works over-time to ensure we do not enter openness. “Remember when you did that before and this happened?” is one of the many voices of ego.When we are open, the gates of Divine guidance, to intention, to the flow of Spirit happen.

Closing the gates of our minds and hearts is insanity and it is the main reason New Year’s Resolutions rarely follow through past the first few weeks. So how can we practice openness?

Here are three strategies to being open, open, open:

  1. The first step is reflection. In what areas of your life do you feel closed or blocked to openness? Work? Love? Spirituality? Journal your thoughts.

  2. Practice random acts of kindness. These don’t need to be grand gestures, sometimes the smaller the better!

  3. Develop compassion and let go of your need to be right.

Even with the best intentions, sometimes we feel as though it is not enough. Why do the barriers to openness show up, guarding our sacred spaces, putting another brick in the wall?Ego, again is the answer. Blocks to our openness manifest in the forms of negative voices cemented in our dialogue and culture. Evidence of this insanity in our workplaces includes statements like,” Nice guys finish last”, or when considering doing something nice for someone, like a favor, we hear, “If you do that for one, you’ll have to do it for everyone” or “No good deed goes unpunished”.

Opening our perceptions and inviting in Spirit through surrender, allows healing of the mind and heart to take place. Through healing, the ego no longer has hold on the barriers and blocks to the gates of openness. Just as a clenched fist cannot receive a gift, a closed mind cannot grow and a closed heart cannot receive love.

As we prepare to begin this new year of 2020, I want to hear from you. What are some other ways you plan to practice being open?

With love,

Maria