Using Peace as Guide to Your Own Self Leadership

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Let’s define PEACE as a state of calm personal presence where you are not caught up in any story of the past or worry of the future;  where you can easily maintain your personal emotional poise.

Peace can be a guiding energy in your personal leadership if you allow it.  Peace has an understanding that you are at personal ease with your choices and that you are flexible, open and responsive.   

Bottom line: It’s much easier to lead yourself with grace and ease when are in a peaceful state.

 

“Be at peace to be great at your personal leadership and be a great personal leader to also have inward peace.

Take a moment now and think about the last time you didn’t feel peaceful.  Can you see how, more than likely, you were frustrated, anxious or fearful in some small way?  

When you get caught up in non-peaceful energies, sometimes it can often be because of one of these 4 scenarios:

  1.    You are off balance
  2.     You are overly referencing the past – and applying interpretations, and living into those
  3.     You are caught in a limited perspective – and are excluding other possible perspectives
  4.     You are locked into an expectation and are reacting to that expectation

The above 4 things can be sources of struggle or frustration. 

Personal Leadership PeaceHere is how to gently turn your struggles into a greater sense of peace:

Pursue emotional mastery.  When you can be in a place of poise with your emotions, you leave yourself free to succeed.  When you have grace with your emotional range, you can freely express yourself without the fear of being overwhelmed by your feelings. 

If you shake when you are angry, if you cry to the point of interrupting your words, if you stay in a bad mood for more than a few moments, if you get stuck and stay there, or if you have things in your life you don’t want – these can be signs that your level of emotional mastery could use an upgrade.

Be diligent about looking for and being open to alternate perspectives.    Even things like being overly identified with your roles, life experience, moments of pride or failure can take you out of having an expansive perspective.  It can be so easy to limit who you are, just by saying, “I am (blank)”— for what happens in that experience is that you leave out all the other great things you are.  

Here are a few quick tips for understanding if you have embraced enough perspectives to put yourself in a place of flexibility and openness in your personal leadership:

  •         If you have 1 choice of perspective, without a doubt, you are in a limited perspective for you have blocked out any other possibility.  This is the “my-way-or-the-highway” stance.
  •         If you have 2 choices, you are caught in a dilemma.  An either/or choice is a set up for conflict and dis-ease.  It asks you to be constantly judging and comparing, which can take you away from peace and towards conflict.
  •         If you have at least 3 choices, you are in a place to be more at ease, not only because there are more options – it is also a gateway to the ultimate in flexibility where you can easily create perspectives and use your personal presence to sense the best choice for yourself.

Be judgment sensitive.

Judging, comparing, or criticizing something is a great inclusion as an element in a creative process – it is not a great thing, however, when it becomes a constant way of being.

Here is the biggest problem with the act of judging. It takes you out of connection because, in order to for you to judge something, you need to consciously disassociate yourself from it. (So you can see it clearly).

The problems come in, however, when you see yourself as ‘there – out there’, and you forget that you are also part of what you are judging.  In short, you are blocking the perspective of ‘wholeness’. 

You don’t have to look very far to see this in action.  Just listen for someone judging another.   Then, notice if part of the energy of what they are judging is someone alive within themselves. Often it is.

Have intentions instead of expectations.

Expectation is the mother of all disappointments. Expectations often bring suffering because we are not rewarded as we expect.

It is an illusory world where we bring into the present moment that which we have anchored and become identified with.  We expect things being a certain way including our place in that scenario. It’s illusory because it is made up. It is imagined.

In a dramatic sense, expectations are your attempt of trying to control the universe.   At first glance at that statement, you may say nay, but if you think about it long enough – you can sense the energy within you when you would like something to turn out a certain way.

In day-to-day terms, however, if you want things to be a certain way – and you emphasize that in your thinking or words to others – at minimum, you are attempting to influence them and towards the extreme, you are corralling them into your desired outcome while discounting their contribution.  It’s not much of a win-win-win.

You may say… “Well, that is not so bad,” but my question for you is, “Is it peaceful?” 

Instead shift to creating intentions, for they are positively stated, they are present moment based, and they are responsive to what shows up.   It’s a way of putting your desires out there — accepting what shows up, reassessing and moving forward.

There are less sticky moments with an intention than an expectation, and often more momentum is greater because more options (perspectives) are presented.

 

Spend as much time as you can in the present moment.  Spend as much time as you can in the present moment. If you find yourself repeating stories often as part of your conversations, that is a clear demonstration that you are not in the present moment.

If you find you are spending time dreaming about future possibilities and concerns – that too is a sign that you are not in the present moment.

Presence is a calm and peaceful place.  It is flexible, open and aware.

You can test out your capacity for personal presence the next time you are out in nature, or in a conversation with a friend.

Are you waiting to notice what shows up?  Are you listening deeply?   Are you initiating or are you responding?

I believe that calm and peace can be resources for any personal leadership development plan.  It’s an emotional perspective that can help any women lead better.  It’s a flexible and responsive stance that lets you gain momentum in any direction you choose.    It’s not necessary to struggle with anything.  The struggle is optional when you have peace as your foundation.

If you take a moment, share what takes you away from your sense of peace.

 

  • ChrisGreene says:

    You have posted a wonderful article. I was actually able to relate myself to this. There are moments that I feel overloaded that I can’t just think properly and be able to manage myself. Being at peace is really a great way to become the leader of yourself. And I believe that this means, you are able to lead your emotions to what will make you as a better person.

    • anne preston says:

      Chris,
      Thanks so much for taking the time to comment.

      You are making a really great point – Emotional flexibility is an important skill for the personal leader. I think of it as one of the 7 skills to focus on when someone is creating an personal leadership Development plan to have,be and do better.

      Another reason finding Peace is so valuable as a self-leadership skill is because it can create a bridge between the place you are now, and the place you want to be. It is one of the most resource-filled states we can maintain.

  • Janice says:

    Thank you for the inspiration on your pages.
    I lost my equilibrium last week, doesn’t happen often and took me by surprise.
    With the help of this website, I know feel my calm sense of Self has returned.
    The problem started when I realisised I had no proof of Identity. This was a shock. Who am I?
    My mobile phone, that I purchased only 5 months ago, suddenly shattered across the front glass, it wasn’t dropped.
    So, I took it back to the shop where I bought it and was told that the repair wasn’t covered under warranty.
    That did not please me, but with consideration, I decided to upgrade to a better phone.
    This was an expectation of a solution to the problem. However, I soon found I had a bigger problem.
    Since I no longer drive or go on overseas trips due to being too old, poor and chronically ill, I don’t have this type of
    identification. So, I simply can’t enter into any kind of simple contract. This was very disturbing.
    It seemed to hit me like a body blow, that at 77 years of age, I was nobody.
    I have spent a week considering why I had such a reaction to this whole incident.
    Then, my email account was corrupted and somebody had hacked into my virtual address and stolen my identity and the account was frozen.
    What was I to make of this? A coincidence. Yes. But, I think a deeper lesson is trying to emerge.
    Instead of being very angry indeed, I have to remember that I am LOVE, slowly my peace is being restored, the other problems have not been resolved, but I am looking to be my real Authentic Self, living from my Essence.

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