Thursday, May 20, 2010

Finding Joy and Power

This past weekend I found Joy and Power. Turns out that they were already within me. I actually even "knew" this at an intellectual level. But despite knowing that they were inside me, I still usually struggled to access them. I have a wonderful life, yet was most often not experiencing the joy that seemed appropriate for my experience. Also, although I know that I have a lot of valuable skills that can make a difference at Appropedia, I also know that at some level I have been holding myself back. I could never experience that in the moment, only in hindsight. And I could see how that tied in very closely with my reluctance to embrace leadership.

So I signed up for my Hoffman Leadership Quadrinity II (LQ2) weekend, hopeful that I would be able to track down the barriers and get rid of them. (I took the HQP in May of 2008.) But I had no clear handle on either problem. Well, no worries. The weekend began at 9am on Friday. Before 10am, my teacher had magically connected me to my barrier to experiencing Power. Knocked me for a loop. By noon on Saturday, I had tapped into my barrier to Joy.

As part of my (assigned) pre-weekend visioning work, I realized that I wanted to have more contact with the natural water in my environment. "Wow", I thought, "this is new." So while I was there at the Hoffman site (near St Helena, CA), I took several walks down the middle of the creek that runs through the campus. I sang my way through several of the exercises that had been more challenging during my HQP. I came home Sunday night joyful and ready to lead. And every day since I returned, I have taken a few minutes to go to the natural water in my environment, and have experienced the joy of contact with it. I have been singing more, and listening to music more. My wife says I'm quite different, more like the man she married. That guy seemed to fade away over the last 7 years since our son was born.

I'm very excited about bringing this new perspective to my work with Appropedia. Indeed, I was right in the middle of a blog post there when I realized I need to write this one first :-). If you have any interest in a conversation (or possibly updates down the road) about my experience, please leave a comment.

Thanks.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Hossein said...

Hey, Curt! Long time, no talk!
I am glad to see you are doing so well. Funny you mention Hoffman and Quadrinity. I am dating myself here but I took his week long Quadrinity resident workshop back in 1991/2!! I am amazed he/his org is still around. He had a book back then that the process was based on. Sounds like things have evolved. My overall experience was positive however I found his org and people lacking back then and his theories too superficial. His process was really a collection of techniques that could be found elsewhere to release emotional blockages. I am not sure how refined those are now, but some were very powerful and had lasting effects, I have to admit.
Anyways, I am glad to see it has been very positive for you.

Best,
\Hossein.

3:57 PM  

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