We're in the second phase of the #GetBossChallenge. Today was the first day of another 21-days practicing Get Boss concepts. Based on chapter two of Get Boss, Get Your Mind Right, I asked followers on Instagram and the Get Boss Challenge Facebook group to reconnect with their inner child this morning.
I got a few "likes," so meh, we'll take the encouragement and keep it pushing ... LOL ...
Can you recall a time where you believed that anything was possible? What about your life would have to change for you to feel that way again?
The workplace, just like any other earthly context, is full of hurt children masquerading as grown. For many, according to Psychology Today, an individual is not an adult self-directing their lives, but rather an emotionally wounded inner child inhabiting an adult body. A five-year-old running around in a forty-year-old frame ( https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evil-deeds/200806/essential-secrets-psychotherapy-the-inner-child). We career-development and human resource professionals don't typically discuss inner-child healing - which is really healing at the root of most interpersonal, workplace, and internal conflicts. We typically leave that to the psycho-therapists, shamans, and clinicians.
But when you look at your own current state of affairs and reflect on your childhood. Do you want to laugh or cry? Or both?
Can you recall a time where you believed that anything was possible? What about your life would have to change for you to feel that way again (Get Boss, 2019)? As a career and spiritual life coach for some ump-teen years, I realized that an initial step toward holistic career progress is the reconciliation of childhood wounds. Why?
Well, before the wounding, we all held a dream of becoming ... becoming that one [or those many things] that made our hearts soar. Before we had to choose, we simply loved what we loved and yearned to do "that" forever and ever. You were born with the precise gifting to manifest whatever your little heart envisioned. Maybe not in the way you originally thought but certainly in the way your creators intended.
Happenstance ( i.e., the shitty parts of life, the serendipitous parts too, the unexpected, the somewhat planned, and the consequences of good and bad choices, etc.) enables or totally reroutes our physical ability to go after and attain our dreams. Notice I said physical ability -- I did not say destiny.
When we strive for actualization - when we decide to Get Boss - it is common to reflect on our lives and confront the shadows of the past. As we contemplate the weight of hurtful words and missed opportunities, the flood of emotions can be overwhelming but necessary.
We can heal that part of our lives by embracing the present. We embrace the present through the acceptance of our career and life story because it was written with purpose. Every personal and work experience, every acquired and transferable skill was divinely acquired to propel us along a course that only we can complete. To touch lives that only we can touch. As we muster the confidence to revisit the grown-up version of our dreams, we come into an awareness that we had never actually been off-course to begin with. Do you understand?
Now.. if we would only learn to appreciate, not curse, the complexities of our winding lessons we could grow in self-confidence, growth mindset (Carol Dweck, Ph.D.), and overall happiness. We should be proud of the power of our resumes ... our story ... and the colorful hybrid of talents honed along the way. That is the power of Sankofa. That is how we reclaim the innocence of limitlessness.
In chapter two, Get Your Mind Right, I challenge readers to manifest the abundance of a growth mindset through six exercises. Each activity is a call-to-action designed to challenge the way my readers process relationships with people, places, and things that feed self-sabotaging narratives, insecurities and illusory excuses. The last chapter is a personal oath committing to gratitude (chapter one), personal and professional development, self-reliance and love.
The levels of self-reflection and accountability within Get Your Mind Right can trudge up a lot of anger, guilt, and even pain. Of course, this is how real healing begins and I encourage you and every reader to speak to yourself as if you were that beautiful child - because in many ways you still are.
Hug that starry-eyed, bed-head baby and tell them it's been hard, but you have them covered in love and protection. You're still standing and you got this.
You are as gifted and perfect now as you were then, my friend. Go back and walk in the power of innocent knowing. For the next 21-days, commit to loving self-talk. Commit to healthy thoughts and a positive mindset. Seek the guidance of a trusted professional, pastor, shaman, psycho-therapist, or of course - me. Whoever you need, lean in to healing and put in the work to ascend. Dare to believe that with practice, and a right-mind, you will exceed your own expectations. I believe in you. Love, Cynthia.
Get Boss is on sale now at BookLocker.com