[00:00:02] Welcome to the Business Miracles podcast. I'm Heather Dominick, founder of www.businessmiracles.com and author of the book Different The Highly Sensitive Leadership Revolution, found at www.differentthebook.com. Since 2010, I've been training Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs and Leaders from around the globe to work less while making more impact and income by doing things differently. I'm so glad you joined me. Listen in and get ready. Get ready for a shift in the way you view yourself, your work, your life. A business miracle.
[00:00:40] This is A Course in Business Miracles podcast episode 204 Courage of Conviction. In this week's episode, I share two people who have been on my mind lately and who have greatly influenced my own HSP business leadership journey and how these two people unintentionally have also influenced my ability to maintain courage of conviction through constant change. I open up about the impact the loss of my mother had at an early age on me and how my cousin's loss of his mother, my aunt, two months later impacted him and how different choices led us each in very different directions. I also discuss how challenge and adversity present the unique opportunity to practice managing our reactions to change in order to strengthen self esteem, self trust and self security and keep us moving forward in heart guided, inspired action. Let's dive in.
[00:01:53] We are here together today to focus in on the topic of master HSP reactions to change and maintaining courage of conviction.
So I've been thinking about two people in particular lately. The first person I've really been thinking about a lot is my mother. So probably as most of you know, I lost my mom at an early age. I was 14, she was 35 and loss at an early age It just changes you. I would say the loss of mother at any age changes you.
But the loss at an early age and the loss of a mother at an early age really changes you. Understandably, there's an immense amount of pain, trauma challenges, and there's also the opportunity, a unique opportunity, a unique forced opportunity to establish your own anchor. You literally don't have a choice. Well, that's not true. You do have a choice. You may or may not know this about part of my story, but my mother died in June of 1985 and two months later in August my aunt died. So my cousin Cameron and I were six months apart. I was born six months before Cameron and our early years we did a lot together. He was the son of my dad's brother and it was his mom who died in August. Two months after my mom, my mother was in a bicycle accident. My Aunt Joyce was in a car accident.
So within a matter of days, two little ones, our lives completely changed. And the way we dealt with that change went in two very different directions. I'm not saying that one was better than the other. Both absolutely fused with pain and trauma and challenges. Mine channeled into, unbeknownst to me at the time, my HSP coping mechanism of pushing. I pushed my way through the pain, the trauma and the challenges by taking on any and every leadership position that I possibly could. Head of the cheerleaders. Yep, did it. Editor of the yearbook. You got it. Captain of the dance squad at your service. And on and on and on. My cousin Cameron stopped going to school, turned to drugs, alcohol, knife fights, died when he was 40. And I am here with you.
So there is a choice. And as part of my survival, I chose to receive, help, support, and to consciously become my own anchor.
The second person I've been thinking a lot about lately is Victor Frankl, who, Victor Frankl and Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist who developed the psychological approach known as logo therapy, which had nothing to do with internet marketing. Logo therapy was his theory of logo therapy was that the primary motivation of an individual is the search for meaning in life. Frankel and his family were sent to concentration camps because they were Jewish in Germany in the 1930s and 40s, Frankel lost his entire family in the concentration camps and for himself observed the brutality around him and theorized that those inmates who had some meaning in their lives were more likely to survive. And then following liberation, because he survived, he produced the classic book known as Man's Search for Meaning, which he dictated to a team of assistants in nine days. And that book went on to sell millions of copies in dozens of languages. A less known book by Frankl is the book of Embracing Hope. And there's a quote from this book and that quote states, I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I worked, and behold, duty was joy.
Maybe Vitor Frankl, the originator of joy in action. From the book, Build the Life You Want by Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey - The Art and Science of Getting Happier, they share that optimism is the belief that things will turn out all right. Hope makes no such assumption, but is a conviction that one can act to make things better in some way.
We are in a time of transition. And as part of this transition, we are each being called upon to be the architect of your own destiny, to set your own anchor, to embrace courage of conviction, and to act in service to make things better in some way. That is how we are each tasked as HSPs in business and leadership. My meditation lesson from a Course in miracles this morning, “Let me not see myself as limited. Let me not see myself as limited. Let me not see myself as limited.” Every morning as part of that meditation, as part of my own nervous system and energy management, I always write the lesson on a post-it and I place it on my computer so that I can see it. And this morning I wrote it three times.
The people who have needed you and still need you to lead, need you. The purpose you are here to fulfill still stands. The key is to stay on course. Please write that down. The key is to stay on course. And this my friends, is more important than ever, especially if especially when challenged by change. Please write that down, especially if especially when challenged by change. And there will be a lot of change.
As we lean in to mastering reactions to change, our self-esteem will strengthen over time. That's a given.
Now we look at denial and shame and anger and confusion and depression, which are all very normal reactions to change. Often these reactions can plummet into an experience of crisis. As untrained HSPs, you can almost guarantee to live in a consistent cycle of this reaction to change.
However, as trained HSPs in leadership committed to empowerment, we lean into tools and teachings and trainings such as this one, to access the upward trajectory of acceptance, the acceptance is simply the acceptance of change.
The more that we can accept that change is constant, the more confidence we're able to access, the more creativity we are able to access, and the more creative, courageous, confident acts of courage we are able to access, empowering ourselves to lead in spite of change, to lead ourselves, to lead our relationships, to lead our businesses, to lead our work environment, to lead ourselves in our lives.
This is not the time to rubber band back into old ways. This is the time to create anew.
Let's look at driven by fear, guided by trust.
So you can use that line each week when creating your focus for the week and asking yourself, for example, where am I meant to let go of people pleasing and let in empathetic awareness when it comes to work, when it comes to rest, when it comes to play. And then if you find yourself doubting, then you remind yourself, I release. I let go Being driven by fear and I let in being guided by trust.
Where am I meant to trust more in the guidance I received for this week with work, with rest and with play?
From there, the ability to ask for support is an act of essential self security and ability to activate self-trust. And I'll say that again, the ability to ask for support is an act of essential self security and the ability to activate self trust. This goes back to the reactions to change and the recognition that it is a process over time.
To strengthen that self-esteem is to strengthen self security. To strengthen self security is to strengthen self-trust. To try to go through that process alone is massively challenging. So you ask for support. All so that as a result of that strengthened self-esteem, strengthened self security, strengthened self-trust, you are able to take the other actions on your plan, all to keep moving forward, to keep the nervous system calm, to keep heart guidance clear and to keep yourself in inspired action
Breath in, and let it out.
[00:17:39] Thank you for being a part of this Business Miracles podcast episode and for beginning to dip your toe into the journey of highly sensitive leadership training. If you are ready to truly use your sensitivities as strengths in all parts of your work and life, I invite you to connect for a one on one chat. You will experience being deeply listened to and together we'll get a sense of whether the Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Programs are the best next step for you and your highly sensitive journey at this time. Just go to www.claritycall.com to schedule a conversation. We so look forward to connecting with you. Talk to you soon!
