I Met the Enemy and It Was ME!

Opening Insights

Today was just like most of my recent days. All of my goals seemed out of reach, all of my efforts appeared to have been in vain and progress was just a word rather than a description of my direction. My work tasks loomed over me like a giant jack-in-the-box, wobbling back and forth mirthfully basking in my ineptitude. My calm was full of cracks and ready to bust without warning.

Informational Insights

A close friend of mine (and Co-Lab Team Member) must have tapped into her sixth sense and thought to connect with me via Skype. She asked about my day, listened to my tale, then suggested I tap into the power of “we” rather than shoulder the burden alone. Her advice was sound and I accepted. Moments later I was on the phone with my mentor wading through a waist-high deluge of self-doubt, immaturity, hopelessness, agitation and confusion. After a brief exchange he hit me with a statement that spins my head around 720 degrees every time.

“I’m proud of you.”

Huh?! Then he quoted me to me: “If we aren’t uncomfortable then we probably aren’t making progress.” I know it’s the truth, and I did say it, but somehow wisdom flees before tribulation when adolescent thinking takes over. Most of the facts are either conveniently forgotten, or just plain fabricated while in the grips of an emotional reaction.

My behaviors, prompted by beliefs created from past experiences, were charting my course, not my understanding of truth nor my foundation of values. Experiences in my past taught me that I must be strong alone before I could be useful to others. If I wasn’t strong and I wasn’t useful then nobody would want me around and I would truly be alone. Those beliefs shaped a person who was constantly working to please others, but had no self-identity.

Back to “I’m proud of you.” My mentor didn’t make me guess why, he acknowledged that I’m in the process of tearing down my old belief structure and learning how to live, work, play and love by a set of principles and values. During my accumulation of years toward an adult-age I never learned how to live by values I only knew how to react. He acknowledged that I was in the middle of a complete foundation rebuild and it wasn’t a smooth or easy process. He was proud of my progress and my perseverance to continue “down the rabbit hole.”

Two years ago I joined a Collaboration Laboratory Institute, or Co-Lab for short, and met my mentor. In the Co-Lab I learned a set of basic principles (4 Absolutes) with which to conduct my living, learning and growing processes. Unlike traditional education Co-Labs teach participants how to think, not what to think. Basically, I’m learning how to be an adult. My adult-child parents didn’t have the tools to teach me how to mature, so I made it up as I went along.

“It’s not what you don’t know that’s the problem. It’s what you do know that ain’t so that’s the problem.”

If you guessed that my made-up maturity was a little wacky then you guessed right! In the Co-Lab I work on a complete foundation rebuild by un-learning the things that I know that aren’t true. By learning how to learn I can “remove the splinter by pulling it out the opposite way of how it went in” which means to scrutinize my beliefs, track down the events that created them and accept what happened. My beliefs (fake) begin to make way for values (truth) and thus I learn how to think, not what to think. I grow up!

Possibilities for Consideration

My good friend and my mentor both reminded me of a very important principle that day: I can’t do it alone, and even if I could, why would I want to? Humans are designed to work together with other humans. It’s built-in to our basic programming and inscribed upon our DNA. With my rock-star Co-Lab team supporting my development there’s no obstacle WE can’t overcome. Back to work.