AnkurKansal_BLP008_Self Leadership_Sep'11

It was a wonderful journey in the SOIL so far. The journey started with some beautiful thoughts on Self Leadership by Anil Sir. We were told about the 6 layers of self, starting from the outermost layer- Diversity, Instinct/Reaction, Compassion, Ethics, Sustainability to the inner most layer Mindfulness. We were involved in various activities and one of them is speaking to fire in which we offered our guilt or negative energy to the fire by speaking in a group of people. If one is not comfortable in sharing that guilt among the group, he/she can silently offer that to fire. By this activity we learnt to trust each other, giving respect to others and ability to speak the truth and to get rid of our negative energy. He told that Self-leadership begins with self-observation, which means noticing our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. We should have the capacity to think, analyse and look for creative and doable solutions and come up with the right decision. We were also taught that Self leadership also requires courage during testing times and to take tough decisions.

We were also introduced to a very beautiful concept of appreciative enquiry which is about not just look for problems and spending time to fix them. Instead we should look for what works well and doing more of that. For that, we were divided in pairs and were asked to share a real story in which we were at our best . We appreciated each other after listening to each other’s stories and felt emotionally connected.  Also I learnt that Empathy is the heart of Emotional Intelligence.

Anil Sir made us to focus and introspect ourselves so that we can make adjustments accordingly to be more purposeful and effective in our life.

On 8^th Sep 2011, we had our second session on self leadership where first we revisited our key learning’s in the previous session. Anil Sir asked various questions like Are we using our capacity?, Are we taking responsibility for my ability, capacity and accessing my source? He illustrated the meaning of habit by taking the example of Smoking which is a very difficult to quit but if we have firm determination and a will to do something nothing is impossible to achieve. We just have to be committed to learn the truth about ourselves and try to overcome our fears no matter what the outcome will be. We should not judge our thoughts and lost by the feedback we get from the world around us.

Anil Sir asked us to introspect in our lives and try to find out the answers of the below mentioned questions:

1.      What is the purpose of my life?

2.      What all happened so far?

3.      Who all are involved?

4.      What am I unaware of?

5.      Who all are the people that matters to me in my life?

6.      What is the negative energy that I wanted to overcome?

In the end of the session, we came to know about the Immunity X-Ray which is about evolving self. It talks about the things one wants to change, what is the outcome after one decided to change that thing. Most of the times, we don’t get the desired result and Anil Sir asked us to look why it happened. After giving a deep introspection, we came to know that this is all because we have some assumptions made in our mind that prevents us from changing. But if we want immunity to change, we have to discover ourselves and explore our own strengths to overcome those assumptions. I know this is not an easy task to achieve but if we have the right attitude and courage, we can achieve whatever we want in our life.