The Core of who we are
Musings on Heart Powered Human Leadership
We are before. Before our ideas and thoughts of who we are, what we should be, what we do, where we come from. Before our story. Before identity, before identification with — a body, a role, a culture, a gender, a good person…We are.
Who we are at Core is everything and in a way no-thing. Who we are at Core is formless spiritual energy. Limitless potential. The possibility of possibility. Who we are at Core is Being itself. Which is quite hard to get your head around and comprehend really. A bit like a brain trying to see itself.
So let me try and help you get a feel for what I am talking about through your own experience…
There is a hidden constant that is who we are at Core and it is in-built for all of us.
It is the energy of us just BEING us and at home with who we are.
We recognise our alignment with the Core by our experience of being present, in our essence and in flow. Authentic and at ease. From this place we think and feel wiser and as a result we do better.
We experience a natural wisdom and wellbeing when we are in alignment with our Core. The Core is known by many names — it can be called Soul, Essence, Pilot light, Higher Self, Psyche, Life Force, Atman, Ka, Chi.
When we are aligned with our Core we feel at our best; fulfilled, free, loving, at peace; whole. People will experience inner attributes or feelings of goodwill, ease, inspiration and insight that naturally lead to desired behaviours and outcomes.
It is our true nature.
The Core cannot be understood as an idea or concept. It cannot be understood intellectually. It is not to be believed in. It is knowable only through direct, embodied experience — a sense of knowing your own being-ness.
The key to experiencing our Core — who we really are is to be fully present and aware in the here and now.
What helps us be fully present in the here and now more often is a personal and experiential understanding of the two energies that are creating our experience of life moment by moment and witnessing how they come alive in us.
These energies are:
1. The Hidden Constant
2. The Hidden Variable
1. The Hidden Constant
While the wellbeing at your Core can look like it's a variable, as if it’s something that comes and goes, as you start to look more closely, you see that actually it is we that are taking ourselves away from it at times (through our own variable thoughts and feelings). A bit like the sun is always there — even on cloudy days.
When we're not doing that, we automatically fall back towards our Core — it is the constant.
We're designed to thrive, just like everything in nature is designed to thrive. You don't have to look far to see that there's an intelligence at work in the natural world, with all the creatures cooperating with each other. Every animal knows what's nutritious for it and what isn't. This intelligence is built into life, and we are part of that intelligence system. So this really is what's behind the Core.
Our Core is part of the intelligence that's behind all of life.
Whatever is powering nature is also powering us - why would we be an exception? Just as the whole of nature knows what it needs to thrive, we know that too. Somewhere inside of us, we have that same awareness.
It's just a question of - can we listen to it, and can we tap into it?
The wellbeing at Our Core is innate. We've already got it, it's a constant, we can trust in it and we can trust in the intelligence, the infinite intelligence that's behind it.
2. The Hidden Variable
We are all using the power of Thought to create our own personal experience. The first thing to recognise is that Thought is temporary in nature. It changes and it passes all on its own.
Thought when we give it attention; grows — energy flows where attention goes, so we tend to get more of what we are focusing on and thinking.
The nature of Thought itself is that it’s designed to look real. So what we think, looks real to us whilst ever we think it.
Thought creates feeling.
Feelings operate in the same way through this power of Thought. They are temporary in nature, and they pass. They are transient. And as our thoughts and feelings change, our experience actually changes.
That is what is changing our experience.
Not the world we observe happening around us, but our own thoughts-feelings are creating our own experience.
100% from the inside-out.
Even though it looks and feels that we are being directly influenced and determined by what’s happening to us via external circumstances.
Once you understand how Thought works, you realise that simply can’t be true. For example — you can be happy and at peace in terrible circumstances, and unhappy in paradise.
We each live in (our own unique) Thought created world — like we are all wearing a virtual reality headset.
Sometimes the headset is playing things that look to be real and are taking us away from home.
How do I be more At Home?
Well, the secret really is to recognise it in your own terms and have your own language, experience and felt sense for what is to be At Home and aligned with the Core. Your own reference point.
I often do an exercise with Leadership groups where we look at a time from the past when you were at ease, at peace, at home on the inside. Notice what you are doing, then notice the other feelings that arise in that space.
We capture these words and realise they all link to a sense of connection with yourself, others, life. This experience is their reference point. It is a version of who they are at Core.
We then begin to disentangle the idea that you need to do something to get there. Being at home can arise any time, anywhere when our minds settle and we are just being.
Once we can recognise this space within we can learn to trust it and pay attention to the quality of thought that arises from it. Seeing as the Core is connected to a greater intelligence — we can sit back and follow the guidance we receive. When we are aligned with the Core — we truly can Let Wisdom lead.
It seems to me that fundamentally, all we ever really need to KNOW is who we truly are at Core and that is always enough.
Working with Changemakers to let their wisdom lead real change.
