Choosing Your Side of Life’s Street: The Inner Compass of Leadership in Trying Times, Part 2

An Active Reorientation Approach

Active Reorientation — now moving along!

As we discussed in Part 1 of “Choosing your Side of Life’s Street,” life can be quite different along the street of Life depending on which side of the street you engage. On the left, we’re often overwhelmed, trying to keep things from getting worse, disconnected from people and supportive resources, and heavily under the influence of fears, worries, and concerns. While on the right side of the street, we’re connected with what actually matters to us in the situation. We’re well-resourced, engaged now with the world, and bringing our agency to what matters in ways that are generative. We’re bringing forth more of what we’d like to see in the world — even in challenging times.

In Part 2, let’s take a look at how we can move from the left side of the street to the right side. From the overwhelmed, depleted, and fear-influenced experience to the more resourced, capable, and engaging self that can bring forth our unique artistry to address the challenging times we’re working with.

Some key moves that support actively reorienting from the left side of the street to the right are:

1. Notice when you’re on the Left Side of the Street

This can be very challenging when you’re on the left side! When we’re “in it,” we often don’t notice we even have a choice. We’re too busy caught up in it all. But with awareness and practice, this first step can happen rapidly. Here are some tips to help us notice when we’re on the left side of the street:

• Track your feelings — Are you anxious, exhausted, stressed out, or feeling the presence of fears, worries, or concerns? Do you recognize that you may not be at your best currently? This can be a telltale sign of being on the left side of the street.
• Hit “Pause” on the problem and reflect — Often, we’re caught up in the thing that we’re trying to address, or the problem we’re trying to solve, and all of our attention and energy goes into this issue. Pause for a moment — the issue will be there after this break — and check in with yourself on what you’re experiencing. Ask yourself if you feel well-resourced and grounded, or if you feel like you’re on your heels, or less than your full self, engaged with this matter.
• Seek feedback from your strong supporters — Ask those who know you well and who have no investment in any challenge you’re facing to share how you appear to them. Are you “at your best”? Do they describe qualities that you know from your Right Side of the street? Or do they share things like “You seem stressed or anxious about something” or “You seem exhausted, can you take a break?” or bring up other qualities or attributes you recognize from the Left Side of the street? Ask your supporters to name anything they might consider as missing from your more resourced self. What might you not be accessing within yourself at this time?

2. Suspend any fears, worries, and concerns for the moment

Fears, worries, and concerns occupy a unique position of power on the left side of the street. Often, these fears are the primary influence for our being on the left side of the street to begin with. To suspend these fears is to acknowledge your experience and their presence, but to put them off to the side for the moment. You’re not ignoring them, or trying to get away from them, you’re simply putting them to the side for a moment as you continue your inquiry and movement to the right side of the street.

3. When you’re on the Left Side and would like to shift to the Right, access What Matters

This may sound embarrassingly simple, but it’s super important and can be challenging in the moment. The move to get from the Left to the Right is reconnecting with what matters and noticing your agency to engage with what matters. By reconnecting with what matters, and bringing our agency to engage with this situation, we connect with our generative, creative, resourced self. You do not have to negotiate your way there, you do not have to work harder, and you do not have to solve 3 new problems. In many ways, accessing the Right Side of the street has more to do with letting yourself access the Right Side than willfully efforting your way there. It is to “let go” of being stuck, being determined to do whatever it takes of you, and instead, to become curious and lean into what you care about in this situation. It’s fundamentally to actively reorient toward what matters for you. You might consider one of these options:

Access the Experienced or Elder Self — Imagine that you have made it through this challenging time, and it’s now 6 to 12 months later. You’ve survived this, and you’ve learned a lot from this experience! And while you wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, you’re actually grateful for its passing and how you’ve grown. You’ve learned a lot and are wiser for it. Let yourself feel what it’s like to be resourced, grounded, and clear about your sense of purpose for these matters from this place in the future. Let yourself remember what it was like when you went through the hard parts (those you’re experiencing today) but now doing so from this resourced place. Let this be your Right Side of the Street.

• What advice might you offer from this grounded future self (on the Right Side of the street) to your present-day self?
• What choices can you now see to bring your agency to action and make a difference in this situation?

Remember a past time when you were really at your best and engaging in a challenging time. A time when you felt clear about yourself and were able to bring forth your best in meeting a challenging or rough time. It may be a similar challenge, or it may be different — it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you were at your best and were able to do well with the challenge you were facing. Recall this past experience:

• Remember and write down highlights from this experience. What stands out to you that makes this an excellent example of your being at your best in a challenging situation?
• Let yourself notice the qualities of who you were at this time. Describe the qualities and attributes you had during this situation.
• Notice what it felt like for you as you were going through this experience.
• Let this be what it feels like to be on the Right Side of the street for you, and notice the qualities and attributes of yourself that are accessible to you now.
• From this felt a sense of Self, what actually matters to you in this situation? What are you for? What options and choices do you see to bring agency into action from this Right Side experience?

Talk with a friend about what really matters to you — Give yourself some time to connect with a friend or coach who can hear, see and be with you as you reflect on this situation. Share what you’re experiencing and going through without their needing to fix anything. Name what really matters to you in this situation. Ask them to reflect back to you what they heard and to mirror what matters most to you. Listen to what matters most and notice what it feels like when you connect with what matters.

Imagine, or recall a powerful conversation with a mentor, a good friend, a coach, or a therapist, and the experience of this conversation

• If you were to be speaking with them now, what might they offer?
• Let yourself experience again what it’s like to be in the presence of this perspective that aligns with you and who you know yourself to be — let this, too, inform what it’s like to be on the right side of the road.
• From this perspective, what is important to you now?
• What suggestions, choices, or options might be offered from this perspective?

4. From the Right Side of the street, engage your current situation

From this right side center of gravity, look at and participate in your situation. Grounded in your center of purpose and feeling resourced now:

• Bring your agency to what matters now — what do you see and what’s it like?
• How do you approach this challenge now?
• What choices arise from this vantage point?
• What does it feel like to you to engage from this place within you?
• What help do you need? Who can support you now, and what would you ask of them?
• How is the Right Side experience different for you from the Left Side experience?

It’s Not About Always Being on the Right Side of the Street

It’s tempting to consider spending more of your time on the Right Side of the street, but that is not the point of all of this. The real opportunity in this practice is to better know and understand yourself on both the Left and the Right and to develop the means to move fluidly from the left to the right side. Part of being human is to occasionally feel caught and limited by the situations we’re in and to struggle and feel overwhelmed by the experience. We’ve all had days like this, and we’re likely to have more ahead. But we can learn from these experiences and come to understand and be compassionate with ourselves as we show up on our heels and simply try to keep it together, implementing old survival strategies that help us to be safe, loved, and to belong. We can recognize when we’re “in it” and to help us shift to a different center of gravity.

And just as important, we can come to recognize and actively reorient — deliberately choosing to be in a resourced stance, remembering what it is we’re actually for, finding ground in this enabled perspective, and bringing our agency into action.

Through active reorientation, we come to know the Left and the Right, and self-awareness grows, as does access to our wholeness as human beings — full of choice, enabled by agency, and rich in experience.