The second of three stories from the mountains – about what often happens when grief is spoken aloud, and why it isn’t unkindness.
Before I ever set foot on the Tour du Mont Blanc, there was Croatia and Slovenia.
It was the first, solo leg of nine weeks I spent in Europe in 2025, hiking my way through grief, or so I thought at the time. My husband Jeff had died the previous October. It was a real leap of faith, the courage to walk that part of my own grief path, alone. It wasn’t only the boldness of venturing out alone. It was doing so without knowing what emotional state I might find myself in from one moment to the next and, doing it without Jeff, when every holiday we’d ever taken had been together or with our family. It brought its own anxieties. (That courage, and what grief does to us on the inside, is a story for another day.)
My first contact in the country was a young Croatian man who collected me from a pre-arranged taxi pick-up. He was generous with his stories, told me about his culture, and offered to be available if I needed transport elsewhere during my stay. He reassured me how safe Croatia was, and that I had nothing to worry about as a woman travelling on her own. My anxieties quickly eased.
He had no idea I was grieving. I hadn’t told him, and he didn’t ask why I was travelling alone. He was simply being kind to a traveller.
I spent that first week touring on my own, through Split and Zagreb, before making my way to Ljubljana, where the walking would begin. Slovenia stole my heart. The mountains were like no other, exquisite, almost too beautiful to be real. In the photo above I had a full “the hills are alive with the sound of music” moment, surrounded by mountains on every side. (Wrong country, I know, but the feeling was pure Julie Andrews.)
There is a particular kind of grace in walking through beauty like that while carrying grief; the two don’t cancel each other out, they sit side by side, and somehow the landscape made room for both. I would soon learn that not everyone could.
Over the eleven days that followed which was a long time to spend in the company of the same twelve people, the conversation turned, as it does among hiking companions, to who we are and why we’ve come. Jeff’s death was so central to my story then that I couldn’t avoid it when people asked about my life and I certainly didn’t want to. Yet it was never easy to say. Each time, I felt it afresh, often keeping tears at bay as I spoke his name to someone new. And each time I shared that my husband had died, I watched something happen.
Ten people looked away.
Not cruelly. Not obviously. It was subtler than that – a change of subject, a chosen seat further down the table when the group sat down to eat, a slight increase in the distance between us on the trail the next day. The warmth that had been there a moment before quietly cooled. The landscape had made room for my grief; these fellow walkers could not.
Two, though, did.
One was a GP. The other was a nurse who was, herself, a widow. They stayed. They asked. They let me speak about Jeff, and when the tears came, they didn’t look away.
There was a flow-on effect I only noticed later. When I asked the ten about their own lives and journeys, they stayed a little guarded as though closing the door on my grief had closed something in them too. I sensed that if they let their own guard down, if they were vulnerable with me, it might invite me to be vulnerable in return and that could bring Jeff’s death back into the room, the very thing they were trying to avoid. So, they kept themselves at a distance, and in doing so kept me there too. But the two who could meet me shared just as openly in return, about their own lives and losses. Real connection formed. It turns out that meeting someone in their grief doesn’t only help the griever; it can be powerful medicine for deepening human connection.
The ten who looked away were not unkind people. They were ten people with their own stories, their own lives, their own hearts and minds – each carrying who knows what themselves. I had already met that same ordinary human warmth in a taxi driver in Split, from a stranger who knew nothing about me. That warmth exists in almost everyone, or that’s how I choose to see people, anyway. It can however simply stop at the edge of grief because grief is the one thing most of us have never been taught how to meet, let alone hold.
When someone tells you they’ve lost a person they love and you have no idea what to say, the fear of getting it wrong can be overwhelming. So, people change the subject, thinking they are protecting you but really it is their own fear at work, and a quiet belief that saying the wrong thing is worse than saying nothing at all. They can avoid mentioning your loss so as not to remind you as though your grief were somewhere in the background and mentioning it would be what brings it forward again. They give you the space they imagine you want, and what you actually receive is isolation stacked on top of loss.
Grief can only be integrated through connection, never in isolation.
And the two who could stay? Look at who they were. Both had been trained by their work to sit with people at the hardest moments of their lives – one a GP, the other a nurse. And the nurse had been trained twice over: she knew the loss of a husband herself.
And here is the part worth pausing on – in a group of twelve, over eleven days, only two could meet grief with any ease and both had been trained to, one by her work, the other by her work and her own loss.
It should not take a medical career or a bereavement of your own to know how to be present with someone who is grieving.
This is what I mean when I say we live in a grief-illiterate world. Not unkind. Illiterate, untaught.
What I saw on that trip, I now see everywhere. It plays out every day in workplaces and communities.
Grief First Aid training points to a striking figure: on any given day, around one in four people in Australian workplaces is carrying grief or loss of some kind. Yet when a grieving colleague returns, whether from a death, a diagnosis, a separation, or any of the countless losses being human can bring, even those who deeply care might find themselves avoiding the desk, the topic, the name of whoever or whatever has been lost. And so, the griever carries it alone, unspoken, through the working day.
The good news is that grief literacy can be taught. These two kind humans didn’t get there overnight, one had years in medicine, the other had her own loss alongside it. I’m not claiming Grief First Aid training hands you that. What it does teach is the starting point: how to stay, how to ask, how to not look away. That’s the part most of us were never shown and it’s the part that makes the difference between someone carrying grief alone, and someone who isn’t.
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I kept walking. And a few weeks later, on another mountain, a stranger at a bus stop asked me my husband’s name.
The final story from the mountains is coming soon.
This is why I now do the work I do. Through Evolving Leaders, I guide people through life’s hardest transitions with 1:1 coaching, and Grief First Aid education for workplaces is now available so that meeting grief well becomes something we all know how to do, not a matter of luck. My first public Grief First Aider program is starting soon and bookings are now open to bring Grief First Aid training into your workplace starting in a few weeks.
I would love for you to be there. You can find out more here, lets talk or drop me an email nicola@evolvingleaders.com.au
Photo: Nicola in Slovenia June 2025 having a ‘hills are alive moment’ after a special dinner when we were invited out the back of the restaurant to find oursleves fully immersed in mountains on all sides
www.evolvingleaders.com.au
The first of three stories from the mountains about grief, loss, and what it means to truly meet someone in theirs.
Never underestimate the powerful impact you can have on someone who is grieving simply by being curious and asking a few gentle questions.
I want to share a personal story.
After my husband of 33 years died in October 2024, I took my hiking to a whole new level — a level I never thought I was capable of. It was a grief response: nothing else made sense in those months, but putting one foot in front of the other did. Alongside many hikes here in Australia, I was fortunate enough to travel to Europe to hike the Tour du Mont Blanc.
As I sat waiting for the bus transfer from Geneva to Chamonix, I started talking with the woman next to me. It turned out that she and her partner would be my walking companions on the very same trip. Rita asked why I was travelling on my own. I immediately dissolved into tears and shared that my husband had died seven months earlier.
Rather than turn away or shift to another topic, Rita stayed right there with me. She asked:
“What was your husband’s name?”
I was taken aback. Here was a complete stranger who cared enough not to shy away from my pain, but was prepared to witness me in my grief. Rita continued with other questions about Jeff’s life.
Over the next seven days, as we traversed massive elevations amid awe-inspiring, iconic scenery, held by those incredible mountains, Rita would find moments to ask me more about Jeff. She kept referring to him by his name.
And as we navigated our final descent, she looked at me and said, “Nicola, Jeff would be so proud of you.”
Rita, without even knowing it, was a natural Grief First Aider.
She didn’t try to fix me or rescue me. She offered genuine compassion, care, concern and interest. She asked gentle, curious questions that invited me to speak about who Jeff was. She validated my feelings and reflected them back to me. I felt actively attended to.
And Rita’s care didn’t end at the mountains — she followed up more than once after the walk finished and I had returned home.
Rita wasn’t the only one who held me on that mountain — but that’s a story for another post.
Rita became my teacher as well as a caring human. I have continued to pay this forward to others, and I can tell you the reaction is often the same: people are initially a little taken aback — and then they quickly soften and open, knowing it is safe to talk about their loved one.
Never underestimate the impact you can have by meeting someone in their grief. If you ever find yourself in that moment of not knowing what to do or say, I hope Rita’s story will give you a place to start.
This story is why I now do the work I do. Through Evolving Leaders, I guide people through life’s hardest transitions with 1:1 coaching, and deliver Grief First Aid education for workplaces — helping people learn to meet grief the way Rita met mine. If either of these speaks to you, I’d love to hear from you: nicola@evolvingleaders.com.au
The second story from the mountains is coming soon.
Photo: Nicola and Rita in Chamonix at the end of the Tour Du Mont Blanc hike about to have a celebratory drink!
www.evolvingleaders.com.au
The generous response to ‘Coming back, changed‘ touched me deeply. I am grateful for your caring words and gentle encouragement to get on with this important work. Thank you.
In the three weeks since, I’ve been walking through the Kimberley, where every sunrise and sunset seemed to bring a new colour and new experience, and the landscape quietly got under my skin. I’ve returned home refreshed, inspired, and ready.
So today, I begin.
While I was caring for my husband, I undertook a Diploma of Developmental Coaching through the Vertical Development Institute. If you don’t know Alis Anagnostakis’s work yet, do yourself a favour and check it out. It sharpened my coaching practice, and it’s deepened how I work in ways I’m still discovering. While I have been coaching leaders for many years, to attain my ICF accreditation on the other side of this diploma, I need to complete 100 hours of coaching practice. This is a milestone I want to approach very intentionally.
So, as I refocus my coaching offering into guiding people through transitions, I’m bringing the two together: deepening my own practice and attaining my ICF accreditation while walking alongside you through yours. I’d love for you to be part of it. And I’d like to mark the beginning with something:
Book a “Let’s Talk” conversation in July to receive 50% off 1:1 Transition Guidance & Coaching (6 session package).
Every engagement begins with a no-pressure Let’s Talk conversation, so we can explore what you’re navigating and whether this is the right fit.
You can book yours here.
If you’re in the messy middle of a transition, or you know someone who is, I’d welcome a conversation.
With warmth and gratitude,
Nicola x
Nicola Vague is a leadership coach and transition guide, and the founder of Evolving Leaders. She walks alongside leaders navigating unexpected life events, and helps organisations support their people through the line-in-the-sand moments that turn life upside down.
Photo credit: Martin from my Intrepid tour, July 2026. Indigenous birthing pool (no longer used, photographed with permission of a local Elder), Purnululu National Park, The Kimberley, Western Australia
www.evolvingleaders.com.au
After three years away, I’m coming back to work (July 14th 2026) and I want to be honest about what this return looks like.
In 2023, my husband Jeff — my life partner of 33 years, father to our three daughters — was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. He died 15 months later. Shattered. Our lives ripped apart and turned upside down.
I am not the same person I was. What matters to me now is different. And my mission is clearer than it has ever been.
Here’s what I’ve learned, living it: time doesn’t make grief go away but time doesn’t take love away either. We can grow around our grief. And, with the right support, it’s possible to grieve fully and live fully, often in the same moment.
Here’s what else I know. One in four people in our workplaces is carrying a loss right now. The diagnosis, the divorce, the death of someone they love. Work keeps going, and before long we expect them to do the same. We are, most of us, grief and loss illiterate — not because we don’t care, but because nobody taught us.
I have a role to play in changing that.
So from 14th July 2026, Evolving Leaders begins the first step in a new chapter: Guiding transitions for people, organisations and a changing world. The first step is walking alongside leaders navigating unexpected life events, as a transition guide and coach and, helping organisations truly support their people through them via Grief and Loss Education.
You can read more about that here.
This isn’t a polished re-entry. My website is still finding its new shape and there’s no glossy brochure. I could spend months waiting until it’s all perfect. But life is messy and imperfect and so is this work. I’m taking the first step and trusting the rest will unfold.
You can read about my new beginnings here.
Perhaps you are in the messy middle of a transition yourself, or you lead people who are? If so this next focus might resonate for you. My diary is open to book now with first available times from 14 July. You can book a conversation here.
In the meantime I have one more hike to do before I am full back and focussed. This time, I’ll be walking off-grid in the Kimberley until mid-July. I will respond to any messages when I’m back.
Thanks for your care and support and for following along as this new chapter unfolds.
Nicola Vague is a leadership coach and transition guide, and the founder of Evolving Leaders. She walks alongside leaders navigating unexpected life events, and helps organisations support their people through the line-in-the-sand moments that turn life upside down.
www.evolvingleaders.com.au
In this post I reflect on the life story of Bob Brown as shown in documentary The Giants (currently screening) and what he teaches us about leading change.
This photo was taken on a family visit to Tasmania’s Styx Valley in 2022 which is the home of Eucalyptus regnans, the tallest flowering plant on Earth. To stand in the presence of these giants, which have stood for more than 400 years, is nothing short of magical. They can’t help but to widen one’s perspective. I am deeply grateful to know that these beautiful trees are no longer under threat.
Humans and nature are inextricably linked. One person who perhaps knows this better than many is environmental activist, former politician, and Greens co-founder, Bob Brown. Last week, I had the privilege of seeing The Giants, a documentary recounting the personal story of Bob and his lifetime commitment to conservation. I was deeply stirred and inspired at multiple levels, so much so that I couldn’t get on with any other work/anything else until I shared this with you!
A qualified doctor, Bob walked away from his profession to follow what could be described as a ‘calling’ or a ‘knowing’ within himself, imploring him to attend to something greater. He has spent all his years since as a staunch activist for the protection of Australia’s wilderness, including his significant role in the infamous Franklin Dam protests and his 29 years in state and federal politics, during which he co-founded the Greens party.
Given much of my own work is about ‘leading change’ at a personal and systemic level, I couldn’t help but view The Giants through this lens, and I am so glad that I did. Bob’s actions and way of being in the world were well ahead of his time. Through viewing his story in its entirety, I was able to witness some of the qualities that guided his actions as a remarkable leader and changemaker.
1. He got ‘out of the way of himself’ and found his voice.
Bob was quiet by nature as a child and didn’t like public speaking. However, early on he had an ‘ah-ha’ moment that would compel his future actions: this wasn’t about him, it was about speaking on behalf of the trees.
We can so often let the ‘I’ get in the way of the collective good. When we show up in service of something greater than ourselves, particularly if it is in alignment with who we are and what we are here to do, then all manner of things can shift to help us on our path. Speaking up and challenging the status quo is often the birthplace of change. It’s uncomfortable; we can feel exposed and personally attacked. Attending to what matters, connecting deeply with our personal ‘why’ and navigating through any self-doubt, is the way forward.
2. He backed himself and took risks
In every step of his journey, Bob approached the seemingly impossible by believing in the possible. He walked away from a secure career as a medical professional into the relative unknown, guided by an internal knowing that he had a greater role to play. Every step in the campaigns that he spearheaded involved taking risks. Perhaps you, like me, recall the footage of campaigners in rubber dinghies getting knocked in all directions as the first bulldozer arrived on a boat? There was a lot at stake and people were prepared to put their lives on the line to ensure these ancient forests would be there for future generations. A further example of Bob’s preparedness to take risks occurred during a television interview in 1978, when Bob shared that he was homosexual at a time when it was illegal in Tasmania. The courage of this man is truly inspiring.
Change doesn’t happen when we are in our comfort zone. It is uncomfortable by nature. If it’s not uncomfortable, then check again – is anything actually changing, or are we just re-arranging the deck chairs? The higher the stakes, the greater the risks that need taking. As leaders, we must take risks. We must find a way to quieten the voice of fear and doubt and back ourselves against the inevitable barrage of resistance.
3.He challenged social constructs and norms
Bob was prepared to challenge social norms, even in very hostile environments. One example of this is when Bob was exited from parliament after he challenged US president George Bush during his address. The topic of conversation mattered so much to Bob and the people he represented that he spoke out, despite very clear social expectations warning him not to do so. A perspective needed to be voiced, so he voiced it.
Challenging social constructs and norms is key to our personal growth as leaders and changemakers. If we conform to social expectations and smile politely instead of confronting the status quo, then change doesn’t happen. As leaders of change, we must become masters of this.
4.He created a change ‘movement’
Bob was a visionary. He knew what really mattered, spoke up and enlisted allies across the nation. While Bob and his colleagues were unable to save the unnecessary flooding of Lake Pedder (which remains flooded to this day), in 1982, he and his colleagues built a nationwide following and significant on the ground support that influenced a change of government at the time and ultimately stopped the damming of the Franklin and Gordon rivers. The movement that Bob and his colleagues created was extraordinary, especially given they were without social media or the internet (imagine that!). At the time, the greatest avenue for doing this was via media coverage. People were arrested for protesting; jails were full and the coverage of this was on national television. He harnessed celebrities and enlisted Australian icon, Dick Smith, to helicopter in a radio communication system and a plane full of influential supporters. Through thinking ‘outside the square’, he enlisted the followers and created momentum.
Change doesn’t happen in isolation. We need to bring others on the journey with us. How we go about that is key. Through creating a change ‘movement’ as opposed to just keeping stakeholders ‘engaged and informed’ we can activate so much more of the human spirit which in turns adds positive energy and momentum to the change effort.
5.He approached the change as an adaptive challenge
Bob didn’t know how they would stop the planned hydro electricity scheme going ahead. He just knew what was at stake and answered the call. This meant that he and his colleagues took one step at a time almost like a series of experiments to see what was possible. It was only then that the next step would become clear. It was a true adaptive challenge where there was no existing ‘map’ or ‘process’ to follow, just one step informing the next towards the vision of protecting these ancient forests.
We often think about change as a series of linear steps from one state towards another. The reality is usually quite different. This is because transformational change is complex and multifaceted. We need to approach change as an ‘adaptive challenge’ ( where there is no known way to solve the challenge) rather than a ‘technical problem’ to be solved (where the solution is known or can be worked out) and leverage ‘experiments’ to learn and grow along with the change process.
Thank you, Bob Brown for being an extraordinary leader and change maker.
Please do yourself a favour and don’t miss seeing The Giants.
Nicola x
Our Leading Change Program is a nine-month in-house learning experience where a cohort of approx 16 leaders work or personal and organisational adaptive challenges supported by coaching, group coaching and workshops. The purpose of the program is developing leaders’ capability, capacity and confidence to lead change for themselves, their teams and organisations. Interested in finding out more? Book a conversation with Nicola.
A trusted friend and colleague (and incredible coach) asked me these beautiful questions at the start of the year– who am I now? and what’s my unique offering as a coach?
The right question at the right time is gold. This precipitated an opportunity to pause, reflect and reset.
I wanted to share with you what I discovered by re-introducing myself and a wonderful new and much needed coaching program for senior women.
Hello, my name is Nicola Vague. I am a leadership coach, meditation teacher and art therapist. As a leader of leaders, my personal mission is heralding new ways of being and leading to transform outdated systems and ways of operating, creating a future where people and communities can flourish.
Eighteen years ago, in my mid-thirties, I experienced what I now understand to be an existential crisis. I was constantly stressed, short fused and unable to connect with the joy that was all around me. I was surviving but not flourishing; I knew that something needed to change. I made a promise to myself to stop focusing on the ‘shoulds’, to quieten the mental chatter and to follow my heart (I didn’t even know what that meant at the time). This commitment to move a little more towards myself was a turning point.
So began twenty years of personal exploration, evolution and development as a leadership coach, alongside extensive corporate experience in organisational development and change. What I now know, which serves as the foundation of my leadership work, is that to improve the quality of our decisions and actions, we must carve out space and cultivate the conditions that enable us to come into a more conscious relationship with ourselves. I don’t teach something that I have just read about; I teach what I have come to make sense of through my own evolution. This gives the learning I offer to leaders both depth and simplicity.
In 2014, I founded Evolving Leaders (www.evolvingleaders.com.au) with the purpose of evolving the consciousness of leaders to make the world a better place. My focus has been on leadership, change and wellbeing. Partnering with longer term clients on their leadership transformation journey supported by wonderful collaborative relationships is rich and rewarding.
I have been offering individual leadership coaching for over a decade now, mostly as part of leadership 360 assessments and broader organisational leadership development programs. I love this work. It is an honour and a privilege – especially supporting those leaders who are ready to embrace the opportunity of 1:1 leadership coaching.
Whilst I continue to offer this work and supporting clients on their leadership transformation path, what has also emerged is a new 1:1 coaching offering for women where I can explicitly bring the unique combination of skills, experiences and approaches that has radically shaped my own personal and professional development and wellbeing to supporting senior women.
Why women you ask?
In the words of Desmond Tutu “Once you have women liberated, it’s amazing how many other problems get resolved – poverty, education, health. Women are the key in any community.”.
Newly released evidence from an Australian wellbeing study – The Gender Wellbeing GAP (Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey – GLWS) shows that the overall wellbeing of women in senior roles is low and that this gap is increasing. This may not be surprising but it is alarming and requires attention. Women are the primary nurturers in our society, raising children, forging careers and managing many relationships and connections. This coaching program is about nurturing the nurturers, women who are juggling multiple commitments and competing demands, often at the expense of themselves.
In addition to navigating my career and personal evolution, I have the privilege of being a mother to three young woman, an aunty and friend to many, a sister, a wife, a daughter. Now in my fifties, I have navigated work and family through its many phases and continue to do so. I have been fortunate enough to have had the support of many therapists, healers and coaches. It is my turn to offer this to other women and to make a contribution to improving wellbeing for these women.
So I am delighted to be opening up limited places for senior women as part of Cultivating Well – 1:1 Leadership Coaching for Women.
Delivered via over a five month period, the purpose of the program is helping participants to slow down and reconnect with themselves beyond the noise of the external world, opening to new possibilities, improving wellbeing and creating a changed reality.
The Invitation
A place to pause, reflect and reset.
A place where your fears and dreams are safely shared and nurtured.
A place to become comfortable with not knowing.
A place where you will be supported.
A place where your true nature can emerge.
A place to turn a little more lovingly toward yourself.
A place where possibility becomes infinite.
The six-session coaching program is focused on:
- Guiding participants beyond the noise to hear their own wisdom through accessing the vast well of resources within them
- Providing a held space so that they can find thier centre and bring attention to their own well-being; and
- Cultivating the conditions, practices and habits to lead well!
Senior women might self-nominate or be recommended for this experience as part of broader leadership development, wellbeing, or talent management initiatives.
I look forward to asking you the right question. Read on for full program overview.
Not interested in this new coaching program? You may be interested to explore our Leading Change Development Program and other Coaching and Team Development services.
When you arrive at graduation day and can’t get into the room because participants are getting everything set up for the presentation of their learning it’s a good indication that our job was done!
What an absolute privilege it has been to work alongside my dear friend and colleague Hamish Riddell to support leaders with taking the next step in their own evolution through our Leading Change Program. We were blown away at the level of commitment of these leaders to learning, living and embodying the Six Keys to Leading Positive Change. To work with these leaders and to witness the growth that happened over our eight months together was nothing short of exquisite!
‘Not many times we are offered the opportunity to reflect upon self as strategy to develop your leadership skills. Nicola & Hamish Evolving leaders program is a great example of how sustainable change can be embedded by knowing self first before bringing others into any potential corporate change. Highly recommended!’ – Vitor Rocha (Palliative Care Lead)
“I cannot speak highly enough of Nicola and Hamish – it was privilege to participate in the Leading Change program that they facilitated within our workplace. They are a dynamic duo with the extraordinary ability of being able to balance an abundance of knowledge and expertise in leadership development, with a genuine humility and an honest kindness capable of drawing the best out of program participants. Thank you Hamish – Thank you Nicola.
– Sue Wilson RN PhD Evaluation and Data Management Lead
Bookings are now open for 2023. You can find out more about Leading Change here.
Self Leadership Series – Part 1 #8
“What if we could put down our iPhones, our gadgets, our laptops and spend a little time just settling in?… Settling in to paying attention to what lies inside us. To see our troubles as a knock on the door to an invitation” – David Whyte The Door Beneath Everything July 2022
This blog series began close in – sharing the personal circumstances that I found myself in my mid-thirties. This was at its core, a deeply internal experience that would fuel my own self-leadership journey. So, for this final post I wanted to touch briefly on how I came to be aware of and begin to cultivate connection with my ‘inner experience’.
First a little bit of background……
When we moved house seven years ago, I stumbled across an assignment from my teaching degree back in the early nineties – complete in its original Atari computer format. Looking at the assignment took me by surprise at some level, while at another level I thought ‘of course I was interested in that’. The assignment was about student wellbeing practices, a topic less heard of at that time. It was built around The Inner Game by Timothy Gallwey. I recall it being a lightbulb moment for me at the time – this idea that there was an inner experience open to all of us that, if we were open to it, could greatly improve the way we showed up in our lives and help us achieve higher levels of performance.
I didn’t understand ‘inner experience’ beyond this conceptual notion at the time but looking back, I could see that a seed had been planted (as knowledge often does). It would take me another decade or more for this enquiry into the ‘inner game’ to come back onto my radar.
Roll forward …
So, until my mid-late thirties, beyond this idea of an ‘inner experience’ that had been planted years before, I had no way of understanding or accessing this ‘inner experience’. Sounds bizarre now but that was my reality. I was disconnected from myself – from who I was, from what mattered to me, from the life and love that was all around me. All my time and energy was spent reacting to the outside world and simply trying to keep afloat in day to day.
The invitation into my inner experience presented as a little voice inside of myself that was telling me that ‘something needs to change’. I decided to listen to this little voice. Through guidance and direction from trusted others and commitment to a daily reflective journaling practice, I slowly learned how to observe my thoughts and feelings and how to connect with my body to notice sensations.
Over time, and with the discipline (on and off as is most often the case) to keep practising the skill of self-observation, I learned a lot about myself and my reactions and responses in life; I learned how to rebalance my previously very stressed nervous system with obvious flow-on benefits to my wellbeing; I became better equipped to make decisions and choices in life from this place of a clear head; I cultivated clearer access to the wisdom of my heart and my internal knowing; I learned how to acknowledge and make space for all feelings so that they can move through me rather than to ‘fuse’ with them which allows both of us ( the feelings and I) to more far more freely. Most importantly, I have been able to come into a more conscious relationship with myself. This is continuous – changing and evolving as my relationship to self continues to unfold.
Cultivating a conscious connection with our internal experience is a pathway through which we can begin to peel away the layers of conditioning of our socialised selves and rediscover our true nature. Over time it can become the source from which we show up and operate in our lives, from the inside -out. Some of what I now understand about cultivating this relationship with self (our internal experience) is that:
- Discovering and nurturing this connection to self is a lifelong process.
- There is no ‘end point’ as the more you learn about yourself, the more you realise there is to learn.
- It takes practice and discipline (choosing to focus Key # 1 – Attention on this)
- If we choose to attend to it many benefits can follow. The greatest of these is that this is a pathway to re-discovering our true nature.
So, if this notion of’ inner experience’ is new to you, as it was for me, I just wanted to let you know that that is a perfect place to begin. Set yourself with a clear intention to nurture this beautiful opportunity to develop a more conscious relationship with yourself; and open your journal and leverage the discovery questions in the Three Keys to Practising Self Leadership to get started:
- What’s alive in me now?
- Body Sensations
- Thoughts
- Feelings
Enjoy the process of nourishing and cultivating this connection with yourself.
This is the final post in this Self Leadership Series. Thanks for your company.
This post is an excerpt from my draft book Activating Self Leadership.