Theo Fer­gu­son

On Mon­day af­ter­noon, I com­plet­ed an­oth­er of the Lead­ing From Above The Line eight-day res­i­den­tial lead­er­ship self-dis­cov­ery re­treats at one of T&T's newest re­treat fa­cil­i­ties, La Amanecer, which is lo­cat­ed in the re­mote heights of the ver­dant Lopinot Val­ley. Here, par­tic­i­pants had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to phys­i­cal­ly es­cape the hus­tle and bus­tle of their every­day liv­ing (their out­er re­al­i­ty) in or­der to give them­selves a bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ty to un­der­stand and to strength­en them­selves through a sus­tained pe­ri­od of guid­ed in­tro­spec­tion. The re­treat fo­cused on tak­ing par­tic­i­pants on an in­tro­spec­tive jour­ney util­is­ing the Lead­ing From Above The Line roadmap to greater per­son­al lead­er­ship. In­tro­spec­tion is all about free­ing our­selves from our out­er dis­trac­tions so that we can bet­ter see our in­ner truth. We free our­selves by tem­porar­i­ly dis­con­nect­ing from our out­er re­al­i­ty-hence, the im­por­tance of si­lence and soli­tude in the in­tro­spec­tion process. From time to time, we all need to dis­con­nect from the nu­mer­ous dis­trac­tions that in­trude in­to our lives and ob­scure our in­ner selves. Such ob­scur­ances-the noise of our en­vi­ron­ment-dis­tract and blind us to our in­ner beau­ty; they cre­ate a self-ob­scur­ing in­ter­nal tur­bu­lence.

In­tro­spec­tion is sim­ple. In its sim­plest sense in­tro­spec­tion is get­ting to know and con­nect­ing with your in­ner self-your in­ner re­al­i­ty. It is get­ting to know who you tru­ly are. It is dis­cov­er­ing your di­vine gifts of con­science and pur­pose. In­tro­spec­tion lib­er­ates you to bet­ter live out your full hu­man po­ten­tial. It in­volves free­ing your­self from the dis­trac­tions of your dai­ly ex­is­tence in or­der to bet­ter em­brace the di­vine beau­ty of your hu­man ex­is­tence. In­tro­spec­tion in­tro­duces you to your in­her­ent good­ness and your con­science. Through in­tro­spec­tion you be­come more con­scious of the moral line and your deep de­sire to live above that moral line. Through in­tro­spec­tion you de­vel­op greater con­scious aware­ness of the spir­i­tu­al na­ture of your hu­man ex­is­tence. In­tro­spec­tion brings clar­i­ty to the rea­son for your ex­is­tence by in­tro­duc­ing you to your life's pur­pose. You dis­cov­er your in­ner pow­er and you ex­pe­ri­ence a deep sense of per­son­al free­dom. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the essence of in­tro­spec­tion can get lost in the some­times-com­pli­cat­ed rit­u­als of our var­i­ous be­lief sys­tems so that find­ing your in­ner self ap­pears to be more dif­fi­cult than it re­al­ly is. The truth is that your in­ner self is eas­i­ly avail­able to you-as it is to all hu­man be­ings re­gard­less of ed­u­ca­tion, re­li­gion or cul­ture.

In Lead­ing From Above The Line we see in­tro­spec­tion as a five-step process:

Step 1: Ac­knowl­edg­ing your out­er re­al­i­ty.

Step 2: Let­ting go of your out­er re­al­i­ty.

Step 3: Recog­nis­ing and em­brac­ing your in­ner re­al­i­ty.

Step 4: Lin­ger­ing in your in­ner re­al­i­ty.

Step 5: Com­mit­ting to mak­ing your out­er re­al­i­ty more rep­re­sen­ta­tive of your in­ner re­al­i­ty.

The first two steps are es­sen­tial­ly con­cerned with recog­nis­ing the ad­verse im­pact of the neg­a­tive forces of the out­er re­al­i­ty on your life and free­ing your­self from them. The next two steps in­volve recog­nis­ing the pos­i­tive forces of the in­ner re­al­i­ty and em­brac­ing them. The fifth step in­volves chang­ing your­self to re­flect more of your in­ner re­al­i­ty. Step 1 is about be­com­ing more con­scious of who you are in re­la­tion to the neg­a­tive forces of your out­er re­al­i­ty.

This step in­volves:

• Free­ing your­self from self-de­cep­tion by hon­est­ly recog­nis­ing and ac­knowl­edg­ing your out­er re­al­i­ty.

• Ac­knowl­edg­ing your per­son­al weak­ness­es and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

• Recog­nis­ing the neg­a­tive ex­ter­nal forces of your out­er re­al­i­ty that may be im­pact­ing on your life.

• Ac­knowl­edg­ing that you may have al­lowed your­self to sub­mit to these neg­a­tive ex­ter­nal forces.

As a hu­man be­ing you may want to see your­self as good and okay even when you're not. More of­ten than not, you may be de­ceiv­ing your­self in­to see­ing what you would like to see, rather than ac­knowl­edg­ing the truth about your­self. You could be bold­ly deny­ing the ad­verse ef­fects of your out­er re­al­i­ty on your high­ly com­pro­mised life. In time you can be­come to­tal­ly blind­ed to your in­ner re­al­i­ty. And you can fall in­to a state of deep self-de­cep­tion in which you re­peat­ed­ly tell your­self "I am okay!" when you are not. You see the prob­lem as be­ing oth­ers and not your­self. When you are in a state of self-de­cep­tion you au­to­mat­i­cal­ly put the fo­cus on chang­ing oth­ers rather than on chang­ing your­self. In this state of self-de­cep­tion your lies can be­come your re­al­i­ty and you live in a false world. Ac­knowl­edg­ing your out­er re­al­i­ty is be­ing hon­est with your­self in re­la­tion to the life you are liv­ing. From time to time you must be­come an im­par­tial ob­serv­er of your own be­hav­iours. If you are not hap­py with what you see, then you must be pre­pared to "let go" of what you are not hap­py with. This brings us to Step 2 which I will ex­plore in Part 2 of this ar­ti­cle.