February gives new meaning to the words blah….blah….blah.  It’s the month with the least number of days yet feels like the longest. Our new year’s resolutions are waning and we have started to settle back into a familiar rut of doing what’s comfortable. Sound familiar?  Our programs/belief systems are like homing pigeons who take the message they’ve received and regardless of circumstances they follow the familiar path back to where they started.  And because the path is well worn and predictable there is no desire to change the path as so much of this cycle takes place at the subconscious level.  Hence the benefit of Personal Mastery. As most of you know this seminar is designed to create awareness around just those programs that I am referring to that often don’t serve us and quite frankly feed into making what can be a challenging time even more difficult!

The dreariness of the February landscape (especially for those of us that live in areas where we experience radical shifts between seasons) has us being far more introspective because we don’t want to venture out. We throw up our hands and exclaim “oh well” without looking any further to see if there is another path for us.  It is much more comfortable to reside in the doldrums because we don’t have to take any action and we can settle in and turn our focus inward and be smug about how we think the world is treating us.

Sometimes, however, out of nowhere, the external world jolts us back into reality and we are drawn out of our self-created cocoon to be reminded that there are people who have been shocked out of their own comfortable existence.  Take the very recent events in New Zealand where hundreds are suddenly missing and thousands more are affected by a natural disaster. There is no complacency for those people and while survival becomes paramount, how they choose to deal with the disaster is very much a choice.  Choices will involve being proactive about next steps, whether that means helping a neighbor, praying for relief, offering monetary assistance, rallying resources to overcome obstacles or expressing gratitude for their own safety.

This disaster highlights that despite our own inability to be in control the circumstances of our environment, we can control how we choose to behave in the face of tragedy.  We can choose to be humbled by the force of nature and know that we can be resilient and be ready for any upcoming trials.  We can be uplifted by people around the world who will be moved to act because they have chosen to take themselves out of their own February blahs to look around at others in need. But most of all, we can choose to remember that we are not alone; there is a greater community that we are all part of regardless of where we reside physically.

So whatever the weather or wherever you are, remember that we choose our experience based on the viewpoint we are prepared to take. It takes great effort at times to step into being a Compassionate Samurai. And if you’re not prepared to do it for yourself, then perhaps you are big enough to do it for someone else.

Sona van der Hoop – Director of Facilitation
Leadership Development