Your emotional intelligence helps you separate your personal life from your work life, allowing you to concentrate on your tasks. This is called compartmentalization, which is a way our brain manages multiple conflicting perspectives at the same time. But, to what degree do you engage in compartmentalization? Or in other words, do you categorize things to make sense of them?
Join me for a fascinating conversation with Mary Meduna-Gross, Ph.D., the founder of Blue Bamboo Leadership. With a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Indiana State University, Mary is a seasoned expert in the field of leadership development. Mary shares her insights on how to overcome anxiety and make better decisions in less time, by improving relationships and breaking down internal barriers.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from one of the leading voices in leadership development!
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Achieving Mental Resilience with Mary Meduna-Gross, Ph.D.
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote for the mindset that keeps you settling for less. One thing a lot of us tend to do is really compartmentalize our lives and this kind of goes back to some of the old school work cultures we used to have where this time of day, you’re working, this time of day, you’re taking care of this stuff, this time of day, you’re taking care of that, and we tend to do the same thing with our initiatives, with our mindset on everything. Your work is here, your business is here, your social life is here, your whatever else is important to you in your life is over there. However, unfortunately, or fortunately for a lot of people because it can actually expedite some of the improvements we want to make into all of our lives, they are very well connected. The idea of leave it at the door when you come into work, leave your personal life at the door, that is quite possibly one of the 20th century’s most unrealistic ideas. My guest today, Mary Meduna-Gross, has a business called Blue Bamboo Leadership where she advocates to her clients that we actually take care of ourselves in order to take care of our business as well as some other kind of personal initiative.
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Mary, welcome to the program.
Thank you. It’s so great to be here. I’m really looking forward to this, particularly this topic about compartmentalizing. It’s something that I am personally well aware of my own habits to compartmentalize and it’s often a topic that comes up in my coaching with my clients.
So what I want to do is get to the beginning of this. Where does this urge to compartmentalize our lives come from in your belief?
Yeah. Oh, I love that question. Well, literally just before this call, a client and I were having this conversation. We were talking about it. And based on what that part and my own experience, I think that compartmentalizing is one way that we control our experience. I love systems. I just love it. Like if I could put everything on automation, I probably would. I think that is compartmentalizing to the 10th, maybe even 11th degree. But I think we do that as a way, again, to control what is happening. When our work life and our personal life and our relationships and Lord knows if we have kids or pets or anything else, like things just get muddied, and so by compartmentalizing, I get to say, “Okay, I’m gonna just focus on this right now and nothing else matters, and then when I get to my home life, I’m just focusing on this now and nothing else matters.” We literally can’t function that way.
Yeah, but is there an advantage to having that level of focus? Because it is really hard to really get anything done when your mind is everywhere all at once.
Yeah. I think it’s the middle way again. There’s the everything is automated and just happens on a routine, and the other side of that is nothing’s automated and we’re recreating everything every single day. We can’t live like that either.
Yeah.
So I think what is this middle way is conscious living and conscious leadership. It is knowing that one extreme or the other isn’t going to serve me, what is going to be that middle way that’s right for me? And then how do I listen to my own stories to even know what’s right for me? Quick story, my husband and I adopted a puppy last summer.
Oh, congratulations.
Oh, it’s been amazing. Absolutely amazing. We lost both of our older dogs during COVID and so we took some time and we brought the right dog home and what I’ve noticed, and especially it’s been cold these last couple of days here in Chicago, and what I’ve caught myself doing is when it’s time to take her out for a walk, and she definitely wants to go, I, in my mind, am trying to justify why I should stay at my desk and continue to do my work and not take her out for a walk. And I heard myself saying things like, “Oh, wow, why do I have to always take her out?” Like all of the self-pity kind of stuff. And then I catch myself and I say, “Mary, you’re doing what you’re doing here because you wanted this work life integration. This is the life part of that. You have to make room for the life part in the work part.” And so that’s just one way that I’ve noticed how I want to compartmentalize, I want to do only work from eight o’clock to four o’clock in the afternoon, and then after those, I don’t want to have anything to do with work and shut it all off. I still catch myself in those patterns of thought.
Interesting, because that seems like an ingrained pattern based on what our work culture was for most of the 20th century and still is for a lot of people, even here in 2023, although it’s changing quite a bit. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages in — because I’m sure there are some people out there that are kind of longing for this idea of five o’clock, shut my laptop down, off, I’m in this other mode once I get home or once I, in the case of remote work, shut the laptop down and do something else —
Right, move away from the laptop.
Yeah, yeah, like is there an advantage to that system — exactly, like in my view, the biggest drawback, of course, is that the work from nine to five or eight to five, whatever system, takes up all of your daylight hours. It’s really a terrible use of daylight and probably one of the key drivers behind the fact that 70 percent of Americans are vitamin D deficient right now. What are the advantages and disadvantages of that system?
Well, I think that the system comes from — I think we could probably trace it all the way back to Ford and the assembly line, that was automation, that’s control. And the hours, thinking about the unions, and how many hours are we working and what are those hours that we’re working, and so I see how we got to this mindset is through this history and a lot of that history really is all about controlling the employees to get to the business’s financial outcomes. And it’s worked well. We bought into the story. Now, I grew up on a farm and so my parents have always been self-employed. There’s never been an eight to four o’clock kind of timeline on the farm. It literally is working and living in the same space. So you would think that because I grew up with that, that I would have some sort of an advantage here. Somehow, I also bought into this whole idea.
Again, I love systems. I have that innate need for control. Click To TweetIt’s something that I’m finding less need for but particularly early on in my career, like that was one of the ways that I was able to say — how do I say this? It’s coming back to how do I know when enough is enough and when I don’t have a timeline that says I’m done at four o’clock, then I have to look at my work and what have I done and is that enough for today.
Yeah.
And that’s a harder decision to make. So, again, I think we fall into this pattern because it simplifies things. I know what the rules are, I follow the rules. Now, I have to live within those rules but I’m willing to do that for the payoff of I don’t have to recreate this every single day. I don’t have to think about this every single day. I don’t have to set this up. I don’t have to worry that I’m going to forget about this transaction or whatever part of it. Yeah. So I think that employers, first of all, I had an advantage of the way they were controlling their employees. I think we bought into it and for our own benefit of knowing when is enough enough and when do I have permission to play? I think, again, that work ethic here in the US where our value comes from our work. Well, you lay that on top of this issue, it just compounds the sense of I’ve always got to be doing something.
Oh, yeah, productivity guilt.
Yes, exactly, and if I’m not working, I’m not producing, which means that I must not be good enough.
Now, is there a mentality behind that that relates to how we kind of feel about ourselves and our own value?
Definitely, definitely. So, to make sense of this, to help me kind of keep things organized, I have a system, of course.
You did say you love them systems so yeah.
I do love systems. So, I use a system that I learned in my coach program. It’s called the Energy Leadership System and there’s seven levels of energy leadership and, basically, what that’s looking at is how do I perceive the world? Do I see things as happening to me or do I see life as happening for me? And so when I see life is happening to me, then I’m in this space where I do need to control things. If life is happening to me, that must mean that I have to defend myself and I have to take initiative to control things so that things work out in my favor because I don’t trust that the universe is going to bring me what I need.
Oh, wow. Okay. So that’s where that need to control things comes from?
Exactly. It’s a reflection of our core beliefs about who we are.
Oh, wow.
Now, when I’m on the other side of the spectrum and I can see that life is happening for me, now whatever is happening for me is material that I get to use to create with.
Okay, and then there’s seven levels like between those two extremes where like level one is life is happening to me to the extreme, the micromanager that needs to even tell people off when they’re like watching a movie that they don’t think is the right movie or eating food that they don’t think is the right, you know, all those like real petty, petty things that people get controlling about for no reason. And then level seven, being the ultimate creator?
Let’s split this continuum kind of in the middle at level three. So at level one is the victim, basically learned helplessness. Doesn’t matter what I do, I’m not going to be able to impact my own experience, I can’t do anything. Level two is where most of us live and level two is known as the fighter state. And the fighter stance says I have to win which means that you probably have to lose. And so we’re always in this state where I’m winning, I’m winning, I have to be right, I have to control things, we’re in that state and that creates chronic stress for us, because we can’t possibly control all of the variables that are creating our experience. Level three is the rationalizer and so I call level three the messy middle. The messy middle is where we start to realize I can’t possibly and I don’t even really want to control everything all the time anymore but I don’t know what else to do.
And then, at level four, is where we’re all about the other person winning. Now, a quick side note on that, because I feel like I have to speak to this because this level is the level that almost prevented me from using this whole system, because, to me, if I put you first, that means I’m not even in the picture anymore, which automatically makes me feel like level two, I now have to defend myself, I have to prove myself, I have to be in that space. That’s codependent care. And a lot of us have grown up in codependent kind of relationships, where I’m going to do something for you but there’s this unspoken agreement that I’m doing this for you because I’m going to want you to do something for me in return.
Yeah, yeah, I see that everywhere still.
Exactly. So That’s level two kind of giving. The giving and the compassion we’re talking about at level four in this system is, because at level three, we learned to put ourselves first, we learned to care for ourselves, and so now I know through the work that I do at level three that I’m okay, I’m cared for, I have everything, so now I can go to level four and I’m giving because I have it to give. I’m giving without any strings attached. If you need it and I have it, it’s yours. And if you want to come back and do whatever, like you don’t like it or you don’t appreciate it or you don’t even want it, that’s okay, right? Because if I’m giving from this level two, I really want you to appreciate that I’ve given you something.
I want you to appreciate the gift, I want you to appreciate that I thought about you, I want you to appreciate the effort I put into this. But at level four, it’s all about the other person. Click To TweetAnd then level five is the win-win position and that’s really where my clients and I really aspire to be. Level six and seven, seven is enlightenment, the creator, nobody lives there, we can aspire to be there and we can bounce into that experience and maybe experience it for a while but we still have enough of this cultural conditioning that we all have all of these levels. So let me say we’re not all ever at one spot and those kinds of things, but we still have that fighter piece, there’s those little core beliefs about ourselves, am I worthy? Am I enough? And do I have to prove myself? We’re always kind of looking for that but when we tend to live more at this creator side of the equation, that happens less often and it doesn’t last as long.
So what you’re saying is that it’s wrong to think of like, “I’m at level two, you’re at level three”? What percentage of life though right now exists at level two and, unfortunately, level one as well because I think even when I think of things like the violence and suicide rate, I feel like all that type of stuff has to come from that level one?
Yes, it does. Absolutely. So I have an assessment that measures where is your perception on this scale. Under normal circumstances, where do you tend to fall? Under stressful circumstances, where do you tend to fall?
Yeah.
And tens of thousands people taking this assess met, most people reside at level two.
And that seems like where our cultural conditioning really takes us to, like even the idea of grades in school, like you have to get A’s or B’s in order to demonstrate your value to people.
Yes, exactly. And, as we were saying earlier about this compartmentalization about work and life and that was one way to control the employee so it doesn’t surprise me that a part of us fell into the system but there’s also a part of us that resist that system. How many of us love to get in the car and make that commute to work in the morning or the commute home? As much to as working from home required some adjustments for us, to me, the data seems overwhelming that people love working from home, or at least having the opportunity and the flexibility of being able to work from home.
This is one area where I sometimes get confused about how alone I really am. I used to think I was way more alone on this, now, I’m just not sure how far it is but just to take a deep breath and look at the world around you and to use an example from your hometown, my former hometown, Chicago, and say like, okay, traffic on the Kennedy Expressway is terrible today, it’s terrible every day except Sunday and sometimes it’s terrible Sunday at night when everyone’s coming home from their vacations in the summer and does this make sense? Does it make sense that everyone is driving on this highway at the same time every single day and that everyone wastes an additional 25, 45, whatever the number of minutes of their life sitting in bumper to bumper traffic just to go to these buildings around this kind of common worktime that we’ve all agreed upon that, as I mentioned before, also is ruining our vitamin D and possibly our mental and physical health as well because if you don’t get out in the sun, go out in nature, you’re just not going to feel quite as well, and then what I used to do in Chicago in the wintertime is distract myself with alcohol, especially during the colder months, I mean, that happens quite a bit, and just say like, “Okay, this doesn’t really make sense,” but that system, you’re saying, is a byproduct of all of us being at this level two and needing to control things to avoid, like I need to control other people’s behavior, even the whole idea of that, I need to somehow control other people’s behavior, whether it be through workplace policies, whether it be through legislation, whether it be through some other form, in order to prevent some bad thing from happening to me, that’s the essence of it all?
That’s it. Yes, that’s exactly it.
And so what is the key to moving people up the levels, getting out of that mindset of control so that everything doesn’t happen to me and into more of that like helping people and win-win mindset?
Yeah. Well, I have three pillars that I focus on with all of my clients to move them up the scale. And the first thing that I asked my clients is to be willing to take ownership of their experience. Because when we’re living down here in levels one and two, we are living at cause. We’re letting whatever is happening around us say, well, I’m feeling this way or I’m doing this or whatever because of something outside of me. So, to take ownership, and it gets muddy here because then a lot of the New Age guilt about, “Oh, well, you created this for yourself,” I want to avoid that, like we don’t even need to look at that. But because when you are at level one or level two and someone says, “Well, you need to take ownership of your experience,” that doesn’t feel very good because what that says is I guess I have to take blame for all of this, that my health, my wealth, my relationships, I don’t want to take blame for it, okay?
And so we start with what would even make you happier? And so we focus on vision, because that’s one of the first three responsibilities of a leader is to set a vision, whether this is leading your own life or you’re leading an organization or a team, you have to know which direction you’re going in and when we’re living at level one and level two, we don’t even bother setting a vision for ourselves because we don’t even believe that that’s going to matter because all we ever respond to is what’s happening to us, right?
Yeah.
And so I’m asking my clients to take responsibility for becoming happier and that can start as simple as am I choosing what I really want for breakfast or for dinner? You know that old, “What do you want for dinner tonight? I don’t care, it doesn’t really matter”?
Yeah.
That happen in your house?
I mean, it happens in so many places and then you get the whole like one person will finally make a suggestion and you find out that the person who said I don’t care really did care.
Exactly. Right? So we do care, we do want things, but for some reason, we picked up a story about why I can’t have it or I shouldn’t ask for it. And so those are the first kinds of core beliefs that we start to unravel then. So I ask them to focus on what do you want to become and how will you feel when you become that person? The second thing then is to develop really, let’s say radical self-awareness, that might be an extreme, but real self-awareness — maybe authentic self-awareness is what I’m really looking for here. So let’s go back to, “I don’t know what I want for dinner.” My husband says, “Mary, what do you want for dinner tonight?” and I want to just say, “I don’t know, it doesn’t matter.”
Yeah
That’s my canned answer. So then I get to observe myself and say, okay, Mary, what are you going to say right now? Are you going to say, “I don’t care, it doesn’t matter,” and hope that he just picks up the responsibility and takes care of it so you don’t have to? Or do you really want to take a minute to say, “You know what, maybe I would really like pasta tonight or whole sausage tonight or whatever,” it doesn’t matter what I want, what matters is that I’m willing to even listen to what it is that I want and then to ask for what I want.
Because if I can’t ask for what I want for dinner, how am I going to ask for anything? Click To Tweet
Yeah, so it makes sense so it sounds like you’re saying is starting small with this transition from whatever, the victim, the way — or the vigilance, we’ll say the victim and the vigilant to make it simple, to say, “Okay, I’m gonna take ownership of at least expressing what I want to another person, a group of people of some kind —
Yeah.
— and not just waiting for someone to say, “Oh, what about this?” “Oh, wait, I don’t want that.” “What about that?” I don’t want that,” which can be an annoying experience after a while.
Yes, absolutely. And the other thing too about knowing what we want, are we willing to give ourselves what we want? So, am I wearing the clothes that I really want to wear? Or am I wearing something that somebody else said looked good on me and so I’m wearing it?
Am I willing to know myself well enough to know what I want and then to ask for what I want? Click To Tweet
So what does it take to get someone to the point where they’re able to take a deep breath and somehow trust that instinct and say, “My instinct is telling me that I,” going to use an example from where I live that, “I have 24 hours to do whatever I want, I’m gonna go skiing.”
Yeah. Well, how would you feel if you went skiing in that 24 hours?
I mean, probably good, unless it was really, really cold out and then my face would be frozen and I would just want to sit inside and drink Bloody Marys.
What I love about the examples that you’re bringing up, and this is the importance of even these really small self-awareness practices, what do I want for dinner? What do I want to wear? Just all these small decisions that we make during the day because when you start to ask yourself, “What do I wanna do with 24 hours?” you’re going to hear things like, “Well, I can’t do that,” or, “I shouldn’t do that,” or, “So and so did that and I don’t wanna do it because I don’t wanna talk to him about it.” There’s all of these external —
Sorry, that’s the silliest —
You know those people, right?
That’s the silliest, like even like, “Oh, wait, but if I go to park burger, then my friend Becky who loves Park Burger is gonna engage me in a 25-minute conversation about the size of their fries and which option you get and how it works at 6 p.m. versus 8 p.m. on a Friday because by 8 p.m., you usually have to wait and I just don’t want,” I mean, it just seems like scraping at the bottom of the barrel as far as, like as far as reasons to not do what you want to do.
And yet, unconsciously, that’s what’s driving our decisions. So, without self-awareness to that, what do you want with 24 hours? Go to the burger place and, unconsciously, because you’re probably not even aware of it. If you’re living in one or two, you’re not even aware of it. All you know is I don’t have anything to do with that burger place and you might even stop at that point. That is a no and so everything else is a no. But when we bring awareness to, “Why wouldn’t I want to go to this burger place? Oh, Becky.” Yeah. Is it worth me giving up that experience so I don’t have to talk to Becky about this? Or why would I even have to talk to Becky about this? Like I never have to mention this to her. So what our brain does is overgeneralize, like you might have to talk to Becky about this and so just avoid that possibility by not even going in the first place.
Yes, and, first of all, I would like to apologize to anyone listening who’s named Becky, I do not mean to — I just picked the first name that popped in my head, I promise.
Yeah, right, no hate on Beckys. You know what, I’m really glad you bring that up because especially in this place where we’re finally starting to listen to ourselves, let’s say we hear this argument, “I don’t wanna do this because I don’t wanna talk to Becky,” we might then judge ourselves, “Mary, what do you care and you shouldn’t be that way about Becky and you shouldn’t be this —” again, all the shoulds. And so we just layer shoulds upon shoulds upon shoulds which keeps us from even wanting what we want and then we have an excuse of why we don’t have what we want and an excuse to stay in this very painful victim side of the equation.
ing to ourselves, we’ve got to be willing to be the observer and then give ourselves grace. Give ourselves grace for having these beliefs that limit us or limit other people, having compassion for ourselves, for that part of us that believed that we weren’t worthy of this, compassion for ourselves for that part of us that didn’t believe that we could even ask for what we want. I’m not asking for what I want because I don’t think that I deserve to ask for what I want. I’ve been told that I already have enough and I bought into that story that I have enough. Now, I’m going to give myself compassion and grace that I ever believed that story about myself. And then what that does is it lets go of the energy. So, this is where energy comes into play in all of this is we have a thought that generates our emotions and the emotion is really where that energy comes from and then the energy from that experience is what holds those core beliefs in place. So every time we listen to what that core belief is, we give ourselves a bit of grace and compassion, we dissipate this energy that’s holding it, starts to dissipate and as that dissipates, then we start to feel relief, then we start to feel a little bit more like ourselves, and then, oh my gosh, it feels good to know what I want for dinner or what I want to wear today or how I want to get to work today. It feels good to make those decisions.
Wow. That is really powerful. I don’t even know where to begin because, normally, I don’t bring up that much stuff about myself personally in this podcast because I like to make it about your stories, about the users and everything like that, and one of the things that I do struggle with though is not doing things or avoiding doing some things or sometimes sneaking around to avoid anticipated, which is sometimes actually occurred. criticism from others, and this goes beyond this example of Becky. Actually, in this particular example I used, Becky is a perfectly good person who just is really excited about Park Burger and just wants to talk about it, just wants to say, “Oh, I love this place too. I like to get my fries, I like to get this burger,” stuff like that. I’m talking about the situations where you know someone in your life, maybe it’s a boss, maybe it’s a really, really nosy or controlling level two friend or family member, that you feel like as soon as you do something, as soon as you say something, as soon as you do something differently from the way they would do it, the way they’ve kind of ingested the prevailing narrative is going to initiate some kind of a response that could potentially get nasty, right?
Yes, yes.
So you’re saying that I personally can dissipate that energy, that concern by just simply forgiving myself for having ever given into that concern in the past and just saying to myself kind of this forward looking thing that you began the conversation about moving from level two through three, four, and potentially five is not looking back and saying, “I’m so mad at myself for having given into this. I’m so mad at myself for having done this, this, and that,” and say, “No, I’m just gonna take responsibility for my own happiness and worrying about how someone else is likely to come in and criticize my decision is not what’s bringing me happiness.”
Exactly. And I love it that you brought that up too because it starts within, like if you can’t give yourself that grace and compassion, you’re not ever going to get any further than this. But then you are going to run into those experiences with others and, in fact, when you look through the literature, one of the reasons why we stay at level two is so that we don’t disrupt our networks, because within our networks, we all have this unwritten rules of engagement and those unwritten rules often include you’re going to complain about your experience, I’m going to listen and tell you what a horrible thing that must be for you and then you’re going to do that for me, right? And so when you start to break that unwritten rule, then people don’t know how to interact with you now. What’s Stephen going to do next?
Yeah, I feel you on that.
Right, and so that’s one of the things then where boundaries come into play.
So boundaries aren’t about keeping people out, boundaries are about keeping yourself in. Click To TweetAnd so when I set a boundary for this is the standard for how I want to engage with people in general or this person in particular, these are my boundaries and it doesn’t matter what anyone else does outside of that, you’re just holding your boundaries because the boundary isn’t for them, the boundary is for you.
Yeah.
And so then you get to that place of acceptance, again, another word that we often hear in this line of work is “acceptance” and people have a hard time with accepting, but we got to start small. When I can accept that this person might respond in this way and I let them do that without compromising my own standards. So here’s an example. I was in a conversation a week or so ago and a guy, he’s about 30, and he wanted to go to Peru for a healing experience. Apparently, there’s a lot of political turmoil in Peru right now and so his mother was laying the guilt trip on him about going and he was wondering, “Do I give into this guilt trip? Or, because that’s level two behavior, or do —
Very much so.
— do I say I will be responsible for making responsible decisions for myself and my safety and I’m willing to trust myself?” I thought, well, surely his mom would trust him to make these responsible decisions and so I asked him that and he goes, “No, I don’t think she would trust me to make those responsible decisions.”
Oh, wow, and he’s 30? If you raised a kid and they’re 30 and you don’t trust them, you got to look within and say, “Did I not raise this kid to become someone that can take care of themselves?” but that’s a whole separate issue.
That’s a whole another conversation, but it goes back to that codependent caring that we’ve talked about earlier. That’s what he experienced. And so I bring this up because this is a perfect place for him just to set a boundary.
Yep.
These are the parameters I’m going to use to make this decision and I’m going to be satisfied with this decision and whatever my mother decides to accept or not accept, it’s not on me. It’s not my responsibility. He was worried about re-triggering her health condition because she was under so much stress.
Oh, my, yeah.
Her health is not your responsibility.
Interesting. And so what does this look like for everyone that’s listening, and I’m sure there’s plenty people listening that are in this situation where someone in their life is going to give them a guilt trip on something, and the reason I say this is because this is so embedded into our culture, like even the idea that you should not try to date someone if one of your good friends also likes them, right? That’s another example of how so densely embedded this level two thinking is into our culture. So, anyone that wants to move up is going to have to learn how to deal with the level two people which are still going to be the majority for —
Yes.
— at least another five or six years, if not way longer, to be honest.
Exactly.
What does it look like to endure this level two behavior and still set that boundary and not have it faze you?
Yeah. Oh, I love that you asked about the different levels. So, first of all, it’s going to faze you and so I think the first thing that you do is just acknowledge that this is going to be challenging and I’m willing to accept that. So I’m willing to accept it. The second piece is what is it that I really want? What brings me peace and comfort inside?
Yeah.
Do I know enough about myself to really even know what that is? And if the answer to that question is no, then I would say get away from everybody, cut out all the noise, and be with yourself to see what it is that you really want. So then when you know what you really want and you’re perfectly willing to accept people do what they do, you’re really only taking responsibility for your own behavior, then that keeps you moving on your own agenda. Because, again, they’re going to try to pull you back and you have to keep coming back to what is it that I want and why is this important to me and how does this feel. We got to get out of our head as much as possible into how does this feel? Because that’s really what’s driving our decisions anyway. We think it’s out of our head but it’s not.
How does this feel?
Yeah, so how does this feel? What is it that I want? Am I willing to set a boundary that lets people do what they do without it interfering me and I’m willing to accept that that’s going to happen and that I don’t have to take responsibility for whatever consequences might come to them for their decisions and their actions.
One of the problems I run into a lot is that my often different way of thinking about the world upsets people who have dedicated their whole lives to the standard narrative, I sometimes call it living by the script on this podcast, but I don’t need to take responsibility for the fact that what I’m doing here is upsetting the people who live by the script and are so vested in it that they don’t even want to hear about anything else because they don’t want to wrap their brain around the idea that it’s a possibility that they could have a very different life.
Yeah. Well, and I think too that and I’ve fallen myself into that, when I feel like I’ve discovered something, I can break myself out of my own limitations and I can experience this very joyful way of living regardless of what’s happening around me, I really want to share that and I want to spread it to my friends and my family —
Yep.
— many of them who are on the script.
Now, it also means that if there are consequences that their journey is bringing them doesn’t make me responsible for helping them get out of it.
Yeah.
Because that’s the other thing that people will do, “I’ve made these really bad decisions, help me get out of this.” Again, some of that can go into that codependency. Someone who’s codependent living at level two would say, “Oh, well, of course I’m gonna help you because that makes me feel needed.”
Yeah.
If I’m at level three and this is happening, I’m going to rationalize and I’m going to forgive but I’m still going to be upset about it, so I’m going to be upset that somebody is responding to me in this way but I’m going to forgive them because they don’t know any differently but I’m still upset. When I get to level four, I can empathize with their pain and I would give them anything that I have that would help alleviate that pain but only really if they asked. Now I might invite, like, “I know something that might help you with this, is that something you might be interested in hearing more about?” and if they say yes, then I might share it, and if they say no and back into their story, then I just let it be. At level five is the same thing. We’re really going to let that be because level five is win-win. And a level five knows that if this person, even if they’re experiencing a very painful episode in their experience right now, it’s not going to last forever and they’re going to come out of this. Ultimately, we’re all fine.
One of the things I want to talk about is the future and some of the trends we’re seeing. On one hand, I see a lot more people reaching a level of self-awareness with some of the more possibilities opened, but I’m also seeing our digital age, our social media and in the internet in general producing so many distractions that are there with you all the time that it’s preventing people from ever doing any of that self-reflection. What do you see as far as people going forward, do you see more people overcoming this distraction? Do you see more people moving up these levels and reaching this area where they don’t need to control people? Or do you see the world of social media and everything else kind of dragging everyone back down quite effectively?
I love that question. I was just in a group yesterday with probably about a dozen women who I would say they’re all on this probably at least four or five, six level of existing. It is just powerful to be in that presence. And one of the women, these were all businesswomen, and one of them was talking about articulating what she does in her business and how really challenging that is, because what she’s talking about is so different than what the general population is thinking about on that topic. I have the same thing with leadership. People have their ideas about leadership and that’s really not what I’m talking about when I’m talking about leadership. And one of the other ladies said, “Well, there’s really only 1 percent of the people that you’re talking to here,” and someone else says, “I think it’s 1 percent of the 1 percent based on that conversation.” There’s a growing number of people who are moving away from just thinking about this and knowing this content to actually putting it into practice and experiencing it. So, I don’t know what the number is but there’s a small number there. I think there’s also a growing number of people that I’m going to say get stuck in the middle here, but I think a lot of what that is is I don’t really want to do the work that it takes to build that relationship with myself. I really just want the world outside here to change for me and I’m going to study leadership, I’m going to study personal development, I’m going to know it all, but, meanwhile, I’m just waiting for all of this to change and it doesn’t, and we start judging ourselves and we get stuck there. And then, of course, there’s the people, the late adopters who are still stuck in that one and two and they don’t even know that there’s another possibility.
They probably don’t even know or realize that they’re dragging people back down to that level. They probably have no awareness.
No. I’ll talk about myself, like I had very aspirational goals as a leader. What I wanted is to bring out the best in other people and I was one of those leaders that was stuck in my head and as long as I was doing the right things at the right time and saying the right things, that should be enough, but all of that was coming from a very defensive container.
Yeah.
Right? I needed to control everything. I needed to be right about everything. Not only does it not work, didn’t get me what I wanted, it also breaks relationships, because the people on my team probably were really confused because they could acknowledge that I was doing the right things, so part of it was like this should be right and yet it doesn’t feel right and it didn’t feel right because of my defensive energy that was coming through my behaviors, and just as I was saying earlier, we don’t make decisions on our head, we make decisions in our heart and so even though, logically, it made sense, to their heart, it didn’t make sense and so they couldn’t trust me. And so that’s the cost of being stuck at that level two and not knowing it, and fooling ourselves thinking, well, because I know all of this, I can talk about all of this should mean that you just get it and it’s completely different. Again, that idea of in your head versus the actual experience.
That’s what you mean with that like ultimate first step, which you said earlier starts with just that, “What’s for dinner?” or starts with, “What should we do tonight?”
“What do I want?”
“What do I want?” And one of the things that I’d asked my audience to think about is when was the last time you actually asked yourself what do I want right now, whether it’s for food, whether it’s for an activity, whether it’s for a specific experience?
Yeah. I would double that challenge — well, not double it, I’ll reinforce it. Yeah.
I mean, you can ask yourself twice.
Yeah, exactly. But I strongly encourage all of us to do that on a regular basis. It’s not just in the morning, it’s not just at the end of the day, but throughout the day. “What’s the temperature that I want right now? Am I hot? Am I cold? Do I need something? And am I willing to give that to myself?”
Yeah.
Or ask for it.
Now, before we wrap up, I want to give you a chance to tell us a little bit about Blue Bamboo Leadership. Obviously, you talked a bit about the mission being helping people move up from that level two upward and that produces better leadership, but who you work with, what the program is like, etc.
Excellent. So I’m going to start with about a year ago, and I was looking at niching and who do I serve, I was asking this question, I discovered a movement around conscious entrepreneurship. And a conscious entrepreneur shares four values. They’re in business to make the world a better place. it’s not just about profit, it’s not just about the bottom line, it’s about impact and so there’s actually a double bottom line. The other values include they care deeply about people so they want to be really good leaders for people, they care about profits so this isn’t just, “Oh, I’m just here to be good and a nonprofit and just give, give, give,” no, we want to make profit because we also know profit means that we can expand our impact.
Yep.
And we care deeply about the planet and so we make intentional choices, the footprints that we’re leaving on the planet. And so when I discovered this movement, first of all, I felt aligned with it and when I look back at all of my favorite clients, they aligned with it. And so I created the Conscious-Preneur magazine because I want to validate all of the conscious entrepreneurs out there who are being told by the traditional business gurus that you have to be very transactional, that you have to take control, that you have to dominate, you have to compete. Those are all very masculine ways of doing business and that’s all level two ways of doing business. And so if we want to move into a more conscious way of doing business, then this is the path that we’re talking about. So that’s who I talk with. And so what I do right now is mostly one-on-one work. I do an energy leadership index assessment that I mentioned earlier on this scale so that my clients know exactly where their perception patterns are now. It helps to zero in on where their biggest obstacles might be and that’s an assessment that we can use up to every six months to measure progress. And then the coaching is basically what do you want? What is the story that you’re telling yourself about that? What part of that are you willing to let go of? And we’ll help with the letting go process because most of us don’t know how to do that. And then we also maintain a mindset of flexibility because this whole compartmentalized, where we started this conversation, that is the antithesis of flexibility. So I like the beginner’s mindset, that idea that I think I know something about this but maybe I don’t know and so it leaves you open for curiosity. And that is that on this creative end of the spectrum. I throw that flexibility in just kind of as a buffer so that we don’t fall into that level two trap as often or stay there as long as.
That makes sense.
So, the magazine, yeah, one on one, and I’m also developing a new podcast so we’d have more of these conversations about leadership and conscious leadership and what does that mean and how does that impact my life and my business.
That’s awesome. So what are the web address, URLs, or the modes of contact if anyone wants to read the Conscious-Preneur magazine or if anyone wants to contact you about becoming a better conscious entrepreneur?
Yeah. So my email address is mary@bluebambooleadership.com. That’s probably going to be the easiest. My website is obviously bluebambooleadership.com and there, you can find a link to subscribe to the magazine, see the other things that I’m up to on that website.
And then the magazine —
I’m also on LinkedIn — yes.
Yeah. And the magazine, you’ll get to in addition to the stories of people doing amazing things that I tell on this podcast and you’re going to be telling on your podcast, you’ll get to read some more stories in the magazine about people who may inspire you as well.
I am so proud of this magazine and it’s something that I’m just pulling it together. The contributors are absolutely amazing. They inspire me and I know that they will inspire others. And it’s all about how do we stay in this conscious space without getting sucked back into the old way that none of us — well, those of us who ascribe to these values want to continue to move in this direction.
Yeah, and I do happen to know with post-COVID, kind of all that being over and some of the recession fears, it feels like the old way is trying to strike back right now so —
I think it is too.
— I hope we all can figure out a way to get through this and continue to move forward towards something that’s going to bring us all to more conscious, more fulfilling lives because I do firmly believe that once we, as much as the systems were great and as much as the systems did produce balance for people for a little while and maybe even made sense in the world of the assembly lines, right now, we have the potential to give our lives something even better and we can kind of set up our lives the way that makes sense for us because I know some of that level two thinking just never really made sense to me, even from a young age when I didn’t understand what any of this was, but I was just like, why, like why is it such a big deal if this person likes, to go back to junior high and high school, the most immature part, why is it a big deal if this person dresses differently than those people? Why is it a big deal if this person prefers this type of music?
A thought that I want to come back to as we’re closing here is something you said just a minute ago about we really just want the world to change for us so that we don’t have to. And I think that’s true. And yet, there is nothing like creating from this other side of the continuum because when you’re co-creating with the universe, whatever the universe is bringing you, you’re using that as your material, it almost feels effortless. This whole magazine, putting it together, I had no idea how to put a magazine together, it almost felt effortless. Now, of course, there was a lot of effort that went into it but I wasn’t forcing anything. I didn’t have to make anything happen. And that’s what we’re doing when we’re living down here in level two.
So, I hope that entices people to say, “Oh, maybe I can let go of this for a little bit. Let me just see what Mary has to say about this.” I encourage you, experience this because experience is the only thing that I think you should trust. Don’t trust me. Take what I say and maybe try it but then make your own decision.
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to get the same results or if you do the same thing everyone else does, you’re going to get the same result as everyone else does and the question out there for a lot of people is, “How’s that working out for you?” and if it’s working out for you fine, then, by all means, that’s good.
Exactly.
Mary, I’d like to thank you so much for joining us today on Action’s Antidotes, telling us all. This level thing is relatively new to me as well so I’m always fascinated by these ways of understanding things. Of course, it might resonate with some people, it might not resonate with others. And I’d also like to thank everyone out there for listening, listening to this episode, any other episode that you’ve heard on this podcast, or will hear in the future if you tune back into Action’s Antidotes and listen to some more inspiring stories and hopefully one of them will resonate with you enough for you to go out there and take what you want out of the world.
Love it. Thank you, Stephen. It’s been an absolute joy. I love your questions.
Thank you. I’m so glad to hear people appreciate the interview skills I bring up here.
Absolutely.
Have a good day.
Thank you
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About Mary Meduna-Gross, Ph.D
Dr. Mary Meduna-Gross is a transformational leadership coach helping entrepreneurs break the habit of struggle and experience the joy of their innate power.