You live and learn...sometimes painfully!

Yesterday I attended a personal development seminar. It was the usual stuff...DISC personality types, vision statements, blind walks, discovering your purpose and passion etc. There was the usual hype - what do we want? Success...Whose success? Mine...What will we give? 200% Yes! There was dancing and team chanting, questions and answers, video clips and the opportunity to name your fear and smash through a piece of board with your bare hands.

By the time the board came around, everyone was on a bit of a high from the day's proceedings. We'd been well fed, revved up and prepped for it...now the time to put our faith into action. We were told, name your fear, write on the board what you want, then focus your energy and smash that fear in your life. Everyone was encouraged to do it...in fact, it felt like to not do was to acknowledge that you didn't have the strength of belief that you could do it.

As I stood in the room full of people, chanting, panting to have a go, I kept seeing Hitler and the masses chanting his name. As I was saying along with those beside me, "1, 2, all the way through" I was watching the older women bang their hands on a piece of wood, one, two, three, four times before they broke through it. And inside my heart there was a stirring of unease because I could tell that it was hurting them a lot.

Yet when I came to the front of the queue, like Mel Gibson in the Braveheart clip we'd just seen, I marched up to that chopping block intent on smashing it through with everything that was in me. What had I named as my fear? The fear of not being good enough. The fear of being rejected. Of being found wanting. And as I brought my hand down with everything in me, it collided with the off-centre part of the wood, the strongest part, and I felt the pain rip through my wrist. Yet I lined myself up again and slammed it down in the centre, breaking it in two.

The strange thing was, as I bent to gather the pieces of wood, which incidentally I had been told to write what I wanted on so that I would be able to focus on the breakthrough I was seeking, I felt like I had just smashed apart something inside me. Why had I done that to my hand, my right hand, my income hand, my creative hand, my doing hand? Why had I smashed my desires in two? For I had not overcome a fear...I had surrendered completely to it. For I had not felt completely comfortable with participating...internally something was screaming at me that this whole process was not right for me, yet I had ignored that voice.

Then afterwards as I embraced a friend I started to cry...not from the throbbing pain in my wrist, but at the thought that I was letting go to something that had been a part of me for a long time. And immediately that friend distanced themselves, looked at me and demanded "Those are happy tears..." and I obediently reassured her that they were, knowing full well that I was letting her believe what she wanted. For they were really tears of grief.

As I left the building with my arms bulging with books, bags, pieces of broken wood, a roll of paper for me to do a vision board on, I felt confused, angry and sad. Why had I not listened to the inner voice of wisdom that was telling me not to participate, that something was not right for me. Why didn't I risk not fitting in, not being thought worthy enough, actually breaking my fear of rejection instead of just surrendering to it and doing something so destructive to myself?

There were so many life lessons that came out of that one destructive decision I made and I am grateful for those. Every time I wince with pain when I go to grab something or I have to type with my left hand or struggle to sweep the floor one-handed, I am reminded of what I learnt.

When they asked everyone why did you come today, my answer was simple, I said a friend kicked my butt and told me to come because it would be good for me. My decision had been made on a desire to better understand them and what they knew, rather than to have a great learning experience for myself. Would I do this again? No. Will I listen more to my own voice within? Yes. Was the lessons learned valuable? Yes.

I am writing all this to encourage each of you not to be swayed by public opinion, not to bow your knee to the demands of charismatic leadership and to listen to your inner voice. You know what is right for you, what is good for you, what will keep you safe. Listen to that voice. I wish I had and if my sharing my own failure to honour myself more helps you, then the pain will have been worth it.

Be true to yourself. Others will respect you more for it.