Introducing self transformation
It is the beginning of the year 2024. As with many beginnings, whether you chose to follow the African New Year in September, Chinese New Year in February or another calendar system, we can all benefit from the symbol of starting anew. The new year offers us an opportunity to make and offer a new sense of the dynamic world we are creating.
The world keeps changing, requiring us to also continue to evolve and mature. This is because the outer world is intrinsically connected to the inner world. And as we try to ‘change the world out there’ through finding brilliant solutions and adding meaningful value to the spaces we belong to, what we often neglect is ‘becoming the change in here’.
Through challenging and updating our beliefs, values, mindsets, heartsets, identities (ego development), we are able to recalibrate ourselves to call in our power that enables us to continue to become relevant, true, and useful. This finding of self orientation is what Shotter refers to as “the world you are going on inside of”. I recently heard this phrase while reading Kosheek’s book, Sounding the Depths of Leadership, and it stopped me dead in my tracks. I couldn’t stop smiling with resonance – I love beautifully weaved words.
Anyway I digress. As I introduce self transformation with this blog, my first message is that it is almost impossible to navigate an increasingly VUCA world, if you do not continue to develop a more sophisticated way of being. We can design comprehensive leadership development courses and spend millions sending leaders and managers on training to study books, read tons of theory, and add new competencies to their leadership toolkit, but if the greatest tool (that is you) is not ready or available to receive and integrate what we are learning at more mature levels, our efforts for growth will always reach a ceiling. Nations and the smaller organisational systems within them will still have leaders who fail to lead well, and miss the mark of what is needed from leadership.
To help you to further pick up what I am putting down, let us start by first differentiating between horizontal and vertical development. We have spent a lot of our leadership development efforts on horizontal development (over 95%) – which is concerned with improving one’s knowledge, skills and abilities. Vertical development on the other hand often lags behind, which addresses the very nature in which we see, feel and interact with the world around and within us. To make this clearer let me put it this way; horizontal development can be likened to adding new APPs on a smartphone to broaden its functionality like scan documents, edit photos, navigation and tell us where the traffic cops are on enroute (thank you WAZE). Vertical development would be similar to upgrading the phone’s internal operating system. It concerns itself with improving one’s character, psyche, and other higher faculties of being – yes, even as adults we never stop growing. What we find in the state of leadership today is a crisis similar to a slow phone in desperate need of an operating system upgrade. And we can all relate to how frustrating that can be (both in terms of the phone and the leader).
Today, I am writing for myself and other leaders seeking to take baby steps towards a massive overhaul of self as we begin the new year. This message is not just for people who have been placed in high positions within organisations and have been called leaders by default. It is for all people who seek to rediscover themselves as co-creators of their realities regardless of where their sphere of influence lies. Self leadership as a tool is available to all of us, and while vertical development can be daunting, I will focus on one micro step that is at the beginning of all creation, the word.
The word became flesh
“In the beginning there was the word…and the word was God. And it became flesh, and dwelt among us”
The word referred to here is the spoken word behind all creation. It is said that from a dark void came a sound and matter took shape through 6 periods of time. The vibratory, energetic sound of God that manifests all things can be traced in different forms in all major religions as the basis of our faith in God as Creator of the universe. The bible and torah refer to this sound as The word or ‘Amen’. Early Egyptians refer to the word as ‘Amun’ or ‘Amon’. In Islam, they refer to ‘Amin’ or ‘Ameen’. The ancient Tibetans call it ‘Hum’. In Hinduism, it is ‘Om’ or more correctly, ‘Aum’. Aum is said to be the original and primary sound of creation from which all other sounds came. It is a confirmation that what has been spoken by God is true and represents the manifestation of life, death, and rebirth. I know…this is a bit out there, but stay with me, abeg.
The word is therefore the mother that births all things. As it is spoken, the sound transforms the energy of the word into matter. This wisdom has been in plain sight throughout ancient texts all over the world – but we often fail to unpack the meaning behind what we are saying or to integrate what we learn on Sunday into other days of the week (but ke angikho lapho – I am not there). Let us move away from spirituality to science. It has taken physicists nearly 2000 years to prove that matter is not solid – it is made of energy, frequency and vibrations. This is why Nikola Tesla said, “If you want to know the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating, each one radiating its own unique energy signature. Therefore, if we really want to observe ourselves and find out what we are, we are really beings of energy and vibration, radiating our own unique energy signature.
And if we believe this to be true, designated matter also makes the flesh of you and me. When an egg is fertilized by a sperm, the same vibratory sound of the word travels through the genetic letters of DNA that contain powerful transmitters of creation at a cellular level, commanding cells to follow the instruction and information in the protein molecules to produce flesh. This is how the word dwells amongst all of us, including animals and minerals – The oneness.
Similarly as creations of and co-creators with God, these principles can also apply to us as we self transform using words. As we use different combinations of letters in the alphabet, the sound of the words we utter carries intelligent energy that sends specific vibrations into the void and creates all kinds of stuff. This means that the words we also speak are not just mere utterances, they carry a lasting frequency within the Ether which are pathways that bring our creations into existence.
Recreating our Inner World
“Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks”
Caroline Myss argues that the greatest power available to us, is made in the inside, and of the things we cannot see – from our imagination, the choices we make from connecting dots, the language we use, and the small acts of service that are not screaming to be seen and recognised by others. By taking you to the very beginning of creation, I am taking you back to the starting point of the Source behind everything, so that we build an unshakable foundation from the original blueprint. Source who has been embedded in all of us offers an example we can use when we decide to be conscious creators of our worlds, internally and externally. So when you seek to become a new you (ukuzalwa kabusha) inspired by the new year, we can follow the same principles today.
Perhaps it has something to do with the Hermetic Philosophy “as within, so without”, but I am a big advocate for starting with the recreation of the inner world. Similar to this line of reasoning, the Inner Development Goals (IDG) initiative offers a framework that can help us apply vertical development principles to recreate ourselves, and from there have the apparatus to continue to address the biggest problems facing humankind outlined by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The IDG initiative also echoes the point that we cannot achieve SDGs (outer world goals) without achieving IDGs (inner world goals). Robert Kegan, one of the first writers of Vertical development, draws a beautiful analogy about the need to increase the size of the cup, as opposed to adding more water to the cup. So when we focus on inner development, we are literally growing bigger minds (and I would also like to add ‘bigger hearts’ in the mix here too). It will be useful for us to not leave our hearts behind as we grow because the dire issues of greed, selfishness, and apathy which are holding the evolution of humanity by the balls, are better mediated by the heart – what one of my mentors, Dr Kobus Nel referred to as the 30 centimeter drop from the head to the heart. Later on, I will offer some guidance on how speaking affirmative words powered by emotions from the heartspace can put the energy of our words into more powerful motion to accelerate the process of what you are creating.
By focusing on improving our inner world, we allow ourselves to develop, mature or change our way of being as a species – which is at the core of the IDG framework below. This is a shift from merely adding more knowledge for our minds to absorb, to creating new neurological pathways that help us hold space for and navigate the volatility, uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity that has become key features of the world we lead in.
Source: https://www.innerdevelopmentgoals.org/framework
Be impeccable with your word
“Speak so that I may see you” Socrates
When our inner world starts to evolve, we also start to speak differently. When I started to self heal and rediscover other parts of me, the people around me noticed that my keywords became language like ‘the energy of this and that’, ‘I’m not sure of that vibe’, ‘let’s tap into the frequency of …’ or, ‘ I’m not sure what that means yet, but I resonate with it’ (LOL – this was worlds apart from a person who used to pride herself on precise speech and poise). This is because when we become more conscious, we learn to sift and select our words as meticulously as how some of us select our clothes for a date because we want our words to reflect who we are. The previous paragraph starts with building our inner infrastructure that creates your first world that is within our control, so that our words can have a place to live within us. Our most powerful speech is therefore fuelled by an alignment with what is within, as opposed to picking up whatever you catch in the air. In my language there is a saying my mother likes; “ungakhulumi ngathi udilika emuthini” (Don’t speak like you are falling off a tree), which frowns upon unconscious and unconsidered speech.
‘Be impeccable with your word’ is the first agreement in don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements. This was one of the prescribed books in the Personal Leadership course when I pursued my Doctorate about seven years ago. I loved this course because I resonate with a more holistic education approach to learning how to lead better that my school offered – shout out to Pepperdine University. On one level, being impeccable with your word is about saying what you mean. At a deeper level, it is about being conscious of the message you are carrying inside of you. In an article with Janet Mills, don Miguel states that,
Impeccability of the word is so important because the word is you, the messenger. The word is all about the message you deliver, not just to everyone and everything around you, but the message you deliver to yourself (2010).
The authors encourage us to avoid using the word to speak against ourselves or to gossip about others, but rather to use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. Now that we understand just how powerful words are, we apply impeccability through learning to a) be more conscious of what we utter (even in silence through the stories we tell ourselves) and b) to speak more positive words, especially when we want to co-create a different reality. For example when Martin Luther King stood up in front of thousands of people, he said “I have a dream” to inspire change amidst the conditions of grave inequality and injustice. He did not entertain and dwell in his misery, thinking around in circles and talking about how bad the situation was. The importance between positive and negative language is also confirmed by Dr. Masaro Emoto, a Japanese researcher and healer. He conducted a water experiment that suggested that water exposed to positive speech and thoughts created visually “pleasing” ice crystals, and that negative intentions yielded “ugly” ice formations. This invisible power of positive intentions and words can be applied to everyday life.
The ‘magic’ of prayer, affirmations and mantras
“Umlomo uyadala” A zulu proverb
When we see the outcome of Dr Emoto’s experiment, we might think this is magic. And what is magic other than that which we have not fully understood. It would be useful to experiment with the magic of words on yourself first. As don Miguel and co suggests, being impeccable with your word should begin with how you talk about yourself. I noticed that when I stopped being super critical of and kinder to myself, I was able to be kinder to others – tapping into a frequency I couldn’t access before I created that within and for myself. The authors continue to say,
You’re telling yourself a story, but is it the truth? If you’re using the word to create a story with self-judgment and self-rejection, then you’re using the word against yourself, and you’re not being impeccable. When you’re impeccable, you’re not going to tell yourself, “I’m old. I’m ugly. I’m fat. I’m not good enough. I’m not strong enough. I’m never going to make it in life (Mills and Ruiz, 2010).
Enter affirmations. These are positive statements or phrases that motivate and encourage us to create positive change into our lives and challenge unhelpful negative thoughts from the subconscious mind. If we were to develop a habit of taking daily stock of whether our words (and thoughts) have been positive or negative, we would have an idea of the type of leaders we are. When we choose to rise into more conscious leadership, we are able to be more intentional in using positive, encouraging, and inspirational words with those we lead (including how we speak to and around our kids, pets, plants that absorb everything around them).
Similarly, mantras are considered sacred chants the ancient used when praying or meditating to calm the mind. When spoken with pure positive intentions and chant them repeatedly, these words can reprogramme our subconscious mind, and ultimately our reality. Since meditation and mantras come from Hinduism and Buddhism, I have noticed that they freak some christians out (or is this just my mother?). I came across mantras during an extremely difficult phase of my life where even finding the words to pray seemed out of reach. After resonating with the powerful wisdom behind it, I started with chanting the simple Aum mantra which I found to create more ease, as I built up new prayer vocabulary. Aum as explained earlier, carries a profound energy to reset us as a part of creation. Many years later, since my Aum days, I have managed to freak my mother further, as I often blast one of my favorite mantras; Namo Namaha, meaning “I bow to you God, with my pure consciousness”. This is an ancient sanskrit prayer by Queen Kunti in 5000 BC inviting us to “go within our own hearts, to the sacred space where the Beloved friend, guide and witness eternally resides, and connect in loving dialogue”. You can listen to it here where the artist sings and explains it further. Sanskit and other more ancient languages like Tamil, Arabic, and Hebrew are said to be less tainted by time, and have a closer relation to the original Aum. If you listen closely to how the Catholics in the Vatican chant their Amen, you will notice that they drag and emphasize the pronunciation of [AA] as you open your mouth, [U] is silent as you close your mouth, and [M] is audible when your lips touch + [EN] . There is a whole reason behind that pronunciation which the American new age [EY] + [MEN] loses completely.
Enter prayer. The Association of Psychological Science found that prayer calms your nervous system, shutting down your fight or flight response. It can make you less reactive to negative emotions and less angry. Prayer works because our voice is powered by love, joy, and peace which carries a very high frequency (north of 500 hertz) to influence reality with the least amount of resistance. When we speak from a place of clarity and belief, our words soar through the ether more effortlessly. In all these techniques, our words take us to a more sacred space that honors the power of our intentions and sends a strong message that can create resonance with all that we speak into existence.
The 12 affirmations that founded our business
After taking some time to heal and recalibrate myself, I founded The Nomalanga Tribe. It is a wellness business for leaders, changemakers, and pioneers who, like myself, want to lead and create from a holistically well place and make meaningful contributions that will co-create a better world for this generation and the next. It was not a comprehensive business plan, but would you believe me if I told you that what gave me the final courage to leave my 9-5 was finishing 12 affirmation statements? The business plan came afterwards. These affirmations now serve as our values and guiding principles of what the business is seeking to manifest in the world. They are spoken by myself here: Welcome to The Nomalanga Tribe – and if this interests you at all, we would appreciate it if you would subscribe to stay connected with what we are doing (yes, a shameless plug alert).
Our signature affirmations are also behind our 12 Oases of Wellbeing blueprint below which is the model we use to make sense of personal well-being as we create and expand our offerings. This is the life-giving power of the word that can be applied by you too in your own life.
Concluding remarks
Sometimes it is putting consistent focus on the small things, like the words we use, that moves the needle on big things, like self transformation. My last word to you all self leaders who have managed to stay with me thus far is threefold:
- Consider the stories we tell ourselves even without uttering them because thought too become things and your word towards yourself holds the most influential frequency in your field as you show up in the world
- Consider how we speak to others that have been placed within our care and influence at work and other spheres of life
- Consider how you talk to God, the source of it all to give you strength to bring the new you and life you want into existence
So what’s your word for 2024? Claim is. Speak it into the Ether. Write it down. Make it visible. Speak it often, until you believe it.
I wish you the best on your journey of self recreation.
From my mouth to God’s ears,
The Doctor of Joy