Dave Kashen argues that leaders should source approval, control, and security from within themselves rather than seeking them externally. When you pause and check the present moment, you notice enough of these already exist, which stabilizes you and reduces reactive triggering.
You. Commitment number 11 of the 15 commitments of conscious leadership says I commit to source approval, control and security from the inside. Remember, whenever we're below the line, we're experiencing threat. A threat to our ego. What's true is that all of our egos want three things. We want approval. We want to be liked, loved, valued, wanted. We want control. We want to control people. We want them to be a certain way to act, a certain way to do certain things. We want to control circumstances. Whether it's the weather or the traffic, we are always wanting to control. And we want security. We want to be safe. We want to survive. When we're below the line, we're out outsourcing approval, control and security. We're looking to people, we're looking to things, we're looking to the world out there to make us feel okay. When we're above the line, we've learned how to source approval, control and security from the inside. You see, there's nothing wrong with approval, control and security. It's actually a natural state of a human being. The issue is that when we're below the line, we think we're lacking it, we think it's missing. We're looking to get what we think isn't here. So the shift move is to pause to welcome our wanting of approval, control and security and then to actually check in this now moment, if I don't go into the future and if I don't go into the past, if I don't go out there to them or to it, is there really anything missing? Conscious leaders practice actually experiencing that in this now moment. There's enough. There's enough love, there's enough acceptance. There's enough approval. It's not something I need to go get. Everything that needs to be under control is again, if I don't go into the future, or I don't go into the past, or I don't go out there, everything can be just the way it is now. And right now, right here, I have all the security I need. Regardless of the size of my bank account or my last bonus. Right now, I'm safe and secure. Coming back to this now moment and experiencing that I am approved of in Control and Safe and Secure stabilizes the conscious leader so that they can be present in a non reactive, non triggered way.
