Hi everyone, I’m Saralyn Hodgkin. And this is the podcast to practice your leadership.
Being in community, to learn, to shift insights, to have that energy from others, to give that energy from self to others… Being in community can make a really big difference in doing our own work.
I don’t know about you, but I know I have joined cohorts of learning for my leadership for being with peers in various ways. I’ve also held community from different places of the points of gathering and peer connection. Sure, you know, if we got together, we could list a bunch, right? Point being is that joining cohorts, communities, facilitated spaces can be powerful. And why is that? Learning and sharing and witnessing and having accountability. These are things that help us have the grit and grace of digging in to our own practice our own insights, the relationships that we build, whether they last in the moment, or they last over arcs of time, help us be seen, help us come together in a way that we’re not alone.
I mean, all of this is like, yeah, obviously, you know, sometimes when we say these things, we’re like, yeah, obviously. And yet, when it comes to learning, about our own leadership practice, and how I do my own inner work, sometimes it just is positioned, or at least my filter sees it as, oh, well, it’s a journey all by myself. And sometimes it is lonely. Give me a break. Totally lonely, totally invisible. We know it.
But it’s also so important to come together with others on the journey with others who are intentionally crafting these spaces for themselves, and with groups of others that are, you know, for some kind of point of time, are in community sharing their journey, sharing as peers, the insights, and the learnings, and the face down in the mud, and the and the scars, and the bleeding, and the blood of the journey, and the grit, and the sometimes the fight, sometimes the fight with yourself that in sharing.
It allows some of the onion layers to be peeled back of, oh, wait, wait, you had that experience? I can really learn from that. I can really learn that I had a similar experience and that those are kind of normal. Wow, okay, it’s not just that I’m not alone, it’s that my experiences that usually aren’t talked about, in whatever magazines and media and so on, hold on a minute, when I am in relationship with you, we have these conversations, and I can see that my experiences are okay, are normal, are fierce, are powerful.
That they are helping me rise in the warriorship I have and my purpose on this planet at this time that I started to see in this community with others, I have a responsibility to do my work and to rise in the power of who I am in my agency, and to be in service on this planet in this time in whatever ways that you are. And be self authoring that path because I’m required at this time, at this time of such significant complexity and hardship and vulnerability and injustices.
Hold on a minute, where I am at I am required to rise, look around, author my path, and turn up the volume on myself advocating, and in community with you all I can turn down the volume of my inner critic of my self doubt.
I can share and bring to light some of the fears that keep me back. Rise in the responsibility of walking forward even when it’s super scary. It’s a community, communities, that we find ourselves in that – maybe it’s just for a blink of an eye, right? But these communities that we find ourselves in, these cohorts that we walk into, allow us to move further along our path, further along in our inner work of our leadership practice.
So what communities do you need? What communities have you been in? What cohorts of learning within a community have you gathered round? And what do you need now? What communities do you need now? Do you need to come into now, in order for you to take those next steps in your leadership journey? Practice your leadership all.
Thanks all, I’m Saralyn. You can find me at holonleadership.org. I walk alongside you as you practice your leadership.