Dream & Do TRAPS: Part 4 of 4

This final trap may be the most widespread, and the saddest.   

And none are immune.  Thursday I facilitated practice #2 with a non-profit team of heroes who serve neglected youth & single moms in one of our city’s most troubled neighborhoods.   Since some weren’t at practice #1, we wrote again on “why are you here?”    A quiet one shared she’d had a breakthrough at our first practice.  She’d spent years believing she didn’t belong at the table — her whole life that she was inferior to others (when in fact, she can’t HELP but lead).  A senior member shared that he, too, had been holding back, not sharing his ideas, fearful of being judged & rejected as the outsider since he was the only director that didn’t attend the same church.  

Their fellow builders sat astonished. . .

This is a snapshot of what McGee calls the Shame Trap.   It can be the root source of  The Blame Game,  Approval Addiction and the Performance Trap, or it can be the culmination.   It’s the enemy of Dream & Do.  It leads to self-sabatoge, settling not building, withdrawal not engagement, and a life lived under a mask.   Whether from past scars, fear, or believing your negative inner voice, Shame traps you into thinking “I don’t have what it takes”, “I’m an imposter”, “I’m not worthy”, “I need to be someone I’m not”, etc.

Practical suggestions?

1.  Build a Strong Core, especially in your IDENTITY and WHAT you believe and WHY.    It takes one to stand tall, NOT hiding life’s scars.  Do NOT cater to victimhood.

2.  Talk BACK to yourself.  Build the disciplined courage Steven Pressfield describes in Gates of Fire:   “Remember what I told you about the house with many rooms.   There are many rooms we must not enter.  Anger.  Fear.  Any passion which leads the mind toward that ‘possession’ which undoes men in war.  Habit will be your champion.  When you train the mind to think one way and one way only, when you refuse to allow it to think in another, that will produce great strength in battle.”  Spartans practiced arosis, or ‘harrowing’ — the relentless taunting, intimidation, & testing of recruits. When confronted by mind tricks on the battlefield, their brains were trained to LAUGH at them, and not lose focus.

3.  Together we improve.   Thursday’s team reached flow practicing “7 good minutes” of curious questions about what each had written, taking turns in groups of 3 pairing up & observing.   It primed them to finish by sharing courage & exhortation, the kind Pascal’s Gift is about.   Personal truth-in-love is cathartic.    Quiet one heard she is an unquestioned peer in their leadership circle.  ‘Outsider’ learned his voice is crucial to guarding against group-think.    Operations director wept off his hard guy image.   Cross-Town director was affirmed to shed self-doubt and be her contrarian self.  Head of the System got his team’s permission to be human.

And together they became more FREE — to Dream & Do, as ONE.