My client had just been offered a C-Suite role. Her first.
And she found herself gripped by thoughts that she was not ready, that she did not deserve it.
That she was not enough.
This has been a constant theme in her life. It’s one of the things that drives her success. If you’re not enough, you never stop working.
But it’s exhausting.
“How do I stop thinking these thoughts?”
“I’m not sure anyone can control their thoughts. I still have that thought from time to time. Most leaders do.”
“Then what do I do?”
I have some bizarre thoughts from time to time. But most of them just pass on through. Some thoughts, though, seem more solid. More frequent. They bring a certain feeling, in my stomach or my throat.
They look real.
But we think we are our thoughts when we are the thinker.
The thinker is like the sky. Pure and open.
The sky is unaffected by the storms that pass through.
And if you see that you’re not your thoughts, you can feel the same way.
You feel whatever you happen to be thinking. And that’s always changing. But you’re not. Like the weather, if you don’t like your thinking, just wait and it will change.
Do you get stuck in your thinking? What if you stopped trying to stop?