Define: Security, Control, Approval
Every human being has three core wants that shape our thoughts, emotions, and actions:
- Approval — is the desire to be loved, liked, wanted, valued, appreciated, respected, to belong, and to be part of something.
- Control — the desire to manage outcomes, people, and circumstances.
- Security — the want to survive. The desire to feel safe, stable, and certain.
Excerpt from the Book:
In an oversimplified way, all leaders at any moment are operating from one of two beliefs/experiences: those who believe they lack something and want it and are seeking to get it from someone or something outside of themselves, and those who believe they are already whole, perfect, and complete and lack nothing.
What if everything in this moment in your life is actually whole, perfect and complete? What if you are lacking nothing? Not just what if you believed you lacked nothing (which is a mind game) but what if your actual experience in this moment was that nothing was missing? How would you be?
From Above the Line
By Me:
I commit to being the source of my security, control and approval.
From below the Line
To Me:
I commit to living from the belief that my approval, control and security come from the outside; people, circumstances and conditions.
Practice It:
One of the things we do with leaders we coach is invite them to explore both their beliefs and their actual experience. This process takes many forms but a very simple starting point comes from the Sedona Method. It works by asking yourself these questions:
Step 1
At any moment (especially when you are upset and stressed) ask
yourself “What do I want?” Don’t try to edit your answer or be
mature about it. Just blurt.
Step 2
Ask yourself, “Could I welcome this wanting? Could I simply
allow this wanting to be here just as it is?”
Step 3
Ask yourself, “If I dig a little deeper, is this desire coming from
wanting approval, control or security?” (The key to this is to
answer from your heart not your head. You can’t be wrong about
your answer and if you’re not sure just pick one.)
Step 4
Ask yourself, “Could I welcome this wanting? Could I just allow it to be here?”
Step 5
Ask yourself, “Could I let this wanting go, just for now, just in this moment as best I could?”
Step 6
Ask yourself, “Could I rest for this moment as that (someone)
which is beyond all wanting?”
In our experience this six-step process is totally transformative and unbelievably simple. For many of the leaders we know this process has become for them a regular practice that they choose several times a day. This is a practice of conscious leaders.
