Soaked+entry

Pushed into the deep end with all your clothes on. A fitting description of my first week at ELL. Or maybe I didn't get pushed, maybe I jumped. 

 

It makes sense that it happened that way, and I'm glad that it did. The figurative clothes that I was wearing that might have made it daunting to 'jump into the water' of ELL was a slow paced week previous, where I wasn't feeling physically the best, and before that I was looking after  someone else who was sick. So in terms of coming into a leadership program my head could have been elsewhere. But on the very first Monday of the program Arthur and Eric 'graced us with their absence', which meant that I was the primary one in the lab who knew anything about how we might get started cleaning up the space. Part of what made it challenging was that I was expecting them to be there and they weren't, an expectation gap. So began my figurative swimming. The day was full of unknowns and challenges, but drew out the best in me: from my ability to flow with an unknown, my ability to 'not fret', my ability to call a circle, and gather the conversation and the energy of a group that was growing larger, and looking for coherence. 

 

You know how it is, when you're pushed in the water once you get over the hump of getting your clothes wet, well, you just don't care that you're in the water anymore and you splash around and you let go. I wouldn't have wanted to arrive here, and just begin dipping my toes in leadership, and being in the comfort of my own body in this new situation, which I have felt to an extraordinary degree this week. I felt that by ending up with all my clothes on in the deep end in the first week, I was able to drop right back into the space that felt so comfortable by the end of Emerging Leader Labs last year, to pick up right where I left off. 

 

The thing about being surrounded by the amazing people that tend to gather at Emerging Leader Labs is that you get to be someone entirely different from who you are during 'ordinary life' in the city, or wherever you come from. It feels like you get to be your full self. The trouble can be, I think, that it can take us time to realize that in a safe space like this we really can be our full selves, and so some hold back from that. I felt like this week, I was more myself than I have ever been, and I felt so present and confident, in a way that hasn't always been there for me. 

 

Recently though, in the last 24 hours, I had an experience that made me feel like I had gotten back out of the water, and slowly my clothes had started to dry, culminating last night. I suddeny felt very awkward, not confident, and not able to manage my feelings in the group context. I felt like a fish out of the water. It took taking myself away from the group and spending a bunch of time in solitude, and resting, to restore myself for some group play today. 

 

Funnily enough, group play looked like getting soaked swimming in a pond close by this afternoon. We all went in with swimtrunks, not our clothes, but nevertheless it sure felt good to literally, not figuratively, be immersed in the water. And if that wasn't enough, it poured when we got out. I look forward to every moment of this immersive experience.