I used to believe that true friendship was about knowing and being known. I thought that meant them knowing my story. So, for many years when I met someone I wanted to be friends with I endeavored to tell them my life story.
The problem was, there was so much to tell, and life kept adding to it every day. How could someone know me if they didn’t know what happened to me? What I went through? Becoming known felt like a race that I could never finish. I didn’t know what to do, I could never tell the full story of my life. Would no one ever know me? Could I ever get to a place of just relaxing in a connection with someone I felt truly knew me?
This whole process was unconscious of course, I didn’t know that this was what I believed. Only now with hindsight, can I see it so clearly, like so many things in life.
Everything changed for me when I discovered one simple principle…
Knowing and being known comes from seeing and being with someone as they are, right now, in this very moment. Nothing else is required.
This idea changed everything for me. It opened a new doorway for me. It’s something I call “Start at the end and go from there.”
I realized I could begin in that place I had always wanted to end up in. Just being. Showing up with someone and seeing what arises.
Not ironically, this new belief landed me a whole lot more friends than my old set of beliefs and strategies ever did. It opened me to really seeing other people in amazing new ways.
Of course I dove into this new world with everything I had. I wrapped it around myself and held onto it like a favorite athleisure outfit during a pandemic. I spent time with this new idea, coaxing secrets out of it. I studied it, practiced it, and surrounded myself with people who were doing the same and later with students learning these secrets from me.
It’s 10 years later and now I have my very own school where we teach these secrets of being known, of being seen by others. The Relational Leadership Academy.
Join us for a free 7 day trial for the Relational Leadership Academy. Get a special rate with coupon code PARTS when you join the Relational Leadership Academy