This week I’m changing things up. Instead of an article from me, I’m sharing a poem from my dear friend, Will Corley. I consider him pure genius when it comes to business leadership coaching.
Do not read this if you’re going to skim. It is to be taken to heart. It can be applied to any area of your life. I ask that you look deep into yourself to see where you may not be awake. Where do you hide, or make do? Let’s shake up those patterns. It’s time to create a new story.
Patterns
I see the patterns that form our lives
Algorithms we create, shape
Binding us together
quite capable of pulling us apart.
What does this mean
In the scheme of things?
What can we
I learn from these patterns
that stare at us but we don’t see?
Where we find pain out of complacency.
Because it is here
we circled again and again.
I see it in the eyes of friends.
I awaked (not necessary on my own accord)
unwitting accomplices with so much at stake.
Our life together, as we knew, heard the drum roll.
Now I lay awake
To what is possible
To who we are
To what we were
What we can be
In its wake.
Knowing whether we know it or not
We are shapers of our fate
But here is the key
It happens everyday
We naturally or least I did
Get lazy
Even smug
In our reality,
that dance, the dance
we create between us.
Rarely speaking of
or addressing what we knew.
My message is it is never too late
to escape these patterns that have become
like our neighbor next door
like clothes to tight
not feeling just right.
We feel the pull
the weight of gravity,
of these patterns of the night.
Some are lights
friends in the dark
Binding us together.
Only to pull us apart.
Some are lights lighting our way.
Who’s to say.
What does it mean
What can we
learn from these patterns that grip us.
These patterns shaping us.
The trick is to create light
from these shadows shadowing us
circling our lives.
Once seen for what they are,
we must
engage each other
bring honesty to the table,
The time to deny is over
we awake
no longer unwitting accomplices sealing our fate.
To seek then what is possible.
What we can become.
What we can be.
Together or not.
Creating new patterns
circling like eagles
seeking to believe
seeing now with new eyes
once so blurred now seems so clear
landing who knows where.
Finding new patterns
slipping on like rings
rediscovering who we are
in old and new relationships
In fields of tall grass
where we might dream.
where we might truly release who we are.
Take a breath.
Take a step into what awaits,
even though the life you created
beckons you back.
What awaits
is beyond your horizon,
is far from assured or comfortable,
and yet can you not feel the breeze,
a breeze to what is new,
what is free,
You understand now, what must grow from what is old,
Preparing for what
will arrive.
To ponder what is
already forming,
landscaping,
emerging.
arriving
every day
changing
rearranging
defining
authoring
our lives
Can you not see
these patterns
sometimes like dim lights
but always if we look close enough
in plain sight.
Dr. Will Corley has been an Executive Coach since 1998. He has worked as a psychologist, manager, and educator for 20 years with a unique understanding of people, business and leadership. Will coaches business professionals and teams to reveal existing leadership skills and reach their potential as leaders.