Reflections on Connection-Centered Leadership: Issue No. 36 - What Else is Also True?
Why do I keep photographing sunrises?
I have photographed hundreds. The bank of windows in my bedroom faces east. It feels like a good morning hug from God when my eyes open to the brilliant colors breaking over the dark silhouettes of the trees.
I have chased sunrises, waking my husband and daughters (the ones who are willing ;) to chase them over ocean horizons and mountain peaks where we watched the moon salute the sun as its shift was over. I have convinced Darin to wake up well before dawn to catch the first sunrise in the U.S. in Maine and convinced him to sleep in our truck near the entrance to the highest highway in North America so we could brave the pitch-black winding roads to chase the sunrise over Mount Blue Sky, 14,271 feet in the air. On the descent in the light of day, I was thankful for Darin's adept driving and accepted that it was probably better I couldn't see the near misses near the edge we most assuredly had on the climb up.
But what is it about the sunrise that captivates me? I'm not even a morning person, really. Left to my own devices, I'm much more of a night owl.
I think it may go all the way back to childhood. I was very scared of the dark. I often had insomnia and nightmares. I would lie there praying for the day to come. Then, I would go about my day as if none of the terror of the night had caught me.
Perhaps that is what still draws me to the sunrise, the hope of a brand-new day. The refreshing promise that His mercies are new every morning. Perhaps it is the constancy of the sun rising. With a lifetime of chaos and unpredictability, the one thing we can always count on is that the sun will rise. Perhaps it is simply the joy of a fresh canvas and new opportunities to create all that comes next. At various times, it has been each one of those and more.
Twice in the last two weeks, I've been asked if I've read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Once, specifically about a scene involving the sunrise, and the other about an interpretation of his message of hope.
Frankl describes being marched under guard in the darkness of a concentration camp, exhausted and suffering, as morning began to emerge behind the clouds. His thoughts turned toward his wife and toward love.
I would never compare the ordinary difficulties of my life to what Frankl endured. But there is something about his ability to retain access to love, beauty, and meaning in the middle of unimaginable suffering that has stayed with me.
His suffering was completely real. Noticing something beautiful did not make any of it less real. The darkness was real. So was the sunrise.
Maybe that is where this becomes less about optimism and more about what we allow ourselves to see.
When something is painful, frightening, disappointing, or uncertain, it naturally demands our attention. There are times when that narrowing of attention serves us well. Threats require attention. Problems need solutions. Grief needs room. Reality should not be ignored simply because we would prefer a different one.
But there is a subtle shift that can happen when something difficult occupies our field of vision for too long.
We move from this is true to this is all that is true.
Something doesn't work according to plan, and suddenly, we may become disproportionately aware of everything that hasn't happened. Disappointment can cloud our vision and command not only our attention, but our expectations. We reach one goal and almost immediately begin evaluating the distance between where we are and whatever we've decided should come next.
Maybe that's one of the unintended consequences of being strategic and future-oriented.
There is value in honestly assessing where we are, determining where we want to go, and creating a strategy for closing the gap. I believe in that process and use it in my own life and work. But if we're not careful, the gap becomes the entire field of vision.
We notice how far we still have to go without acknowledging how far we've already come. The vision intended to pull us forward can inadvertently become a constant reminder that we aren't there yet.
That's when I started asking myself another question:
What else is also true?
I haven't reached the goal yet, and I've made meaningful progress. Something I hoped for didn't work, and I know more than I did before I tried. Someone disappointed me, and other people have shown up in ways I don't want to overlook. I am uncertain about what comes next, and I am not without direction. I can be frustrated by where I am and grateful for what has already changed.
Both can be true.
This isn't about manufacturing a silver lining. It isn't pretending something painful is good when it isn't. It isn't spiritual bypassing, denying grief, avoiding difficult conversations, or convincing ourselves that circumstances don't need to change.
It is refusing to allow one truth to erase every other truth.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about reclaiming our attention and asked, Did I choose where my attention went today, or was it chosen for me?
Maybe there is another layer to that question.
When something difficult legitimately deserves my attention, does it deserve all of it? That question changes how I think about celebrating progress, too.
We often treat celebrating small wins as a motivational technique, something we do to keep ourselves going until the real accomplishment arrives. But celebrating progress helps us maintain an accurate picture of reality.
The goal may still be unfinished, but progress is also true. The team may still have a difficult quarter ahead, but what they accomplished this week is also true. The organization may still be navigating significant change, but the person who adapted, contributed, solved a problem, or took a risk deserves to know that someone noticed.
Recognition doesn't require lowering the standard or pretending we've arrived. It keeps the distance still to travel from erasing the distance already traveled. That is part of leading ourselves well, and I believe it is part of leading others well, too.
If the only attention people receive is directed toward what remains unfinished, what needs improvement, where performance fell short, or what comes next, we shouldn't be surprised when they eventually experience themselves primarily through the gap. And here, motivation dwindles.
Connection-Centered Leadership asks us to see more.
Vertically, connection reminds me that what I can see from where I stand is not the whole story. There have been enough chapters in my life where I could not understand what God was doing in the moment, but it turned out beautifully to know that my limited perspective is exactly that: limited.
Inwardly, connection through awareness allows me to separate what is factual from what I interpret or predict. Something can be disappointing without becoming evidence that everything is falling apart. A delay can be frustrating without becoming a verdict about the destination.
Outwardly, connection gives us access to perspectives beyond our own. Sometimes another person can see progress we've stopped noticing. They can acknowledge what hurts without agreeing that what hurts is the only thing happening. And we can offer that to them, too.
Perhaps this is also part of resilience.
I've never particularly loved the idea that resilience means bouncing back. There are things in life we don't bounce back from because there is no going back to the way things were. Something happened. We changed. The landscape changed. Sometimes the work isn't returning to what existed before but rebuilding from what remains.
Maybe part of resilience is retaining the capacity to notice what remains beautiful, meaningful, loving, possible, or worthy of our attention while something else is genuinely hard. We don't have to deny the rubble to notice what is already being rebuilt.
Which brings me back to the sunrise.
A photograph of a sunrise has never captured everything that was true in my life on the morning I took it. There were unanswered questions outside the frame. There were things I was waiting for, things I wished were different, people behaving in hurtful ways I couldn't predict, goals I hadn't reached, and plans I didn't yet know how to execute.
And there was a sunrise too.
Maybe the little girl who lay awake waiting for morning understood something long before she had language for it. Darkness can consume our field of vision while we're inside it, but darkness doesn't get to tell us there is nothing else to see.
Eventually, the horizon changes.
And perhaps, while we're waiting for it to change, there is still a question worth asking:
What else is also true?
Questions I'm Sitting With This Week
What is true about my circumstances right now, and what else is also true?
Has something difficult become so large in my field of vision that I've mistaken it for the whole picture?
Am I so focused on where I haven't arrived that I've stopped recognizing evidence of progress along the way?
What beauty, love, possibility, provision, or connection is already present that I don't want to miss while I'm waiting for something else to change?
Comments