100% Responsibility, Emotional Intelligence, and Getting Messy on The School of Unlearning
On the Journey to more Conscious Leadership and Living
I had the pleasure of sitting with my friend and fellow conscious leadership coach Elisa Haggarty on her podcast, The School of Unlearning. You can find links to listen here: https://www.elisamaryhaggarty.com/justinmulvaney
Here are some of my favorite passages:
On Emotional Intelligence
“I always thought I knew what emotional intelligence was. I probably would have said it was something like empathy—I understand that you have emotions, I work with them, and also I'm in touch with my emotions, there are emotions in here and I'm aware of them.
The new definition that I've been working and playing with is that all emotions are intelligent. And so the question becomes how can I go in and be with all of my emotions such that I can get the intelligence of them?
I think before that, the definition of emotional intelligence I had, and that a lot of our culture works with especially around things like fear and anger, sometimes sadness, but especially fear and anger is these are emotions to be controlled. They are our enemy.
And so the shift is, especially for emotions like fear and anger, is that no, actually, my fear is really smart. And my anger is really smart.
And note, that doesn't mean I have to do what they say.
But if I can give them a seat at the table, and actually go, okay, there's some fear here. Let me feel it, be with it in my body, and then actually find out the intelligence of it. So I have the data. So I can work with all of information that my body is giving me.
Similar with anger, can I give it a seat at the table, and not let it run me? And also not get all reactive when it shows up? But be with it, feel it and source the actual intelligence it has for me? Wow, is that life changing and unlocks a lot of a lot of power and capacity.”
On Messiness in the Process
Elisa: How has this shaped your relationships, how you approach your business, knowing that emotions are data and that they are intelligent? What's it look like for you?
Justin: Well, it's a very sloppy process. That's another thing I want to share, the journey to elevating your consciousness and also, any leadership or personal development in my experience is messy.
Because you have these old patterns that you've been using your whole life, right, like a tool? It's a hammer. And a lot of this process is realizing—one this hammer has costs, as well as advantages, and becoming aware of that. And two, often realizing, well, when I initially picked up and started using the hammers, because I was super scared.
Elisa: It's like a maladaptive pattern you learned when you were a kid to protect yourself from the world, right?
Justin: Yeah, well, maybe it's become maladaptive, but back then it was super adaptive. It may have actually saved you—both your physical body and your psychological body.
And so one, can we really honor that and start to learn how to put the hammer down?
And in my experience that's a very psychologically tender process, because the part of you that was initially scared, will be scared as you put that down.
And then you're out in open space. For example, if you suppress your anger your whole life, and suddenly you go, okay, I want to make a practice of allowing for my anger. You have you have no idea what's going to happen.
Elisa: None. I want to double tap on the two words you share that really stood out to me: sloppy, that it's a sloppy process, and it's very important to share and to to own.
And then the second word that stood out to me was tender.
Psychologically we have to be very, very tender with ourselves as we embark in the conversation with all of our friends at the table, all the emotions, because a lot of criticism and judgment can come with like really quickly through the back door.”
On 100% Responsibility
Justin: One last thing on Responsibility.
In cases where you’re not willing to take 100% responsibility, there are two shift moves to play with that I love.
One is to own that, hey, if I'm not willing to take responsibility, I'm actually committed to what's happening right now. I am a creator of everything that's going on in my life, even what I don’t like.
Let's say there's a project that's not going well, and I'm not willing to stop criticizing and blaming. I'm not willing to take responsibility. I want to blame you all instead.
Well if that’s the case then: oh, yeah, I'm committed to the project going poorly!
Elisa: That's right. I'm committed to blaming.
Justin: Yes. I'm committed to blaming, and that's causing the project to go poorly, and therefore I am committed to the project going poorly.
Elisa: And from that place, Justin, would you say that we shouldn't be taking action and creating the next steps?
What do you do in the business setting if you’re still committed to blaming? If I'm not committed to going in and doing a retro and solving things, how do people as they're listening take that?
Justin: Well, one, great. Own it.
Oftentimes the first shift starts to happen when you own it.
Because if you really care about it, you’ll feel a bit of an oof. When you face that, oh, that's me. I'm committed to this going poorly. There’s a bit of a wake up call.
And then the second, this is a very classic CLG tool, I would tell you to teach me the class. Teach me or someone else, if I were running a project just like, could you tell me exactly how I could make my project go just as poorly as yours?
And use that to get really honest with yourself, because now you're uncovering the fact that fundamentally you are creator, even if you don't want to be now.
Even if you don't want to take responsibility, fundamentally, you are and always will be creator. And if something you don’t want it happening, you are often contributing to the creation of that thing.”
And that’s the tip of the iceberg. Here more on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: