Chapter 7: The Shadow is revealed
Once I discovered corporate teaching, my energy went to working hard to perfect the craft of speaking and facilitating. I loved the work and felt grateful every day that I was no longer practicing law. I was thrilled that I was now engaging in the world in a way that allowed me to share my deepest gifts. At my core I am a teacher and seeing people light up when they learn something new brings me great joy. Like all crafts, however, to be a master teacher and facilitator takes time and there are many lessons along the way. Also, I had to learn how to manage my personal energy as I was now speaking/teaching on average about 130 days a year. This requires a lot of energy, especially where almost every day is a new group of people! And this was even more challenging when you are a die-hard, textbook introvert. In addition to learning how to interact with people all day long at my seminars while still maintaining my energy, I was also going home to a family with a newborn. That’s what we call the advance course in micro-recharging.
A few years into this journey, I was teaching a public speaking course at a large high-tech company. This was one of my favorite classes. It was a two-day public speaking course called “Zen and the Art of Presentation. “ While we taught some basic speaking concepts, the core of the course was that each person was video-recorded as they gave a talk to the class. They then watched the recording and had time to see what was effective and what they wanted to change. By the second day I was coaching the participants in the moment to help them improve their speaking style. For example, if someone was stiff and held their body rigid, I would get them to relax and use their hands. If they said ‘um’ too much, I would need to get them to take a silent breath instead of saying “um”, etc. Things sometimes got a little intense during the coaching. I would need to get into my student’s physical space and interrupt their flow, all in service of helping them to improve. This was especially difficult as the students were often nervous and at times defensive.
I had just finished teaching this public speaking course at a large Silicon Valley high tech company. This particular group was composed mainly of alpha male sales types, though there were some women in the group as well. When we finished the course, and everyone was leaving, one guy sought me out to give me some feedback. He said that while he enjoyed the class, he noticed that I was much more effective coaching the women then the men. He also shared with me that I was much too deferential when coaching the largest men in the class. He said it was as if you were afraid of them, and you backed off very quickly when they pushed back on your coaching suggestions or feedback. I managed to thank this student, but immediately in my mind rejected his feedback. After all, the class ratings were good, people liked the program, and I was very skilled at what I did. In fact, I decided that he was simply wrong and that his perceptions were way off. Talk about a healthy ego on me!
About two weeks later I was in a different city, at a different company, teaching the same public speaking class. This class was more gender balanced but there were two really tall and powerful men in the class; one had even been a collegiate lineman for a Division I football team. At the end of the class someone gave me almost identical feedback to what I had heard a few weeks before. They said I was generally good but that I was much less effective with the ex-football player and even seemed afraid and hesitant when coaching him. This time I heard the feedback, but I was devastated. What was I to do? The more I thought about it, I WAS intimidated by large men and was quick to back down with real dominant, assertive people in general.
I sat with this feedback for some time as I didn’t know how to fix this. I wanted to be a master facilitator, and it now was clear that to reach this goal I was going to have to confront this place inside of myself. I couldn’t be as effective if I was unable to own the space in the class, and I couldn’t let myself be pushed aside in this way or I would always be less effective. But what was I to do? This was more than simply learning a speaking technique; I needed a deeper personality reset. This was about changing something much more core to my personality. It was not only about learning to confront. It was learning to do this with larger men who intimidated me. There was no class for wimpy middle-aged men who need to learn to confront large scary men. Help!
About this time, I met a man named Michael Allen, who is one of the most amazing public speakers. We met at a speaking class where we were both learning some new techniques for teaching public speaking. Michael and I quickly hit it off and became fast friends. A few weeks after our initial meeting, Michael called me up and said … “Jonathan, do you want to come with me to speak at the county jail? I’ve done this a few times and it’s amazing.” I remember holding the phone away from my ear and thinking THAT’S THE LAST THING I WANT TO DO. But then a little voice popped into my head and started shouting: “That’s the course. That’s the course. There are a lot of large scary men in prison. If you can teach in prison, you can get over your fear of large men. You must go!!” So I said “yes.”
My first time at the county jail is a blur. The voice that had said “yes” was nowhere to be found. I was terrified. I didn’t sleep the entire night or two before going. On the car ride down to the prison, I became even more nervous when I learned that Michael and I were to work with these men for over 2 hours and Michael didn’t have an Agenda or a plan. “Let’s just go and see what happens”, he shared. We arrived at the jail and it took multiple steps to make it to our pod where we were teaching on the fourth floor. First we had to sign a release at the front lobby (the ‘we won’t rescue you if taken hostage’ type of release). Signing that release didn’t exactly calm my nerves. We then went through a security door and a metal detector; then we went through another door that was opened remotely by a guard who could see us through a camera. As we opened this door, we were in an enclosed concrete vestibule that was 8 feet by 8 feet where cameras looked down on us, as did guards stationed high above us. Finally, we were released through another door (also unlocked remotely) to access the elevators. My heart was racing like a hummingbird, and we weren’t yet to the pod.
When we walked into the pod, every muscle in my being wanted me to leave. It took all my will power to just sit down. There were about 80 men all in orange, sitting loosely on plastic chairs – large men, most heavily tattooed. Most stared at us blankly or looked down. In the middle of the pod was a guard center, with two armed guards.
I don’t remember a lot of details from that day, or what I even said. But my apprenticeship on how to work with large, scary men started that day. Michael and I ended up working at this jail for over ten years, and I came to love this environment, and came to love these men. I found the place inside of me that could stand toe-to-toe with someone much larger than me and hold my ground energetically and not back down. I found the place inside of me that could look at someone who was large and intimidating and call ‘bull-shit’ on what they were doing. I also found the place in me that could open my heart even in that environment and feel safe inside myself, even when the conditions were intimidating. Like many of the men, I found a freedom that I had never known inside a locked down prison. With nowhere to go we were simply all human beings connecting with each other, sharing our challenges and hopes, and being real. This was the most wonderful apprenticeship I could ever imagine.
Commentary
My experience has taught me that the universe conspires in interesting ways to support our growth, but at the time it doesn’t seem that way. While working at the prison was the last thing I WANTED to do, it was exactly what I needed to do to grow and be more effective in the world. I often wonder how many times the universe has given me similar opportunities that I simply turned down because they were too scary, or made me uncomfortable, when in fact it was the universe trying to help me.
Meeting Michael is also one of the biggest reminders that what often feels ‘bad’ or like a ‘challenge’ is actually a present dressed in disguise. Think of this. Had I not had this ‘problem’ – fear of large men – I would have never said ‘yes’ to the offer to speak at jail. And by speaking at jail, a series of events transpired that literally changed my life. Over those many years of working together, Michael and I became best of friends, and he became a sort of godfather to my children. As a result of speaking at prison, I mastered the art of working with large men who try to intimidate, which in turn enhanced my ability to work with executive teams at large companies and improved my skill level many-fold. And because of meeting Michael, I was exposed to a whole new world of healing, Tibetan bells, meeting CJ and her amazing family, etc. What appeared like a problem, or a bad thing at the time, was in fact a pathway toward personal and professional growth. Who would have figured!!
The other thing I’ve come to realize, is that we all have as part of our journey challenges that will expose weaknesses from our shadow self: the part of us that we’ve disowned or is our Achilles heel. The hero’s journey as exemplified by the story of Ulysses returning from battle to his home, is always full of challenges. And often the things we are confronted with on our journey are the things we most DON’T WANT TO DO. When I got invited to the prison and realized I should go, I can remember pleading with the universe – “please, anything but THAT…” And that’s why it is called a hero’s journey. It is much easier to find excuses and reasons not to grow, than it is to embrace the hard work of change. I don’t want to romanticize my time working in the prison. It pushed me and challenged me to the depths of my soul. As I said, I wanted to run away and not go. Thank goodness there was a little voice inside of me that penetrated through the fear and said “go forth.”
Questions (Your Commentary)
· What is something in your life that at the time it happened seemed bad, but in hindsight was a blessing or gift? And if you can’t think of it as a gift, at least you now realize that it was there to help in some way.
· What would your life look like if you embraced challenges not as problems, but rather the universe’s way of guiding you to your greatness?
· How would your life be different if you really embraced the idea that the universe is conspiring to support you, and everything in your life is for your own good? [to read more about this as a concept – it’s tough to swallow at times – read “The Energy Codes” by Dr. Sue Morter]
· What is one quality or trait inside of you that interferes with you at times being your best self? If you dialogued with this place, what is it protecting? What is it you are hiding from?
· What is the next challenge on your ‘hero’s journey” that is present in your life right now? What scares you about this challenge? What are the potential gifts or rewards if you master this challenge?