how am I venturing into uncertainty… ?

      Our ability to persevere with life as a creative adventure and to take other people with us on the journey often depends on how we react to life's inevitable ups and downs.

      It's an emotional adventure where optimism is our greatest ally. Underlying this optimism is a fundamental trust in life. This trust enables us to see challenges and setbacks as part of a larger journey. Yet there is another part of us that does not want to let go; it does not trust that the journey will end positively. This part of us over-reacts to each setback and takes it as evidence that our inspiration is false and our innovations will never work. This part of us is driven by fear. In this way, the adventure is not just an outward one of what am I doing? but also an inner one of how am I responding?

      From this inner perspective we need to develop an ability to reflect on our emotional state and to discern how helpful it is to ourselves and to others. Our emotional state is both a source of great power and great danger.

      The question in the South of the inspiring-innovation wheel is therefore designed to help us to stand back and notice our emotional reactions and the extent to which they are useful. As we hold the breakthrough question how am I venturing into uncertainty…? from moment to moment, it heightens our awareness of how we are feeling and how those feelings are affecting the situations we are in. In short, this question focuses our attention on how we react to the unknown.

      allied: trusting

      releasing the hold I learn to trust life's growth elegant response

       Releasing the hold

      It seems inevitable that in the process of being born and growing up, we encounter difficult situations that we must adjust to or learn to live with. If only this emotional ‘stuff’ stayed in the past where it started, it would be fine. Unfortunately it tends to rule our present in a way that most of us are only vaguely aware of. The South invites us to understand these pervasive influences and realize that whilst negativity and conflict, both inner and outer, are a natural part of human life, such emotions break our contact with our creative life force. To evoke the creative potential of ourselves and of those around us we need to bring these emotions to the surface and release the energy that they otherwise consume.¹

      Much of what we think and feel is profoundly influenced by our memory. Thus the past influences our thoughts and emotions in the present. Both thoughts and emotions generate physical sensations, and we respond to those sensations in the way we behave. So emotional mastery begins by understanding how these memories first occurred. Then and only then can we begin to see the emotional patterns for what they are – patterns – and choose not to unconsciously collude with them. It is even possible to work at a deeper level and to alter memories themselves, thus changing the whole pattern from the one we got to the one we want (see page 171). In this way we release the hold of the past.

      This work of self-awareness enables us to access the power of trust and optimism. With these positive emotions we can live on the edge of our comfort zones and release fear's hold, trusting in our ability to live with uncertainty.