Last week I had a great life lesson in trusting, which resulted in a fabulous magical mystery tour…and whilst on my tour, I hear that we have voted to leave the EU.
Whatever your political views, we are currently witnessing this country imploding. The unintended consequences of voting to leave are huge and having a massive impact on everyone.
The result means we have set sail into unchartered waters – nobody has done this before and nobody, not even the EU, knows what is going to happen next. As passengers on this ship, we are totally reliant on the captain and crew to steer this course and see us safely though to the other side.
And yet what do we find…both political parties are in disarray, the captain has walked away, the crew are arguing about who should steer the ship and the nobody is willing to step up and hold a steady course now, when it matters the most.
Of course, as passengers, there is a sense of panic. We have no idea what is going on, we just know that we are on board (whether we like it or not), the seas are getting rough and nobody has control of the ship.
In NLP we learn about cause and effect and about taking responsibility. We learn how to manage ourselves and how to manage change and be more resiliant. Of course, those of us who didn’t ask to be on this ship may be annoyed…and if the vote had gone the other way, then there would have been a bunch of other people who would have been annoyed instead. This is a consequence of democracy.
We are facing a period of uncertainty, just as our ancestors did on many occasions in the past. The challenge is that social media is full of anger and vitriol and hatred. The media are stirring things up even more and knee jerk reactions are happening left, right and centre – is this really the image we wish to portray to the rest of the world?
So how could we respond? What part can we play in all this?
What if we were to pause, take a breath and think about how we could best help steer the course we now find ourselves on. Panic, anger, sadness – they maybe emotions many feel right now, but they are no longer helping the situation.
It is time to move on…
It is our responsibility, in the absence of any strong leadership or crew, to pull together and get this ship back on course. It is time to step up. We all have a part to play right now…what is yours?