Our challenge is to live an undivided life. To live undivided means we live with integrity and speak with authenticity. At work we often become fearful and we lose our integrity and our authenticity. As soon as we do we begin to lose energy.
Parker Palmer understood the process and had a solution. He tells us that we will gain the courage to live an undivided life when we come to a very simple insight; “No punishment anyone can impose on us is greater than the punishment we put upon ourselves when we conspire in our own diminishment.”
To understand this sentence is to become an internally directed person. We are no longer fearful of what other people can do to us. We become more authentic and more fully alive. We enter an elevated state and we have greater potential to elevate the people around us.
Reflection
When have I conspired in my own diminishment?
Why it is it the greatest punishment?
How could we use this passage to create a more positive organization?
