I was conducting a series of trainings for a prominent pharmaceutical company in California in their global safety department, which consisted of approximately twenty highly skilled doctors and research scientists.

The VP of the department had contacted me and communicated that the culture within the department was sliding downhill fast.  The staff was under tremendous pressure with long work hours and impossible deadlines.  The extra stress of personality conflicts was the straw that would break the camel’s back. His primary concern was that he would begin losing his highly qualified staff he had worked so hard to recruit.   

I arrived on the grounds of the company which was like a mini city in its entirety.  With walking paths, child care, a gymnasium, a pool and overlooking the Pacific Ocean:  A rather stunning place to work.

As I enter the training room and met the team I noticed one individual in the room who seemed defensive and withdrawn before I even opened my mouth.  The team was cordial, alert, but reserved.  As I began the presentation this one individual would barely participate, distracted others and was in overall resistance to learning the communication tools I was presenting. 

Rather than leave a contaminating personality in the room with the other willing participants, I firmly, and respectfully, asked him to leave the training room.  With every organization I have the privilege of working with, I reserve this right.

As soon as this doctor left the training room the entire room took a collective breath simultaneously.  The energy of the room relaxed and I observed the tension leaving the bodies of the members of the team.  I stood there wondering could this one individual have this much influence on the stress levels and the growing negative culture of the department.

I merely had to ask one simple question: “How are you all feeling now?”

Like a monsoon of information, each person shared their frustration with this individual.  He was recently recruited and was one of the medical heads of the department which required much of the work to be approved by.  Story after story came forward about how difficult it was to accomplish the workload after his arrival and how the management could not see it.

Resentment had built toward the VP, communication lessened because of resentment and the VP did not have enough information to take action. 

The remainder of the trainings went effectively and the culture shifted dramatically after the enactment of the communication tools which were taken onboard by the team.  The resistant doctor entered a coaching program with me, through the request of the VP.  The core experiences which drove his behavior were uncovered and resolved, resulting in him becoming a functional part of the team.  

My belief is that people affect other people and each one of us has the responsibility to become fully matured in our relationship to ourselves.  By taking responsibility for our own emotional states, getting clarity, having effective conversational and negotiation skills while ceasing the destructive positioning for power and the need to be right, we can reach that mature state in our relationship to ourselves.  Each one of us requires to become fully self aware and have the tools to shift our beliefs, transform our past experiences to retain the wisdom rather than the resentment.  Each one of us requires to become fully responsible for the filters we see our world through, so that we can become as free as we can from over reacting emotions and distortions.

We require to learn the art of entering into our communication with a genuine desire to enrich our business and personal relationships with authentic conversations and accountability for our emotional states.  When we exhibit flexibility in our approach to others, we view the diversity of other peoples’ perspectives, with understanding and grace, while creating peace within ourselves.

Here are some foundational principles:  

How can we ever attempt to understand and overcome the conflicts and wars that exist on this planet until we each become accountable for winning the mini wars that exist within our own minds? People that operate from a place of pain, suffering, lack or any other unresolved emotion will not perpetuate success. They cannot create a real, lasting shift in culture or the dynamic between themselves and others.

When we understand the river of time which we are traveling, we will know that all things change constantly, and change is the only consistency we have. It is not the events that occur in time within our lives that cause the pain. It is the meaning we have assigned to those events that creates our Heaven or our Hell. It is the focus of our minds that either releases us or imprisons us. Time is like a river, and events in our lives are like leaves passing by us in the current. Which leaves do we choose to pick up and examine? For how long to we hold each leaf in our grasp? And which ones do we choose to let quietly float by?

What if you spend your time obsessing on the story of how it has been, yet the way it has been contains the exact circumstances that created and evolved you? What if you spend your life blaming, regretting and condemning the people and the secret teachers who have arrived to show you the way? What if it all happened out of a loving intention to evolve your spiritual wisdom and maturity?

Be the Love you are. Remain in the new story of your outcome. Create different internal representations-different pictures, sounds, dialogs and feelings-by imagining vividly enough to where you feel them deeply. Recreate your past with the power to redefine what has occurred, and distill the wisdom from your experiences with a blessing upon your lips for the ancestral teachers you have had and the order and perfection that is moving us all back to a state of Oneness.

If we can begin to re-language and re-imagine our experiences, we will think and feel differently about our lives and the human condition in general. We will remain in a more optimal and consistent emotional state that allows us the freedom to open and direct our imagination and focused mind toward what we truly desire to create in our world. We can then become the men and women we have always known we could be. We can then master the art of living in this world of seeming victimization as people who expect and direct the quantum field of possibility into existence based upon our freedom to cease the endless story of what did and did not happen. We will be free to create our future with compassion and fulfill what our ancestors could not. We will live with a blessing on our lips for all who went before us in our ancient ancestral lineage.

While existing within the density of our bodies in a world full of fear, all our experiences can culminate in the awakening to our divine inheritance.