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For the past year or two, I’ve been saying the product of leadership is relationships! It’s taken me the better part of 41 years of living to understand that healthy relationships are about understanding the other persons needs, emotions and weaknesses; sharing with them the same and then doing what it takes to help the other meet their needs without losing sight of your own.Leaders who possess a servant’s heart understand in order to dream about, create and sustain loving relationships they must pull the weeds that remove the minerals from the ground in which the flowers of love grow. What are some possible minerals absorbed by the weeds? Forgiveness, trust, creativity, authenticity, spirituality, fun, spontaneity, freedom, uniqueness, hope, optimism, openness, intimacy, focus, vision, fairness, honesty, loyalty, empathy, and even integrity. Leaders come to know that these weeds choke the life from the human flowers we desire to nurture. Pulling weeds is another way to say we get to let go of those things in our lives that choke the life out of our dreams and even prevent us from dreaming at all. I saw the move Australia tonight. There’s a scene where the main adult male character is attempting to control his experience of love by running from it. His female counterpart also attempts to control love by placing conditions on the man she loves and the little boys she wants to adopt. So, I was hit with an “ah ha” moment! I haven’t been dreaming about love in recent months! Like the main characters in the movie, I’ve been controlling my experience to prevent being hurt again and hurting someone else and being vulnerable and exposed to the uncertainties of relationships. Control and fear are my weeds. I allow them to invade my human garden. As a matter of fact, I’ve been water my weeds and give them more attention than the dream and hope of love! I can now recall a friend asking me about two months ago when I was I going to love again! WOW! So, there I was in a theater crying, looking at the screen and thinking about how I’ve stopped dreaming about building a loving relationship for myself. Hell! I’ve even had moments when I neglected to fully dream about creating a nurturing relationship with myself! I can’t recall the last time I had a clear thought about a singular loving relationship that I could nurture with dance, song, hope, laughter, kisses and hugs! A relationship that promotes life-what a novel idea! Now, I’m clear that I’ve been in “W.E.E.D. (Worry, Excuses, Exclusion, and Depression) Maintenance Mode” rather than “L.O.V.E. (Life, Optimism, Vulnerability, and Expression) Maintenance Mode.” Spending more time thinking about what love shouldn’t be and little time on what it could be!If I’m controlling my dream about love in my personal life, what impact does that have on my friendships, family, sons and those charged to my care? I get that what I do in one area of my life shows up in all. As a leader, I now have an opportunity to locate and remove the weeds that choke the life out of my relationships. Again, leadership is about building relationships and helping others take action on those things they say matter. So, how can I help others create and or live a vision of hope if weeds are choking the life out of their visions and dreams? Perhaps the difficulty in maintaining healthy relationships has everything to do with pulling weeds or not pulling them. Once they’re gone beautiful things emerge like new ideas, hopes, opportunities, relationships, realizations, dreams, vision and even blogs. Simply writing this entry helps the process of pulling weeds. Today, I’m making room for some beautiful and vibrant dreams to grow. And I invite you to look into your garden of relationships and locate the weeds. Here’s a tip! Get down on your knees so you are in a humble position to “see” your weeds. To many times, we stand “over” our relationships and rule them. Perhaps we need more “knee time” while pulling weeds and dreaming about love!This isn’t the truth-just a thought! I welcome yours!Share the gift you are with the world! (1Peter 4:10)

Tags: Leadership, life, love, relationships

This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2008 at 2:49 am and is filed under Family, Friends, General, Leadership, Relationships, School, Uncategorized, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.