Gemma Earlier this year I took part in Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence program (PQ). It was a wonderful experience and I felt very fortunate to take part alongside two marvellous women who were in my support pod as we did this deep work together.
In week five of the program, Shirzad took us on a journey to remember who we already are and it was a very powerful experience for me. He told our cohort a story about the Burmese army who in the year 1767 invaded Thailand with their notorious reputation as a brutal force. They were known for looting dwellings and then burning them to the ground when they were finished.
Shirzad told us that the army made its way to the Thai capital and to the Buddhist royal temple where they were met by monks who fought to protect the temple. The army killed every monk that stood in their way. They looted the valuable treasures and left behind anything that was deemed worthless. One of the items was a giant statue of the Buddha. The statue was made of plaster and was very large so they left it alone, seeing the statue as worthless.
Shirzad’s story continued 200 years later, on the 25th May 1955 when workers were attempting to move the statue, and as they did they accidentally damaged some of the plaster. When they started to repair the statue they noticed that something lay underneath the plaster surface. What they discovered underneath was a pure gold statue of the Buddha – 5,000 kg of 18 karat gold.
Shirzad explained that the Buddhist monks had covered the statue when they realised the invasion was coming. They covered it up with a plaster facade to protect the valuable gold. Shirzad then invited us to consider that we had done something similar with what he calls our Sage – our essence.
Shirzad teaches us that our early life experiences develop what he calls our saboteurs – these are our survival strategies for the world. These characters show up early on to protect us from all the many life experiences we face as humans. Even a very happy childhood still has trauma – being laughed at in class for getting the answer wrong, having a teacher tell you off for being too excited, the humiliation of falling over in a sports day race. These small experiences have a big impact on our vulnerable nature in childhood. But the survival strategies stay with us long after we need them and they invade our thinking, how we identify and the way we show up in the world.
The avoider may have you overwhelmed with decision making and keeps you in a state of anxiety and stress. The pleaser may hold you back from setting boundaries because you believe you are responsible for everyone around you. Your judge has sabotaged your happiness, and your success holding you back from your full potential. As our saboteur thinking evolves it strengthens the plaster facade and over time we forget all about our golden centre.
For 200 years no one remembered that there was a golden statue at the centre of the plaster facade. And Shirzad’s work is centred around reminding us who we really are. When we associate with our plaster facade – the controller, the hyper achiever, the victim… (whichever saboteurs we developed) we start to believe that is who we are. Shirzad reminds us “you are somebody much more magnificent than that”.
On the PQ program Shirzad takes us into a powerful exercise using a childhood picture. It encourages us to reconnect with our sage. I printed my picture out, it has become my screen saver on my phone and I remind myself of my golden centre every time I look at it. I say the words to myself whenever my saboteurs attempt to renew the plaster facade. I am playful, I am sunny, I am loved, I am kind.
When did you last look at a childhood picture of yourself? If you have one I encourage you to look for your essence, to see who you already are and to bring that being back into the world in all its golden glory. If you are a parent or any kind of leader there is great power in seeing your golden centre. Because when we see who we really are we also start to see who our children, our teams and the people around us are at their core. And that is a magnificent way to show up in the world.
