Book of the Week: Real by Catherine and Duane O'Kane

Real (The Power of Authentic Connection) by Catherine and Duane O'Kane has the potential to transform what it means to be a human being by giving us a structure to come home to ourselves forever. If the CEOs learn to authentically connect with themselves and with people in their organizations; unimaginable productivity, performance, creativity, innovation and profitability will be unleashed.

It is the CEO on an inner journey of personal transformation who will have the courage to lead his / her business on a journey from good to great. If business excellence be the house, leadership depth is the foundation on which the house is built. Running a business is an opportunity to be on the path of personal mastery. As the leader at the helm learns, grows and evolves; so does the business because the organization invariably mirrors the strengths and weaknesses of the CEO.

This book has had a profound impact on the way I run my businesses, how I coach, my relationship with my parents, sisters, spouse, kids, clients and myself. It has been a tipping point on my journey to myself. All the work that I had done on myself up until prior (and I have done some massive inner work on myself) had me intellectually understand and be aware of how the 'suspicion of self' was playing out in my life. It is only on reading the book and doing the self-application that the jigsaw pieces fell in place with clarity that I hadn't seen before. I am standing taller than I have ever stood in my life.

​Much gratitude to Catherine and Duane for your vulnerability, authenticity and courage to share your work and your life with the world through a book. You both made a difference to my life.

I recommend that the book be read from start to end to do the work to come home to yourself. Here are a few excerpts from the book:

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1. Human beings are happier, healthier and live longer when we have strong relationships. We are at our best when we are living a connected life, surrounded by people we love and care about.

2. The lack of authentic connection permeates the very fabric of how we organize ourselves in the modern world. It explains and contributes more to our personal malaise, work issues, high divorce rates, mental illness, and physical sickness than any other factor.

3. We aren't avoiding each other because of the problems. We have problems because we are avoiding each other. We aren't separate because of the wars. We have wars because we are separate.

4. Connection gives meaning and purpose to our lives. We all want to belong, to love, and be loved. 

5. Just as fitness is a by-product of exercise, happiness is a by-product of loving, relational action.

6. There is nothing to fear, because we belong and are good enough as we are.

7. The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large scale revolution until there's personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first. - Jim Morrison

8. We prefer to see the problem as something outside ourselves, therefore the solution must be outside ourselves as well. Therein lies the dilemma. If the problem and the solution are outside of self, then we are doomed to be victims of the effects of external causes ultimately beyond our control. If the problem and the solution are within, then we can change.

9. How you connect is the strongest determinant of how you feel, and how you connect exerts a powerful influence on all those around you.

10. We cannot not communicate. Connection is active all the time, with every thought, every word, every action. Not communicating is communicating. We are communicating all the time and are connected all the time. There are no neutral moments or situations.

Every time we actively communicate, there are two levels to that communication: there is the content or literal message, but underlying that is a relationship message that is conveyed mostly non-verbally, through body language, facial expression and tone of voice. 

In terms of the impact of a communication on the receiver, the content of the message is worth about 20% of the communication, while the relationship level is responsible for 80%. The relationship message always overrides the content: you cannot lie at a relationship level. What you are really feeling always comes through, and when what you say with your words doesn't match the relationship message, people will respond to the relationship message.

… We are impacting others all the time with what we believe about self, other and the world… 

… Thoughts and beliefs such as these are not neutral, dormant, sitting by themselves on an island inside my head. They are active as hell - or heaven. These are the thoughts and beliefs that I brought … before I met you. They are eager to prove themselves.

11. The difficulties we experience in life, which are ultimately relationship difficulties, are because of what we hold in the basement of our psyches. If our psyche is metaphorically a house, the basement is the place where we hide our fears and vulnerabilities. We all have fears in the basement about not being good enough, being inadequate, unlovable, and so on, but we rarely reveal these fears. Instead, we hide, pretend and defend, and that is ultimately what gets us into trouble.

12. …it is impossible to get out of childhood without developing a basement to some degree. This isn’t because of bad parenting, it is simply because of how we develop  as human beings: we do not have the ability to understand nuances and context until adulthood. If we accept this, then we can proceed with the task of adulthood, reclaiming self from the basement in an integrated fashion, so what we know to be true matches what we feel to be true. That is what we can do to prevent the horrific stories from replaying in the next generation.

13. What is really happening as we wander obliviously through our daily lives is that something or someone triggers our underlying Suspicion of Self (that we are unlovable, not good enough and so on) and we don our armour to protect ourselves, attacking the thing that triggered our old, historic fear. We mistake the person knocking on the door to the basement for the one who put us there. However, that isn’t how it feels; it feels as if him or her or this or that is causing our upset rather than simply triggering it. … We fear that if we let that aspect of self be revealed, we will be rejected. To prevent that outcome, we consciously or unconsciously do what it takes to push people away.

14. How we hide, pretend, defend, and offend in all our relationships is key to what we end up experiencing.

15. … busyness (has) a hidden agenda: it allows (us) to focus on “what to do” and avoid what (we) are feeling.

16. … we set up people around us to become the very thing we are trying to get away from in our past. Because of what we are hanging on to in our basement, we are wired for fear and defence. We are hyper alert for evidence that what happened back then is happening again. In essence, we see what we are looking for. It is as if those fear-based beliefs are written on the lenses of our glasses, and as we look through them we latch on to what agrees and screen out what doesn’t. 

… We are looking out through the lenses of our suspicion of self (that we are unlovable, not good enough etc.). We are hot-wired from the basement to react with our strategies and defences. How we respond then invites the very thing we are trying to avoid.

17. We are not so much perceiving reality as projecting our own version of it, seeking to prove our own fear-based beliefs. Our defences create the very thing we are defending against. Our SOSs (suspicions of self) were made up in relationship with another person and must be corrected in connection with another person. We cannot heal alone. … 

18. The waves we create with what we upload into our connecting relationship lines or system do not just go out. They return to us a perception of the world in front of us in such a way that it reinforces whatever we already believe about self, other and the world.

19. Have you ever achieved some goal you set for yourself and then wondered “Is this all there is?” Because we hold these suspicions of self, we end up resisting the very thing we want the most, even when it lands right on our doorstep. We do not allow the good things we have in our lives to enter because we don’t feel worthy of them. 

… In order to address what is in the basement, we must stop the harmful (strategic - masks & armours - and defensive) behaviours we engage in. When we do that, what is hiding in our basement will make itself apparent. Opening up requires opening the door to the basement, where this hurting aspect of our authentic self resides. We are frightened of being vulnerable because we are convinced that what we made up about ourselves is true. It is not! 

… When we are brave enough to risk being seen, fully and deeply seen, then the good stuff can go to where we need it the most.

20. Throughout the history of your family, people have experienced losses and hardship and have developed ways to cope with these losses. 

… the family develops a strategy for survival on the foundation of loss, which (out of the best of intentions) is then transmitted to the next generation. 

… The difficulty in this is that when you are set up to make up for someone else’s loss in the family system, you will carry a weight of expectation, of dreams unfulfilled, that isn’t actually yours to carry. You will be subtly or overtly directed away from things that might be more authentic for you and directed towards things others want for you or expect of you. 

Not only might this contribute to your own loss (because you sacrifice doing what you want), but you might not even know what you want because you have become more attuned to what is expected. … When a family teaches a strategy that is founded on loss, it also transmits the anxiety, fear and unprocessed grief around the loss. The person receiving the directive might know nothing about what happened but still feel the anxiety.

21. We actually have two related fears about allowing someone close to our basements. One is the obvious: we don’t want anyone to see who we fear we are because if they do, we fear we will be abandoned, rejected, punished, or found lacking in some way (just like when …). 

We also fear allowing someone power, allowing someone to be important. In our attempts to avoid letting someone have power, we withhold our love. We refuse to give because we don’t want what we give to make us vulnerable. 

This is a really important thing to realize: we are not only trying to hide, we also actively hold back from contributing positive feelings and giving ourselves fully to our relationships. We are just as frightened of the good as we are of the bad. If it gets too good, we fear losing it, and we would rather just have it be mediocre or even bad, believing that if we don’t let it be too good we won’t feel the pain of loss. The fear of loss comes from our personal experience around what happened when someone was important, and from the legacy of loss in our family.

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The above excerpts are from the first few chapters. Read the book to understand and escape the tyranny of the trap of living life from the default limiting self into freedom, authenticity, wholeness and joyous connection. 

When that happens, you will find the courage not only to lead your business from good to great; but also to have loving harmonious relationships at work and at home, happy responsible kids, lots of nourishing nurturing me-time, while making a difference and increasing your impact in the world.

Love, Jyoti.