Greater Awareness Through Polarity Management with Asli Aker | True Snacks

Greater Awareness Through Polarity Management with Asli Aker - True Snacks

Roger: Have you ever been grinding away, trying to decide between two good options, only to have someone ask, what about this other thing? An option you had not thought about, but now makes perfect sense? Yeah, me too. This happens to me more times than I'd like to admit.

Asli: The simplest example is breathing. We inhale and we exhale.

Like seemingly opposite things, but we need both of them. And we call it breath to represent the goodness of both. Like you can't call people to pick a side. Are you going to choose exhale or inhale? Like, you know, what is your favorite?

Roger: So my question is, how can I spend more time being aware of and exploring the spaces between those two choices?

Asli: When you study polarities, It talks a lot about energy. Everything comes with the energy that they carry. When we look at that, we're looking for what can we do to generate a constructive and inspirational and rejuvenating energy from both and avoiding the burning and the destructive

Roger: force. Leadership coach and organizational development consultant, Asli a care has a superpower for holding space for polarities and exploring the space in between them.

And in this episode, Asli is our expert guide and understanding how she leads those explorations for groups and herself.

Asli: We have so much courage and we, we use it in so many ways that ends up burning us. But if we could show courage for things that will actually like, you know, grow us without burning, right?

I like, that's my mission. I want people to grow without burning, without having to burn.

Roger: Asli has this amazing way of holding space for polarities. In this conversation, I try to count how many times she shares a Opposites, but I lost track because of her graceful dance and artful way. She brings us along through her process.

Hi, I'm Roger Kastner and welcome to the, what do you know to be true podcast? This is a true snacks episode. I created the true snack series, which is a collection of clips from the full length conversations with the purpose to provide some bite sized learning from those episodes. If you're ready, let's dive in a friend just yesterday was telling me, you know, when people frame things up as a choice between a and B, the value is looking for option C.

And I wonder if that option C is that space of, of integration of wholeness of, you know, in between C, C usually comes after B, but it's really the space in between a and B.

Asli: The simplest, you know, the funniest example is breathing, right? We inhale and we exhale, like seemingly opposite things. But we need both of them and then we call it breath to represent the goodness of both Right because like you can't call people to pick a side.

Are you going to breathe from now on or like, you know You can't do that. So in order to breathe, are you going to choose exhale or inhale? Like, you know, what is your favorite? It becomes so silly when we do that, but that is so true for a lot of things in life Like I have a lot of clients asking me You Um, do I think about individual goals or team goals?

It's not or. Individual goals and team goals. Do I face externally or internally? It is external and internal. Like there is that kind of a tension. But you, like, and it, and it's a, it's a dance. Right? It is because people talk about balance and it makes me nervous. Right? Right? Because balance means at all times you have a scale.

It's not, there will be circumstances, but we, like we talked about that we will go in a certain direction to course correct, because there are threats, but we know when we're going too much in that direction. So we come back and we don't go that way because it's a pendulum swing. Pendulum hits you hard on the way back.

Roger: Yeah. What does it feel like When your superhero power has had impact on others

Asli: transformation, people do it themselves, obviously, but being a guide and a partner on that journey, um, it takes courage, right? So, you know, when people, we have so much courage and we, we use it in so many ways that ends up burning us.

But if we could show courage for things that will actually, like, you know, grow us without burning, right, like, that's my mission. I want people to grow without burning, without having to burn, right? Like, you know, there is capacity in all of us. We're all doing wonders. We are heroes in our own lives. We all are coming from heroes journeys.

And, and we will all dip, but like, you know, the residue of it doesn't have to be. Um, the, the, the, the, right? You know that we could just, and it's not even a bounce back from it, right? You know, even if it's, how do you live in a way that is expensive and you do everything that you want to do and you have the capacity for them without having to pay tax?

Tax being let the tax be what you need to learn the courage that you need to show the the hard work that you need to put in. I'm not told this is not a passive act. It is very active and it is very courageous. So, you know, just showing up for that awareness and seeing the truth. And, um, even in the simplest ways, I think I said this to you once before, like when I ask people.

Are you really committed to feel good? And they look at me like, what kind of a question is that? And I say, think about this very carefully. Are you committed to feeling good? Because if you're committed, you will have to make different choices. Some of the security blankets, some of our stories that we're hiding behind and those stories are all justified, right?

You know, if I told you my life story, you would sit with me and say, like, you know, they're there. And there was a period when I needed that. But realizing the awareness that that was holding me back, it was just justification. Right. So there was a commitment to say, OK, now I am choosing to feel good. Right.

To come from an expanding place so that I can bring people along with me so that I can be in people's lives and in teams lives to expand them to inspire them to transform them, not from the grind, but from the potential of that place that we could all go. We all have it inside out like we're not tapping into the creation.

Roger: I love how you were just describing the regenerative process of showing up with your superhero power and creating, and maybe it's not, maybe it's like energy, like you can't, you can't create or destroy it. It just flows.

Asli: It exactly is. And it's not in a fluffy way. It's in a very physics way. Right. It's it's it's in a very physics way.

We all have a certain amount of energy and you can use it to generate more or you can keep spending. And at some point it starts burning itself. So it is energy. And when I talk to people as well, and in the teams as well, I try to sense. What level of energy they have, because if you, if they don't have enough, I can't be talking about creativity or whatever else, right?

You know, they first need to come out of that level of scarcity and we don't have it and nothing will work. And I am only seeing problems. And I'm not talking about toxic positivity, right? This is not about like, you know, Hey, you know, none of that people, I, it only does lip service. It just doesn't move people.

That's why I'm talking about transformation. How do you find ways to just crank up what is possible so you have more energy that you can bring more energy around the people, um, that you're surrounded by. And if you are leading, imagine the power that you can generate in others. It is, it is. It is that. It is the attitude.

What is the attitude that I'm bringing into this?

Roger: So your superhero power of awareness, is it awareness of the polarity of those two seemingly opposite things, or is it awareness of the energy that you're trying to flow through the situation?

Asli: When you study polarities It talks a lot about energy.

Everything comes with the energy that they carry. When we look at that, we're looking for what can we do to generate a constructive and inspirational and rejuvenating energy from both, and avoiding the burning and the destructive force of both, right? So that is the integration piece. It's all moving, whether you play with it or not.

It's, it's all alive. It has a motion on its own. And, and the pendulum swing has a motion, right? But if you could get into it and see, What can we do so that there is constructive energy coming from both and we capitalize on that and then we manage the destructive part of both because we know if we exaggerate something, it will go to destruction.

Roger: I feel like my understanding of polarity and the A and B thinking is just being so accelerated in this conversation. And I really appreciate that because I do think it's a limiting belief and you are showing me exactly why it is. So I really appreciate this conversation. So what do you know to be true about awareness?

Asli: There is capacity. There is fulfillment. There's participation in life. And that's where the real driver's seat is, right? It's not the control because in the control world, it is your subconscious. So the more aware you are about who you really are and what really is going on, um, the more you can actually drive, participate, generate, transform, grow, and be fulfilled.

Honestly, I chase success for so long and it is great. However, if it is. enclosed with fulfillment, it's a much different success. It actually then is digestible, right? It doesn't sit here. It just like, it just gets digested and it flows and the outcome is incredible. You can achieve a lot. You can achieve a lot.

You can serve a lot. You can help a lot. If you have that true awareness, put it to test, put it to test.

Roger: You're reminding me of Anika Harris's book conscious and where she defines consciousness as being aware of one's environment and really the context in which one exists in that environment and your definition of what you know to be true just just brought that to light to me of to be aware is really living into full consciousness.

Of, of one's not only one's surrounding, but one's place in that surrounding and the, you know, to be to be fully aware is to be more alive,

Asli: 100 percent more alive. And when you are more alive, imagine what you can accomplish.