“When the old cartographers would reach the end of the known world they used to say: here there be dragons”
I read this phrase a long time ago and it stuck with me.
I believe that this is a great metaphor for self-knowledge, acceptance of our limits and taking difficult decisions for every one of us.
It often happens that we find ourselves in a toxic relationship; a relationship that worked at some point, but which has turned into the cohabitation of two people who honestly hate each other, hurt each other, and sabotage themselves. When there is a child at play, things get even more complicated. Both are waiting for the child to grow up, while the atmosphere becomes more negative, which the child can sense. They are staying together “for the child’s sake”.
There are situations when we do not feel well at work due to misunderstandings with our colleges, the different scenarios we create in our minds or due to an unfavourable context, all of which we created to make ourselves feel like victims.
Rarely are there cases when we are real victims. Most of the time we put ourselves in this situation from a position of comfort, inertia, due to the ‘role models’ that we had and did not question; or it might be because we are afraid that the decision of leaving a toxic situation could result in an unforeseeable scenario: “the dragons”. Those can take up the mask of fear of loneliness, of abandonment, of rejection, of uncertainty that we are not good enough, that we could be humiliated by others, that we could be wronged or many more that we can barely face. It is good to know our limits so that we know when to confront our dragons and when to guard ourselves from them.
#knowyourself
#coaching