Did the lid come off?

This week, I hit a speed bump  not on the road, but in my own sense of self. One of those moments where a seemingly small conversation sends a wave of doubt crashing through your inner world. A moment that makes you forget everything good, every achievement, every bit of growth, and instead leaves you questioning: Am I really good enough?

As leaders, as kaiako, and simply as humans, we carry our doubts like a tightly sealed jar. Most days, the lid is firm. Some days, it’s slightly ajar and we can cope with that. And then boom - something happens that blasts the lid wide open, and suddenly, all the insecurities swirl around us like a storm. This week, it was a conversation with a centre leader that shook me. For a moment, I forgot the years of mentoring, learning, and leading. I forgot the hearts I’ve touched and the journeys I’ve walked beside others. In that moment, I wasn’t enough.  It wasn’t necessarily the conversation but my reaction to the conversation; I chose to fully take that lid off and let my insecurities cloud my mind.  I feel vulnerable writing this, but I am not writing it for me, but for you the reader.  Because we need to be real and sometimes that means being vulnerable with others.

It’s a lonely space, that pit of self-doubt. Not one you want to dwell in too long.

But I did what Simon Sinek describes so beautifully, I called a friend.  Click here to hear his words.  Sometimes, all we need is eight minutes of real, grounded connection with someone who knows us. Someone who can listen, gently hold our story, and remind us of the context of who we truly are beyond the bump in the road.

Reflecting on the week that has been I was reminded of a whakataukī shared in Dr Hinemoa Elder’s Aroha:

Ko te mauri, he mea huna ki tō moana.
The life force is hidden in the sea.

Hinemoa Elder gives context to the whakatuki, with originates from the story of Nukutawhiti, an ancestor from the north, who cast his kura , his feathered cloak, into the Hokianga Harbour to calm the waters. That treasured cloak still rests beneath the waves, unseen but present, a symbol of the ancient strength and support of those who have gone before.

This whakatauki is a good reminder that, like the kura under the water, our strength is still there, even when it feels submerged. We only need to remember to look beneath the surface.

Maybe that’s the deeper lesson of this speed bump. That it’s okay to stumble, to question, to feel exposed. What matters is how we reconnect with what’s real. Sometimes, that looks like a phone call. Other times, as Elder suggest  it could look like washing your face with a warm flannel and letting yourself remember a moment of joy or gratitude or accomplishments. Though small acts, they are invitations to reclaim the hidden treasures within.  How do you move through the speed bumps?

So if you find yourself hitting a speed bump, doubting your leadership, your teaching, your worth remember this: the cloak is still there. Your mauri remains, even when the waters are rough.

You are not lost.
You are returning.
You are powerful beyond what you can always see.

I would like to say to those leaders awash in self-doubt because something has lifted the lid of the jar,  I always have eight minutes in my day.