Speak out. Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
— William James.
The Quality of Self-Expression
Your test results show you as someone for whom holding back is no longer an option. You have a pent up need to shout your message into the clear blue sky and let the chips fall where they may. You’ve got something to say and you want to say it.
The value inherent in self-expression is two-fold: the immense creative contributions that result from freely sharing your views, opinions, insights and wisdom; and the inner growth that becomes apparent in your maturation as you see your words take root and begin to manifest in the world.
Although we think of ourselves as an extroverted country, there is still so much anxiety about exposing ourselves to ridicule or attack, and most of us hold back more than we share. When you finally embrace the values of self-expression you begin to experience the reality that we are all co-creators of the world around us. Better to speak out and add your voice to the direction you want to go, rather than hold back our of fear and snarl at the way the world is going.
The lack of professional efficacy - the third symptom of clinical Burnout - can often be traced to this missing quality in your life.
Does your work help or hinder you in living out the value of Self-Expression?
The Quality of Self-Expression in the Workplace
The reason this aspect of human becoming is so important is that it is the focal point for so much of what the Western cultural evolution has been moving toward for the past five hundred years: a celebration of the individual. The American experiment can be justified as the necessary platform for the eventual rise of a democratic system of self-government that would finally create room for the free expression of multiple worldviews in a single nation.
In this respect our workplaces are disastrously outdated. The way work is conducted in the United States conforms to the traditional norms of the 19th century in terms of power hierarchies and the absence of freedom for self-expression. That is, most of them are 200 years out of date in terms of the values we now actually hold.
When the Quality of
Self-Expression
is Missing . . .
Because we have been trained by the American Dream to hook our wagon to the success star at work, it is in our job that we seek an avenue for self-expression. Another way of saying that is “we want to bring our soul to work.”
Many companies are not soul-friendly. They seem to think that being highly self-expressive is a liability rather than an asset and that it would be easier to manage a work force that is not so outspoken and loyal to their own ideas. This says more about the company’s lack of understanding about the role of management. A good manager is skilled at drawing out self-expression and carves out a space of welcome for innovative ideas.
The problem with throwing yourself into work that does not allow for sufficient self-expression is that you develop a familiarity with silence, with repressing your creative impulses. You become resigned to being ignored and accept boredom and invisibility as the price for being employed. Don’t do that! If you are being shut down at work, learn how to ask for greater latitude in a way that emphasizes the benefits to the company. If you can’t get satisfaction - leave! Your soul will thank you!
Why Name these Qualities as Colors?
There are many developmental theories that look at human needs, motivations and fulfillment and arrive at a schema with seven stages or levels. The fact that there is so much overlap in these theories suggests is that there is something there which all these observant human beings have noticed. For this deep assessment I offer my own synthesis of these developmental theories, using seven simple colored blocks to designate the seven key challenges to human beings - those needs or yearnings that require our mastery in order to thrive and live into our full humanity.
In adopting the metaphor of the seven colors, I am following in the footsteps of author Christopher Hill who felt that the rainbow colors - as defined by Isaac Newton: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet - aided in an intuitive understanding of the 7-level Chakra system. It has become so adopted by the West that I use it for convenience - and for aesthetic purposes.
There are other metaphors which may feel more natural to you than the color spectrum, and I encourage you to find your own analogy. What I am describing as Qualities are purely abstract and can be associated with any color, texture, sound, flavor, and image.
