By Cindy McKinley
Recently I was leading a “very mainstream focused” meeting and I noticed someone in the group’s energy shift almost the minute I began to speak. Comments that they were making were interrupting the flow of good energy in the room. But I chose to stay steady in my heart, and not react with the same energy. But I came home and pondered what went on there. I requested support, and I woke up the next morning and I received a beautiful and very supportive message I wanted to share……..
There are moments in community life when our presence, our words, or even our clarity can activate something unresolved in another person.
A wound, when touched, often speaks first through reaction. It may come forward as defensiveness, sharpness, control, dismissal, blame, or emotional charge. In those moments, it can be tempting to meet the same energy with our own force. We may want to explain, correct, defend, or prove our intention.
But I am learning that the most powerful response is often the quietest one.
Not passive.
Not weak.
Not silent in a way that abandons truth.
But steady.
When another person is reacting from a wound, I do not have to enter the wound with them. I can remain present. I can listen without absorbing. I can clarify without attacking. I can hold my own centre without making the other person wrong for being activated.
This does not mean we allow disrespect. It does not mean we lose our voice. It means we do not hand our nervous system over to the emotional weather in the room.
A wound wants something to push against.
A clear field gives it less to grip.
During the course of the meeting, I witnessed how quickly energy can soften when one person chooses not to return the same charge. The moment did not need more force. It needed regulation. It needed space. It needed someone to stay in their own body and not become part of the reaction.
This is part of the new leadership many of us are learning.
Not leadership through control.
Not leadership through performance.
Not leadership through being the loudest energy in the room.
But leadership through coherence.
In Closing
Perhaps the invitation is this:
When I activate a wound, may I not become wounded in return.
May I stay clear, kind, and rooted.
May I respond from the field I came to serve — not the wound that was stirred.
With great love,
Cindy Lea McKinley
in service to the remembering
Born in Light 