Towards the end of Lance Armstrong's testimony to Oprah Winfrey on Friday 18th January when he admitted to the fact that he did indeed take drugs to help him secure seven successive Tour De France victories, she asked him what he thought the moral of the story was?
Lance hesitated to find an answer, he recalled how when he had first been diagnosed with cancer something shifted within him to give him the drive he needed to beat the disease. A quality that would later serve him well with his win at all costs mentality in his cycling career. However in his fall from grace it was obvious he was struggling to come to terms with what lesson he was learning from this new experience or shift in mentality that he needed to adopt to be at ease with himself in the future.
The true answer had already come to him from his first wife earlier in the interview when Lance had approached her for her opinion on whether he should return to race riding or not in 2008 knowing full well of his earlier drug taking exploits. She gave him a statement that was reiterated by Oprah in her conclusion to proceedings simply stating that 'the truth shall set you free.'
For any of us going through trauma in our lives, struggle, conflict, disease or experiencing a fall from grace we are constantly being urged to reconnect to who we truly are. In 2013 and onwards it would seem as if many of us are being asked to discover exactly what this is, being so severely tested that we have no other option but to embrace it.
It is clear to me that Lance is a particular personality type, he more or less admitted this in the interview, a personality type that he believes is flawed due to his conditioning and maybe his illness just served to intensify this conditioning. All our personality types however are flawed in one way shape or form until we bring balance to them, so with this in mind we have to bring as much compassion to Lance as we do ourselves when recognizing this flaw.
I would guess Lance is a 3 or an 8 from an Enneagram perspective based on my knowledge of this psychometric tool to date, an achiever or a warrior and more likely the former. The achiever is used to succeeding, getting his or her reward from continually winning, having this win at all costs mentality, which is great from one perspective in accumulating wealth, success and acclaim, personally or for a team, but not when it comes at such a cost to everyone else, when the achieving is not truly aligned to one's authentic self. The achiever is driven by deceit to his or her own true nature. In order to bring more balance into his or her life he or she needs to reconnect with their own truthfulness. This often starts to happen when failure is experienced for the first time as with what is now happening with Lance.
I suspect that his confession will be just the tip of the iceberg or more aptly put, the foot of the mountain and over future months and years perhaps through several more lawsuits and authentic conversations Lance will be brought closer and closer to his own truth and then perhaps he can rebuild a new life upon those foundations. He knows he is in a process and he has been brave enough to seek therapy on all he is going through and it will be interesting to see in future interviews what further truths are brought to light from his own story as he starts to climb the mountain again and reaches another summit that of his own true being.
If you feel it is time to start speaking your own truth and getting in touch with your own authenticity maybe it is time to join me in my next Conversation Café on Tuesday 4th February or when embarking on a Conversation With Nature on Friday 1st February. If interested in either of these two types of events
contact me now and I will place you on a separate mailing list for more updates.
If you have any thoughts on Lance's confession why not comment further on
my blog or reply via this email.
Until next time.
Much love Sx.
