Something about Easter has been on my mind these days.
Not so much the ritual itself, but the strange claim hidden inside the story. Because Easter is not simply about life continuing after an ending. Many cultures have some version of renewal or rebirth.
What puzzles me more is the deeper suggestion behind it - that what we usually experience as “ourselves” might not actually be the deepest layer of who we are. And that sometimes it takes the cracking of that familiar identity before something deeper becomes visible.
Over the years I’ve started to notice echoes of this dynamic in different places. In meditation practice, yes - but also in the lives of leaders I work with.
Most of us operate from structures that once served us well: roles we stepped into, strategies that proved effective, identities built around competence, certainty, strength. For a long time they work remarkably well.
Until life begins to put pressure on them.
A strategy loses its force. A leadership identity suddenly feels too narrow. Or the effort of maintaining a certain image becomes strangely exhausting.
Our instinct is usually the same: repair the structure.
But occasionally something else happens. Instead of reinforcing the identity, people begin to notice it - almost as if they suddenly see the structure they have been living inside for years.
Meditation reveals something similar in a very simple way. Thoughts arise, emotions arise, identities arise - and with enough awareness you begin to notice that none of them are actually stable. They appear within awareness, shaping perception and action for a while, and then dissolve again.
When that insight deepens, something shifts rather quietly. You can still act, decide, lead - but the action is less organized around protecting who you think you are.
Interestingly, some of the most grounded leaders I know seem to have passed through something like this, often not through spiritual practice at all but through very real disruptions: a failure, a lost role, a moment where the old identity simply stops working.
On the other side there is often still strength. But it feels different - less armor, more presence.
When I sit with the Easter story today, I sometimes wonder if this is the deeper mystery it points toward: that beneath the identities we defend so carefully there might be something more fundamental, a deeper ground from which awareness, clarity and action can arise.
Some traditions call that awareness. Some call it consciousness. Some call it God.
I’m not sure the word matters that much.
What I keep wondering about is something simpler: in leadership today - in a world that constantly asks us to perform a certain version of ourselves - what might become possible if we were just a little less busy protecting who we think we are?