Articles


Challenging our ‘Sacred Cows’

‘Sacred cows’ are thoughts or people or customs that are usually unreasonably immune from criticism.  They are the ‘no go’ zones in families and organisations and cultures.  They are the things that can make us cringe when an ‘innocent’ questions or challenges or even raises them as a topic of discussion.  They can scare us, intimidate and hold us back….and if ever there was a time to challenge them it’s right NOW!  Sacred cows can keep people ‘in line’.  They can be used as tools of control and power over others, they can become unhelpful assumptions and they inhibit evolution.  They are often preserved through a false sense of respect – how dare we challenge them?  But challenge them we must – and we can do it respectfully.

From the biggest picture to the very personal, we can be bold and brave and start really examining those sacred cows that reside in the dark corners of our consciousness where they shape our values, and drive our attitudes and behaviour with impunity.  We can bring them into the light to examine, reassess, and ultimately move ourselves forward with new found freedom and fearlessness if we dare.  It’s difficult to imagine for some, but what if there were no sacred cows?  What if everything was open to challenge and change?  After all, the scientists tell us what we intuitively know anyway – there is nothing fixed…everything is emergent and ever evolving on and on and on….so why even try to hold onto them?

Challenging a sacred cow takes guts.  No doubt about it.  Why?  Because if you challenge assumptions, ‘givens’, especially if they haven’t been challenged for a while, it will often be only a matter of time before change (sometimes radical change or transformation) becomes obvious as a necessary path forward.  At the stroke of a President’s pen, Cuban Americans can now visit family in Cuba and move money around after 50 years of increasing restrictions – imagine the familial joy and healing that will take place as a result? 

Our own Pita Sharples is calling for ‘healing’ to be a focus in prisons for Maori – this challenges the sacred cow that prisons exist to punish and ‘rehabilitate’ the guilty (even though we have loads of research that says most of what we are doing doesn’t work).  Isn’t it interesting that you can attend an anger management course for free if you have been ordered to by the courts – but it is much more difficult for people who really need those skills but don’t have the financial resource to access them if they haven’t been prosecuted yet!  Imagine if we all committed crimes so we could access good quality programmes that helped us be better people!  Where are the sacred cows in our laws? 

Sacred cows are everywhere.  Let’s go on a mission to discover what they are and rethink whether they really ‘work’ to make the world a better place – for everyone and everything.

What are your ‘sacred cows’?  Think about it….what do you just ‘assume’ to be true – about yourself and the world?  What ‘pushes your buttons’, provokes feelings of defense and protection? (always a good clue it’s a sacred cow).  The point here is that by facing them and even releasing them, solutions to problems show themselves very quickly, new paths open up, innovation and creativity flourish and growth is promoted.

Some useful areas to look for sacred cows to challenge are:

  • Your own potential and capabilities – when did you last challenge your own assumptions about these? Often the way we see ourselves has been heavily influenced by authority figures from our past and the cultural context that shaped us.  This is a great area to explore if you have been made redundant and/or suspect you might have more potential than you are currently expressing.  Consider if you want a job - swapping your time and effort for someone else’s money so you can do the things you want to do in life.  Or do you want a career - where you can train and build expertise in a particular profession or trade so you can climb ‘the ladder of success’?  Or do you want a vocation - a ‘calling’ to something, a special urge towards some sort of work that is particularly suited to you?  Maybe your career is vocational – but have you checked in with it lately to see if it still makes your heart sing?  Have you ‘made your bed’ and now you just have to lie in it?
  • The meaning of your life – what do you stand for?  Is it still relevant?  Values evolve as we go through different stages of life.  What was important and important to work towards when you are 30 might be different when you are 50…(this is one I have certainly been challenged by)
  • Money, relationships, sex, creativity, religion, community service….and any other area of life you haven’t ‘checked in’ with lately.
  • The world and what is going on in it – really…where do you think we are going?  Do you know where you would love the world to go?
  • Organisations usually have a few sacred cows lurking – what are they?  Who can you talk to about them?  How about preparing a paper to present to your senior team?  Your staff?  The point is to create a safe space in which you can open up the conversation – get people talking to each other.     

Invite conversation into your life that explores the sacred cows of our societies – what do we need to challenge?  We humans have such strength and courage.  We have more in us than we realise.  We are ingenious as a species and we can be very stubborn when we feel ‘right’ so ditch arguing for a ‘position’.  All that does is create oppositional energy.  Instead, take a stand FOR something whilst being open to your perceptions evolving as you learn more.  Be like the child who hasn’t yet learned to stop asking ‘why?’

Test out shifting the view – find something you assume is a ‘given’ and challenge it.  Could it be a handbrake?  To do this it’s helpful to lift your perceiving to higher ground.  Just as when we walk the streets we see the world differently than when we are on the viewing deck of the Sky tower or a tall building, use the metaphor to elevate your thinking.

This is the time.  We are the ones.  As Buckminster Fuller said of our home planet: “Spaceship Earth – no passengers, only crew.”  We are all part of a massive global shift in consciousness so join the crew (if you haven’t already!) and let’s keep lifting our game in ways big and small – EVERYTHING makes a difference!

Amanda Fleming
p: +64 21 357753
e: info@amandafleming.co.nz
a: PO Box 56064
Dominion Road
Mt Eden
AUCKLAND