What is fallback?
We face many circumstances that bring us to our knees at the precipice of our sense-making: in our relationships, our parenting, our roles as heads of organizations or as those trying to navigate the cultures and contexts of them. These scenes of our lives often trigger our smaller, more shadowy selves to steal the show – we call this “Fallback.”
When we are in fallback, we want to reject these shady characters within us who storm the stage in our most fraught moments, in our most valued relationships. The problem is that when we deny the full cast that compromises us, fallback in its neglect begets a vicious cycle of repeated fallback. Leaving the Ghost Light Burning: Illuminating Fallback in Embrace of the Fullness of You invites us to leave the ghost light on for all our characters, offering a set of practices to notice, arrest, reflect on, and recover from fallback more quickly, and even to transform ourselves in the process.
Fallback, when we recognize and come into relationship with it, can be about understanding when and why we are not able to bring our better self; reframing our expectations of who we are in this world; accepting the full messiness that is an inevitable component of being human; coming to know and love a more authentic version of self; and cultivating the environments for others to do the same.
Why Ghost Light?
In theaters around the world, a single light bulb is left burning on the stage when the theater is dark. It’s called a ghost light. Theater lore tells us that the ghost light invites the ghosts that are said to inhabit all theaters to come onto the stage. It’s a welcoming and an acknowledgement of the spirits that are part of every theater. Some say that if the light goes out, ghosts assume the theater is abandoned and cause mischief.
There’s also a more practical reason for the presence of the ghost light on theater stages. If someone were to wander onto the stage when the theater is dark, they could easily go off the edge and into the orchestra pit. The ghost light is a safety measure. It helps guard against one falling in a pit.
Perhaps we should turn on the ghost light within self. Make it known that all spirits are welcome here. Invite them to show us their specialty, their range, to reveal their backstory. Welcome their characteristics that are shadowy and dark while also leaving open the possibility that they are not one-dimensional, that there is good within them, that a plot twist may be in the works—if we are willing to stick with the show.
Through the Ghost Light offerings, we do just that. You will come to know your cast of characters, both the heroes and the villains. You’ll explore the scenes of your life in which these characters are cast, identifying the cues that beckon them on stage. You’ll learn when they serve the scene and when they don’t. Having become familiar with the plot and the script of your play, you will act as director in the scenes of your life, casting the characters, designing the set, putting in place the props, and engaging in rehearsal.
To be clear, our goal is not to illuminate our fallback characters so we may once and for all banish them from the theater. You will never be rid of this piece of self. And you don’t want to be. These characters that storm the stage, that go off script, are integral members of your cast. They have something important to teach you. They come prepared with lines that they have been trying to speak for some time. Our goal is to listen to them and to learn.
So let’s resist the temptation to turn off the ghost light when the story itself gets too dark, lest those characters that reside within us assume that the playhouse of self has been abandoned and begin to cause mischief. Because they will. Actors live to be seen, to be acknowledged. Every single part of us, light and dark, does too. We can either set up the illumination and clear the way for the full ensemble to come on stage, or we can risk the characters wandering on stage in the darkness, stumbling off the edge and into a pit. It happens. Best to leave the light on for them.
Valerie is a distinguished expert in leadership development, human development, and organizational transformation. With an extensive background spanning academia, nonprofit leadership, and corporate consulting, she brings a multifaceted approach to fostering leadership excellence, organizational growth and human development. In her work, Valerie integrates comprehensive research, innovative facilitation methodologies, and a belief in humans’ ability to grow in complexity to empower leaders and organizations to meet their intentions and achieve their fullest potential.
Valerie is the foremost thinker on fallback in adult development, our experiences of being unable to show up with our full capacities to think, feel, and act with the full suite of options that were available to us just moments before. Her work in this field—developed through original research with the leading theorists and practitioners in the vertical development space, as well as deep, longitudinal exploration of the lived experience of fallback—expanded our understanding of how adults grow. Valerie’s research revealed that rather than a stairway to heaven, vertical development is experienced quite frequently as one step back, two steps forward. Indeed, the times when we don’t show up our best can paradoxically be a tremendous catalyst for our growth.
Valerie developed an innovative and playful methodology to accompany individuals and teams as they transform what may often be a vicious cycle of falling back into a virtuous cycle of increased self- and other-awareness and a deep connection to values and intentions. Her Ghost Light framework invites us to come to know the ensemble of characters that makes us up with compassion, honesty, and acceptance while also calling on us to become clearer about our purpose and intentional in the characters we cast in the scenes of our lives.
Valerie’s extensive experience with a multitude of tools and practices in the vertical development, leadership development, and organizational development domains in areas including power and authority, group dynamics, change and adaptation, and systems-thinking allows her to seamlessly and skillfully integrate different approaches to meet the situation, the audience and the moment where they are, creating an environment of both support and challenge.
Valerie employs transformational coaching, dynamic facilitation, and impactful speaking to unlock the full potential of individuals and organizations. She has presented at international conferences and is a frequent invited speaker and collaborator to the leading vertical and leadership development assessment organizations, facilitating experiential explorations on the lived experience, complexities, and opportunities of what is revealed through the assessments we use. She works internationally with a diverse array of clients and constituencies.
Valerie is the author of a book, Leaving the Ghost Light Burning: Illuminating Fallback in Embrace of the Fullness of You, and several articles exploring developmental theory and its practical applications in leadership contexts.
Valerie holds a Bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and earned her Master’s in Nonprofit Leadership and Management and a PhD in Leadership Studies from the University of San Diego. She lives in Southern California with her husband and two children, who serve simultaneously as the most frequent protagonists of and audience to her experiences of fallback and the greatest source of her desire to do better.