How to use sensation to reframe quickly from drama – to blue skies
Here’s the deal – I bring a lot of drama. When I make a mistake, it’s horrible. When situations are critical, everything else can go fly a kite, I mean, it’s like, serious up in here. Worse yet, after it’s all done, the curtain closes, and the seats get folded up, I feel – less than and embarrassed, maybe more than a little regretful.
At work, no drama is good drama. It turns out, with my family, no drama is good drama. In fact, the only time anyone around me wants any drama at all is after the fact. We love to hear the story told with great effect. We don’t actually want to live it that way.
So how do you reframe tense situations to stop your reactivity and get back to chill? It turns out, there are little doorways into behavior we can tug on to quickly reframe.
Let’s do a quick recap – what you think about events and facts, situations, and people, causes you to have emotions. Every thought fires an emotional trigger. We humans take action in response to our feelings, not our thoughts. Those emotions are what drive actions and … say it with me…actions create our results. For the coup de gras, our results are usually a reflection of our thoughts.
If that paragraph sounds new, check out several of my earlier posts where I build out that premise further. The rest of you, keep up.
If you would like to have me take you through this process, or you’re just curious about life coaching, book a free session here. 25 minutes, on Zoom – no sweat.
When the proverbial crap hits the fan, our fight or flight kicks in. You have, like, no control over that. It’s like a freight train. Your heart speeds up, you get laser focus and you either freeze or start a-hollering or you bolt out of the building. Or, you sit in your cubicle with every muscle on high alert, desperately trying to ignore the ringing in your ears and your heart pounding out the intro to Rock And Roll as you try to figure out if the code you wrote last week just brought down the power grid for North America.
Somewhere inside you, while you stare at the loop you swore you wrote an exit for, or you try to remember if you saved that report before you closed it, or you comb through the contract to see if the clause you really need to have is there, inside you – you feel a small twinge. Your mind taps you on the shoulder and asks you to notice that you’re in a panic, a thought flickers, a brief image of stopping.
You swat that unneeded information away and double down on the drama.
Soon, you’re spinning through code, sending out emails and, if it’s really bad, snapping at people around you. Ever been there? Oh, come on. For sure you have, if nothing else, your kids got you there at least once. I mean, that’s what their entire job is.
Now let’s roll back the story. The mess hits the spinning blades of an air movement machine. Your amygdala wakes up with a roar. It’s time to get invisible or get gone. But then, you realize, that was Suzy’s contract or the code in question was written by Bobby-Jean Mckarfurkle, or the power went out and that’s why the document was lost.
Now what happens? Heart rate falls and you get a bit of euphoria. Now, you take a minute to map out the most logical place for the cause of the failure, happy to be helping out, or you spend a moment recalling all you know about this contract and others so that you can tackle this calmly, or you start a new document recalling that the last time this happened, your second version was better.
What’s the difference? In one situation, you were at fault (and therefore, going to die) and in the other, it’s someone else’s problem (and therefore, you’re going to be a big help.)
In which case are you most effective? Right. And, even if it was your fault, which behavior set is the more desirable? Right again. This is why being able to reframe quickly from being the star in a big drama to being the side kick in a small situation, is such a fantastic skill.
Enter the “twinge”, the “sparkle”, the anxious moment, the tap on your shoulder. Remember that moment when your mind offered the observation that you were in a panic? You swatted it away in the first scenario. That’s the little handle you can grab and use to exit the drama zone and move over into a better way to be.
When the wad of bad news smacks against the propeller of life and flies right back at us, we can’t stop the initial reaction. We’re going to have the muscles of steel. Inside us Jon Bonham will start whaling away at our rib cage while Robert Plant reminds us it’s been a long time but we, for sure remember how this one goes. Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah. You just have to suffer through this part – but get ready – wait for it – when your mind reminds you that this is a panic – grab onto that handle and pull.
If you can name the feeling, great. It’s panic. Sit with that. Let it move through you. Give it ten solid minutes if you need it, but I bet you’ll be on the way to reframing.
Sometimes though, we can’t name the feeling, can’t stop and observe it. The drive to action is too strong. I’ve noticed this when I’m building new habits. An impulse to change course (do the habit) is swatted away. But if I can catch that impulse and simply commit to the action it’s pointing to, I can stop the process right at the action and redirect, without understanding my thoughts or my emotions.
Here’s what this looks like. Crud. Fan. Freak. Mind taps lightly on your shoulder, a small awareness that you’re in a panic. You’ve trained yourself to notice and follow these tiny awareness moments, so you pause. You quickly realize that the small indicator is signaling to you to tell the person in contracts you’ll call her back, or stop and realize you’re IN North America and the power is actually on, or just stop and wait for your pre-frontal cortex to come back on line.
Notice that you don’t actually have to deal with the feelings or thoughts. They’re in there. Your thought is as – Oh, small twinge, I act on those – and even without you recognizing the feelings or engaging with the thoughts, you shift that action using awareness and your prior training. From the action shift – hanging up the phone, stepping back, waiting without reacting, you get to interrupt the flow and then, naturally, you’ll notice your thoughts becoming more ordered, more like – I can fix this, the contract might have the clause in it, the server with the reports was backed up last night. You don’t feel as good as you might if Suzie had caused the problem but you can start to look at things logically, feel more in control, and start to take actions that actually get you the right results.
The good news is, you can train yourself to honor these small impulses long before you have to dodge flying muck. Look around you. What are you already trying to change? Let’s say you’re checking email too much during the day. Be very curious. Notice if you have a tiny impulse reminding you that you shouldn’t be checking. If you feel that urge toward turning back to your work, notice it, then honor it. Don’t dwell on this. Don’t analyze it or make a big deal. Like a dog who sees an unexpected squirrel, just chase that positive impulse. You might think – I follow these small impulses – and turn back around.
There’s a wall of resistance for this, and you just let it slide by. Just this once. Next time you can do email, or eat that cookie or whatever. But for now, just let it turn you around.
That’s it. Simple but effective. The payoff is huge though. If you can train yourself to be easily turned by what I like to think of as “the sparkle”, or the “twinge”, you’ll have it there for you the next time you want to duck and pull the plug on a big whirling fan of drama.
And That? Is Just a Good Skill to Have.