Tag: Stress Reduction

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Nix the Drama – Move to Blue Skies Fast


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.

A little riff here on how to use this technique for smaller things… like not eating that cookie.

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.

You know that tiny awareness you get? The one that says you’re about to head down the wrong path? That’s the one we’re looking for. When things are scary, it might feel like this… frightened, defensive, but in cooler moments it’s more like Jiminy Cricket – a small alert.

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.

Lashing out feels inevitable… but it’s not.

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.

This is the “Anxious Yawn”. Dogs do this when they’re on the fence about how to behave. If you can get yourself just a small interruption, you can choose a new path.

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.

Look, changing behavior is best engaged with a feeling of curiosity, because, hey, you’re already OK just as you are, right?

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.

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No Sacrificial Lambs

Would you kick this cute little guy in the face? 
Of course not.  So why are you doing that to yourself?
Looks like a long blog… take a shortcut and listen to it instead. Check out the pictures below first. Rock on!

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A few years ago, some friends and I hiked the John Muir Way, a trail that bisects Scotland.   The hike was fantastic.  It led us through pastures, fields, towns, and beside canals.  Did you know that you can smell the scotch in the air around a distillery?  I kid you not.   At one point, we spent a day passing fields of sheep.  It was May, so there were lambs.  If you’ve never been around ’em, they bounce around in little groups.  With different levels of curiosity and courage, these little cuties follow you along their fences and, sometimes, scramble underneath the wire and then scurry back inside. I was utterly charmed.

I also worried about them, I wanted to make sure they got back into their fields.   I wanted to engage with them; I couldn’t take my eyes off them.  One thing I didn’t want to do was put them in a cubicle and make ’em sit in a chair until their spines were misshapen and their eyesight went.

I wouldn’t do that to a lamb, but I’m all too willing to do that to myself. 

Why is that?

Today, let’s open up the Awareness Toolkit and take a look at unkind behavior towards ourselves.

Before we start, let me clarify here – we’re STEM people, we have projects and deadlines, we have bugs, defects, and production problems – sometimes, we just have to dig in and do the thing.  We have to fix it, finish it, or get it working again.

Collaboration is our lifeblood.  We know that investing in our social network is key to getting through difficulties, so we make sure we help out other people.  We brainstorm, listen to peers as they talk through an idea, or interrupt ourselves to help others hit their goals.  If we’re not doing this to some extent, we won’t succeed.

When we overdo these behaviors so that our health, relationships, or positive outlook suffers, then we’ve entered the dark zone of sacrifice.

For me, it’s the forced march.  I fall into the habit of working long hours without a break.   I forget to drink water, I resist getting up, I pile up snacks to give me little boosts of dopamine as I work to my own detriment.  I don’t notice that I’m getting less and less done, and I’ve crossed the horizon into diminishing returns.

For others, it shows up as giving up their own desires to say yes to other people.

It can show up as skipping lunch because you’ve accepted too many meetings.  Doing one little thing, to help someone, then another, then another, until you’re staying late to catch up.

We can fall into overdoing our good habits of determination and collaboration. Our thinking takes on a more extreme turn.

We think that something is more important than ourselves, we believe if we don’t complete this task or say yes to this request, the results will be threatening or even catastrophic.  We convince ourselves our value is tied to achievements.  Sometimes, looking at our current situation, we tell ourselves, just this one more time.  Next time, we’ll plan better.  Meanwhile, we’re staying later, we’re feeling resentful, and we can’t even list our results for the day.

Any of that sound familiar?  

Listen, lambkins, it doesn’t get better until you become aware of the issue and of the ways it goes wrong.

This behavior stems from a positive intention. We presume our self-sacrifice makes us team players. We’re tough, dedicated, and have the ability to go the extra mile.  At work, most of us want to be excellent.  We want to go above and beyond.   We also feel like none of this could have predicted.  This is the reality, we need to sacrifice for the good of the company.  True dat, right? NO!

Hey, I got it right this week… here’s the whiteboard of where we start on this journey.

Here’s what our behavior,

driven by this positive intention, looks like:

Changed or canceled personal time – we move our vacations, are afraid to plan them or take them, we miss birthdays or family celebrations, we get home just as the kids are going to bed.  Not only once or twice, but on the regular.

Forced Marches – Long hours, extreme effort, unrealistic expectations.  

I just did this last night. There were three of us working on a production issue, which we knew we could resolve, but the root cause would become obscured.   One of us had a hard stop that blew right by as we egged each other on, looking at one more thing, checking one variable, trying to get to the complete answer.  It was made worse because we already gathered sufficient evidence, an hour before, to prove the source of the issue.

Poor planning, lack of experience – when we run out of time on projects, or can’t deliver results, we don’t look like pros.  This is so hard to say because it kinda hurts me to admit it. 

As professionals, trapped in the go-go, can-do mindset, we don’t do the less glamourous work of continually reframing our MVP (minimum viable product).  If all our projects end up in a big push or fail to come in on time, we really owe it to ourselves and the company to demand that we step back and re-evaluate.  These issues are solvable, and we stop ourselves from finding solutions when we don’t require them.  I’m not saying it’s easy or that I have this solved – it crops up over and over – like crabgrass. The key is to face it – be aware.

Exhaustion, Stress, Resentment – I don’t think I have to explain this.  If you’re sacrificing your health, your sleep, the breaks that your brain needs to thrive, it’s going to show,  and you’re going to get cranky.

Falsely Helpful – Oh my, we’ve all met this person. We ask them for something, and it’s clear that they don’t have time to help.  We try to take our request back.  They won’t let go of it.  We apologize; they insist that there’s no need.   With a big, fake smile, they head off at a hundred miles an hour to do what we’ve asked, and we’re left there, feeling guilty.  Don’t be this person.  Just say no.

Being Kind to Yourself Is the Best Gift for your Team

Are you ready? Let’s turn this nasty cycle on its head. 

Go from Self-Sacrificing to Self-Affirming.

Here’s where we end up as we become aware of the consequences of sacrificing ourselves to work and move to a self-affirming stance.

 When we adopt a self-supporting attitude, we remind ourselves that our health and life priorities are first.  After all, we’re working for a reason.  I’m pretty sure it’s not a deep desire to drop dead at my desk while my family doesn’t even notice.  Sad to say, this has been a real possibility for me at times.   The good news is I’m aware of my propensity, and I’m not willing to live like this anymore. 

As we’re faced with challenges, in this new mindset, we tell ourselves, if I don’t finish, fix, solve, do whatever I’m tempted to sacrifice for,  then I’ll find another way.   We remind ourselves that there will always be another emergency, but there’s only one of us.  We can’t do anything well if we’re exhausted, miserable, or running in circles.  

Scary huh? Did you just reject all of that out of hand?  You’re not broken.  You are right on track.  My clients, and I, resist moving to a self-affirming place.  Here’s why:

We THINK this behavior means:

  • We’re selfish
  • We’re mediocre
  • We’re not a team player
  • We’re risking our job

All of that is pretty darn frightening.  Better play it safe, and keep sacrificing, right?

If you need some help working through how to affirm your right to health, optimisim and a great personal life, just say the word. You can book a 25 minute session with me and I’ll walk you through your personal, specific issue. It’s free, it’s my jam, and I promise it’ll be useful. Click Here. I can help you – THIS WEEK.

NO!  Because we’re wrong.  When you act in a self-affirming way, you actually demonstrate this:

Belief in your ability to find better solutions – we love to be around people who think there’s a better way and want to try to find it!  We love this.  You’ll love being this person.  Try it.  You won’t always win, but others will want to help you solve things better, and the more you do this, the more value you add at work.   

Stopping when your productivity falls, calling it a night – nothing will help your team more than knowing the right time to call it a night and send people home.  Sometimes, we’re all just waiting for the one person who has the backbone to say uncle.

Professional planning, designing, tracking, and delegating – Once you’ve committed to never sacrificing yourself, you’re going to need to change the way you work.  Don’t wait to figure this out before you stop overdoing it.  You have to stop first, then you’ll be driven to figure it out.  This is counter-intuitive, but it’s the magic key.  When you have to face the consequences of being self-affirming, then you figure out pretty quick how to prioritize, plan, and all the other good stuff.  Be brave! Jump in!

Self-respect, good health, smart breaks – think about a person you know who doesn’t sacrifice their health for their job and still manages to knock it out of the park.   There’s a man I’ve worked with who is like this.  He exercises, he leaves on-time most days, and he’s well respected.  If he can do it, we can do it.

Treating others as competent – this is the most unexpected and beneficial side effect.  When you treat yourself respect, when you don’t overdo it, you have to rely on others to do their jobs.  You stop over-helping and that, allows others to grow too.   In a way, you’re less selfish? What?  Yep. True.

See this little lambkin?  This is us, heading off into the world of work.  We have no idea what’s about to hit us.

Have some compassion for your innocent self, trying to do a great job in a challenging world.  There’s no need to sacrifice yourself, lamb.

And that? Is just good to know.

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What the Heck Are You Thinking?

This guy’s not thinking that he can’t catch up at work.
What are you thinking?

Here’s the deal. What you think determines how you feel. Slam. Dunk.

So if you’re walking around thinking that your situation is making you happy or sad or one of the four other feelings you know how to describe, read on. Because when you understand this, worlds open up.

Take one look at the guy in the picture. You might not know exactly what his circumstances are, but you probably have some pretty good ideas about what he’s thinking. Maybe something like ‘Yes!’ or ‘I found it!’ came to mind? You have no idea what elicited the expression on this dude’s face but you know what the feeling is and you know the thoughts are about something that went his way.

The reason you can guess the thoughts but not the situation is easy. Thoughts drive feelings, not circumstances.

Here’s another, less happy example. If there are four people present when someone near to them passes away, if the event caused the feelings, all four would feel the same thing. But it doesn’t take too much thought to imagine a range of possible feelings. One of them might be devastated. One might be mildly sad, sympathetic to the feelings of the others. Still another, might be angry and, it’s possible, one of them might be relieved, especially if the person had suffered.

If Facts Drove Feelings, We’d All Feel the Same Way at the Same Time.

But that’s not what happens. We have thoughts, sentences that our brains offer up and those thoughts? Create feelings.

So. What.

I’ll give you so what. So your feelings are being created by your thoughts and, your thoughts… are within your control.

Feel Me Yet?

Let me say it again. What you think is what creates the emotions you have and if you’ve been paying attention, you might now be thinking something a little wild. You might be thinking that our brains offer up easy options for us to think. And those thoughts are often cheap shots offered by our mid-brain because they’re easy for the brain to find and toss out to us. That means, a lot of what we’re feeling is in response to some pretty shaking thinking. Hold the horror show Bat Man. You mean I’m feeling worried for nothing? Maybe so, Dude.

If you’d like to have me walk you through an example from your own life, book a free 25 minu session here: Book A Free Session I would be thrilled to take you through it and I won’t be a bit offended even if you decide never to coach with me again. No problemo.

Let’s write this in code.

If: Thoughts create Feelings

And : People control their Thoughts

Then: People can control their feelings.

WHAA?

Try it. The next time you feel a powerful emotion, figure out what you’re thinking. Write it down. Later, try thinking that same thought and see if it brings up the same emotion. Or better yet, try this. The next time you feel a powerful emotion, try to amplify it. It’s a pretty empowering experience. Because you’ll be quick to figure out, that if you can make a feeling stronger, you can also make it weaker. Suddenly, you’re in the driver’s seat. You get to pick what you want to think. You get to dial emotion up or down. You get to decide how you want to feel.

One word of caution. None of this works with pretend thoughts, meaning thoughts you don’t really believe. Telling yourself you’ll win the lottery tomorrow when you don’t have a ticket, isn’t going to bring you any joy. But telling yourself that you can manage your work load (and really, isn’t that what you’re already doing? For real?) can bring you real relief, real fast.

Next Week: My amygdala made me do it. The exception that proves the rule.