Bring your best self
In the pause between stimulus and response lies our human freedom.
VIKTOR FRANKL
In some of my recent work with teams in organisations we have been asking questions like:
How do I want to show up?
How can I bring my best self to the table?
When the conversation gets tricky or I get triggered into a reactive state, how can I take responsibility to identify what’s happened and manage myself so I don’t become an obstacle to the clear decision-making of the team?
We talk about how we make our best decisions as teams when we are in a state which can be described as calm and alert. When in this state, we can most easily access the cortex, which is the rational and reasoning part of our brain, to think and discuss ideas with others.
However, being human, we have strong emotions, different perspectives and difficulty communicating clearly at the best of times. Throw in a controversial or tricky conversation point, or sometimes an offhand comment or sideways look, or a certain word or tone from someone in the group and we can very easily perceive threat. When this happens, the brain’s alarm system goes off and we shift into an aroused state, out of our calm state. We begin to lose access to our rational thought processes.
Applying the tools of Nonviolent Communication at this point is quite simply noticing we have shifted ‘states’ of being. If we can catch ourselves, we can notice that we are now reactive, that we are likely to respond out of threat, and that our responses are more likely to be a trigger in the conversation or to the other person.
Gaining self-awareness of our changed state is, in itself, a huge paradigm shift, which allows us to have a window into the situation we may not have had before. When we can see ourselves from the outside, we have other choices available to us which we may not have been able to access in the past.
The critical element is that we can consider what to do next, rather than act out of our habitual response. Even if all we do is decide not to speak when in this aroused state, or to give ourselves some kind of pause to reset – a moment of silence, a breath – this can be a huge contribution to the smooth flow of the conversation for the others in the room.
With practice and over time, we can learn to make other skilful choices at this point. We may choose to express that we are feeling reactive, or even maybe share what we are feeling.
In the beginning, we are contributing our mindful presence to the meeting, and choosing an intention to contribute in a way that doesn’t make things any worse!
