[Breathing Free: The 5-day Breathing Programme That Can Change Your Life Teresa Hale
Tilo Chopin
A lot of people read this newsletter (over 350,000), and there will be a lot of different answers regarding how we can enlarge and inhabit the space between stimulus and response. So I challenge you to share your own answer with us in the comments below. What do you do to enlarge and inhabit this space? I am looking forward to seeing the wisdom of this particular crowd.
Here is one example of how you might do that: Write a note to yourself that awakens you to your values and then review it regularly. Write down what it means to you to be a good person or why you care about other people. Put it on a card that your carry in your wallet or a Post-It note on your computer monitor. Put it in your phone. Set an alarm to read it regularly. Wake yourself up again and again to who you are and who you want to be.
Breathing Free: The 5-day Breathing Programme That Can Change Your Life Teresa Hale
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Emily is a Crucial Conversations coauthor, dynamic speaker, and consultant. She received a medical degree from the University of Utah and a Master of Business Administration from the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. Her work centers on identifying and teaching behaviors crucial to effective living and leading.
How to void getting angry- I think the key thing is to make decision that am not going to be angry-whether I am really serious about the decision will determine the vigour with which I take actions to support this decision and prevent anger.
Being prepared is a term used for many situations. However, I believe it also has merit in helping us avoid letting our emotions get away from us. When I am anticipating a crucial conversation, I think about the different directions the dialogue could take and then plan for my possible response. As the conversation unfolds, I have non-emotionally charged words ready to go. Of course, not all the anticipated conversations get emotional but being prepared helps me feel more confident that the issue can be resolved in a positive manner.
I actually have a copy of the Crucial Conversations Model, with an outline for each area, that I carry with me in my Daytimer/Franklin. I pull it out before I engage in a Crucial Conversation in an effort to be mindful in the moment. If I wait until I am already engaged, it is often too late.
When I find myself getting angry, I stop, and then tell the other person that I need some time to think about the idea, problem, situation. I then tell them that I will get back to them in a day or two. This gives me time to cool down, and to think of a better response that is good for both of us.
Intentional breathing helps immensely. Ask for a moment to reflect. Sometimes we feel as leaders we are expected to have an answer or solution immediately. Interestingly a lot of people are okay with a delayed response, and why? Because it is usually more kind and reasonable.
Before forming an opinion I truly listen to the concern and ask clarifying questions to help the person decide what is truly bothering them. Most times they are upset at the situation and not the person.
Meditation plays a key role in my response to angry feelings today. A calligraphy of this important writing on acceptance hangs in my home office, to remind me daily of the power of acceptance in my life.
I grew up with anger everyday and have carried those memories into my behaviors in adulthood. I have to constantly remind my forgetful brain of this truth, and then to find ways to live in my life with others.
I have this same problem. Having just read about habit forming, what timing, I am going to try this. Habit forming requirs three phases, cue, action and reward; and repeat. My cue is responding to someone. My action is to always pause before I speak. Not like 10 seconds but just a second to start with. the reward is to have a well thought response. Doing this for ALL conversations will get me into the habit without a conscious need to do it. That one second will give me the foot hold to catch myself from my feelings. It will appear that I am slow, but that is much better than saying something I will regret. Once the habit is formed, I can always extend it longer should a second not be enough. It will be easy to extend because the habit is formed.
Take time to yourself, sit quietly, clear your mind of the typical racket and noise going on in there by breathing deeply and feeling yourself breathing until you are aware that you are relaxed, and your mind is no longer racing, and you are no longer thinking. Then, picture the times in your mind when you have been triggered and have gotten angry. Focus on how your body felt in that moment, focus on what your body does, recall the thought patterns that arose, and truly pay attention to those repetitive thought patterns; and then observe the behaviors that resulted. You are literally watching yourself. Once you can identify it in your meditation, it becomes easier to be aware of it as it is creeping up, or as it suddenly completely engulfs you, in the hectic reality we call life. You also have to make a conscious choice in your meditation to react different, and envision yourself reacting differently in those situations where you are triggered. What is most important, you have to actually feel the emotional state that you would feel if you successfully accomplished this goal in real life. You must feel it while you are in the meditation; you are tricking your mind and body to rewire.
My answer to the question of how to avoid getting angry during a crucial conversation is to cultivate a sincere curiosity in the other person and in his or her back story, motivations, struggles, points of view, etc. I remind myself that more information is always a good thing, and I make gathering information the number one priority in that situation.
I will cut and paste that quote. I have 28 years in recovery. I attend AA meetings though not with the same frequency when I was new to sobriety. When one is trying to get sober, the space is everything. Sometimes your life depends on it. Also, the Third Step prayer serves as a checki in, a note to have close by to help us redirect our behavior and help choose actions that are reflective of who we strive to be. Our best self. Often those who are choosing anger are doing so because they feel powerless with out it. It becomes a habit just like alcohol. We can become addicted to anger. There is a rehab house for women in Redwood City. They received a grant to have Crucial Conversation training. I am volunteering there and co-facilitating the training. I am only recently becoming acutely aware of how the principles of CC are helping these women internalize changes that are essential to living a happy sober life. Who wants to be around a dry drunk. We teach CC every Monday afternoon. There are about 12 women in the program. They have a lot of anger and when you hear their stories, it is understandable. I LOVE teaching them how to pause and find a way to articulate their opinions, fears, etc in a way that will prevent the other person from shutting down. Most of these women are wanting to redeem themselves. They want to have a conversation and have the other person consider that they are working hard and they want thr other person to know that they can be trusted. These are brutally hard conversations. Thank you for this important writing. I will share it with these struggling women.
In a simple test, I can see that in hypothetical situation A, where I believed the other people had ill will towards me, and that my defensiveness emotion produced barriers and violence, that the result was negative for both me and the participant to the conversation. Result made us both feel worse
In Situation B, where I believed that the other person was upset but ultimately wanted to find a better solution, and I chose to listen, understand and verbalize with empathy and logic, that the result was mutually beneficial. We both ended up with a better outcome.
Makes me question, why do something that makes my life negative and hard. So, I need to make the right behaviour easier and the wrong behaviour hard, right? In the space between stimulus and response, I try to pull only the tools I know will lead me to the type of response that makes a positive result.
Like Emily, I have read The Power of Full Engagement, and I found the book very helpful. Eating for energy and getting up for a bit of exercise at least every 60-90 minutes has worked well for me. Another discipline that I have developed is 20 minutes of contemplative prayer each day. For the non-praying, this is very similar to mindfulness meditation. Both lead to enhanced calmness and mindfulness! I highly recommend a mindfulness practice!
I am a high energy person who tends to think, speak and act fast. Personally, I see a tremendous value of slowing down my pace by asking clarifying questions. It gives me time to reflect on what I think and want to say as well as to connect with another party in a genuine empathetic way.
I meditate. I suppose any meditation technique will do, but the one I use is Ascension meditation, which works WITH the mind to focus on emotions such as praise, gratitude and love. As a result of this practice, I am calmer and I am increasingly able choose to respond with kindness no matter what others are doing or saying.
Start with a good base
I start each day with 30 mins of practice on my trumpet, before anyone else arrives. I am terrible at trumpet and it reminds me that we all are working to improve. It creates a base for interaction with people all day long.
Something that helps me enlarge the space between stimulus and response it to stay curious. Curiosity helps me to not to jump to judgment but helps me keep it safe for everyone. Curiosity helps me to seek to understand the other person. Curiosity keeps me open to a new perspective.
1. Certain People: I seem to get irritated and annoyed with certain people and sometimes it is more due to personal biases that actual topic of conversation. If I find myself in that situation, I try to separate the situation and objectively asses. Obviously easier said than done.
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