The Reality of Reality
In Lisa’s class we have been working with exploring different ways we make decisions and how we communicate clearly and effectively in difficult conversations. In difficult conversation we explored how we chose to react and respond. The challenges you face when having difficult conversations are occurring because you want to present your side of the story while also listen what the other person has to say. There is not one set approach you can take because the conversation can take many forms. These conversations are difficult to track because they do not come in a predefined box. It is hard to understand and diagnose this in the moment.
Ineffective Action
Even though you want to present your side of the story, asking questions can help ease a conversation. But why is it so hard to remain curious? That is because the other persons arguments do not align with your own and as a result, you end up having the same conversations over and over again. You stop being curious in a conversation because you think you are right. We lose our sense of curiosity of what the other person thinks and what they are talking about because where we sit is what we see because there is not a lot of asking. Feedback conversations are hard when we only focus on the facts and who is right and wrong. We are not so good at observing with our bias, or interpreting things in a way that makes sense for others, so being open and listening is rational, productive and smart.
How to Raise and Raise Well
Asking about how they understand a situation can help acknowledge that you are curious about their side of the story and you empathize with their feelings. Telling is about explaining how you understand it and by attentively listening to someone with an open and curious mind. In a difficult conversation it can be helpful to think about your internal voice. Your internal voice is about what you think and feel but are not saying out loud. This voice is difficult to hear because we are so used to listening to it. Out internal voice is negotiation with yourself and is always ongoing. What I instantly thought when I tried understanding the internal voice was that in difficult conversations, you would turn it down when you actually want to turn up your internal voice when it is YOUR voice, and not a voice of judgement. When we learn to discern our authentic and healthy internal voice, we have game, insight, wisdom and connection.
Sensing a Threat
If you are centered, it is easier to remember to listen and demonstrate an understanding about others viewpoints even when you disagree in a conversation. When you are centered, your three brains are in sync. If you are caught, you can try to pay attention to your body and what it is trying to tell you. If your palms are sweaty, your heart rate is rising, or feel panicked, you are in a Fight and Response situation and you need to bring yourself back. By asking yourself, what you really want here can bring your prefrontal cortex on line and it gives us a problem to solve.
When we are in difficult conversations and situations our bodies react because that is how we are wired. Even though our three brains are designed to work as a unit, our brains ability to function as a unit changes when our brain senses threat because the the upper level of the functioning of our minds gets turned off and defaults to the lover levels of our brain. Our brain defaults to survival first, before attachments and relationships. This is happening before we think about how to solve complex problems in our lives. It can be functional when it comes to physical threat, but it is not when it comes to things that require thinking and planning.
Thrive Not Just Survive
So what can we do to help ourselves adapt so that we thrive and not just survive? To ensure that these problems are solved, we need to make sure that the message of safety is being sent to our reptilian brain and that the message of social connection is fulfilling the needs of our memal brian. To be able to govern our action when we are stressed and to make good choices we need to keep our deep brain calm, because it functions to make complex decisions while it is trying to keep us calm. If we get stuck in our limbic brain we make decisions based on our emotions, instincts, or stress. We are very reactive and impulsive in our choices, so in order to make thoughtful decisions we need to spend more time in our executive brain. To do this, we need to feel safe in our bodies and notice reactions to threat and notice what your reactions are to threat.
Interpretative Framework
All information that falls into our eyes, ears, or our skin, is meaningless because it comes with instructions telling us that we need to predict. We create our own interpretative framework based on our own experiences. We change the meaning of the information with assumptions and biases and not the actual information. The way we experience things, however real they seem, is imposed by their structure, and we construct the organization about perception from within. Seeing the meaning of something requires more effort, because everything your brain does is contextual. You tie behavioral significance to something based on the history of our past perception. The brain assimilates a response to something that our senses attach to our body. The perception of what our body is, is a perception of what we have already constructed. Our bodies react instantaneously to the environment around us, so when we perceive fear, we are wired for safety and how to survive. In these moments, chemicals infuse our bodies and this creates the emotion of fear.
The Fight Flight Freeze Response
When our brain perceives that we are under threat, we enter the stress response. The stress response is also known as the fight, flight, and freeze response because it evolved as a survival mechanism that enables people to react quickly in life-threatning situations. It is a carefully orchestrated and near-instantaneous sequence of hormonal changes and physiological responses that helps someone to fight a threat or flee for safety. Unfortunately, the body can easily overreact to stressors that are not dangerous. To lower this response, you have to position yourself to feel like you are in a safe situation. When we feel safe, we lower our stress response and we up-regulate our social engagement systems helping us connect with others.
