Dial Down the Toxicity

I like to use analogies and metaphors in my work as an organizational coach. One of these is the concept of dials. Envision that you have both of your hands each on a dial. The left one is toxicity and the right one is learning. When I work with organizations to create happy, productive and collaborative cultures I coach them to turn the dial of toxicity down, which automatically turns the dial of learning up. Toxicity shows itself in many ways, what I also call negative team behaviors: gossip, aggression, sarcasm, avoidance, blame, etc. These behaviors (and negative attitudes) erode trust, learning and functionality of a team. When these can be seen more clearly and put out on the table, I find that every time people can work them out and move to the next level (of learning). When learning is engendered in a team or organization miracles literally happen. I will talk about how to turn down toxicity in my next post.

Take it in

Relationships are tricky at times, this is no surprise to anyone in a relationship I’m sure. It would be nice if we could all get along well all the time and not trigger each other. In my work I support people to get better at the art of managing relationships personally, professionally, and most of all with oneself. Because ‘you’ also have a relationship with ‘yourself’. Why are relationships so challenging? It may seem that it is the other person’s personality, triggers, quirkiness, opinions that rub you the wrong way, so we blame them for how irate we get. This is understandable of course, and yet I wonder that if we get hooked by other’s perspectives consistently then are we doomed to feel adverse emotions and be in blaming and judgmental mindsets?

Tough I know if for example you have a condescending boss. I am personally practicing with this above notion in my own life and in the lives of my clients. It is exciting and harrowing work. Remember that when we get triggered, we shut down our rational mind, which is actually needed to keep us out of hot water. If we don’t catch our triggers then we may do or think things that we don’t really want to. And if we blame ‘them’ for causing our frustrations then we are adding a deeper layer to the situation and making the truth a bit more opaque. Our job is to keep ourselves as calm as possible so we can enlist our thinking mind in creative ways, and not be slaves to our adverse feelings and the unproductive actions that ensue.

One facet of trigger is when someone gives you feedback that you aren’t ready to hear, or it is delivered in such a way that feels aggressive and threatening. This can create anxiety and frustration within us, and lead us to get defensive. I think we all have been there. It is my quest to be in this place less often. This is why I advise you (and me) to take it in. What does this mean? If you can catch your anxiety and frustration and cool it down, and then choose to listen, to take in the world of another person, then you can be engaged in that world.

There may be a gem for you to look at of course, but it may be a gift for the other person to figure out something about themselves through your listening to them. If you decide, really choose to not get hooked by your defensive position and open up to take in what someone else is saying about you or the world, you become more free, and a force for compassion. Recently somebody close to me gave me some feedback, in not such a nice way, that I take feedback in but then turn it around and give feedback to them.

This is not purely defensive because I do listen, but then the situation gets turned around so that the other person feels like they are wrong, misguided, or not listened to. At first upon hearing this through a frustrated tone of voice, I began to shut down. What I realized though is that the person may have a truth for me to see (which they did), as well as something deeper to realize about themselves.

So I took it all in. I listened, I validated, I acknowledged that I can sometimes be defensive, and I asked questions. I resisted the temptation to put it back onto this person and have them look at something. I just sat in the feedback for me. I lowered my defense and became vulnerable. And I learned something about myself. So I throw the gauntlet to you. Where do you get defensive? What would it be like to let this guard down and take it in? What could happen? What’s the worst that could happen? Why do you think you get defensive? Find one place and start to practice, you may be surprised with what you find.

I found that when people are aggressive towards me I want to fight back because I had a negative step-father in my life in my teen years. I felt powerless a lot of times in those days and when aggression happens to me and I don’t catch it I want to fight back because I felt like I couldn’t in the past. Interesting.

Facing My Fear

I have a belief that I don’t like cold calling and I envy people who have a knack for it, or at least I thought. This past Monday I was teaching my students at the college about emotional triggers and unproductive actions we take to deal with these feelings and associated thoughts. Well, in redoing my to-do list yesterday I realized that a Director of a large non-profit in my area was on my list to cold call. I have been doing a lot of work in non-profits lately and think my skill-set would potentially be helpful to their organizational culture. This particular name kept on getting onto my to-do list over and over again. I had a realization that there was procrastination alive and well in this facet of my life. So it became a great way to leverage this self-learning with the learning of my students.

So, in a stroke of self-proclaimed genius I decided to hold myself accountable in front of the class for the very thing I have been teaching them about. When class started yesterday I began by telling them of my personal find and went on to explore some reasons why procrastination happens. What could happen if I cold call? I could get rejected. What could it mean to me if I get rejected? It could mean that I am seen as less than, nothing special, worthless in the eyes of others. This is certainly a possibility I conceded but what is the big deal if people think of me in this way? Answer? Sometimes I think of myself in this way. Sometimes there is a belief that shows up that I am less than, incompetent, dumb, etc., and who wants that belief confirmed by others? See there is a deeper psychology to why we take the actions that we take in life and I was able to identify one of mine, in the presence of my class. And no wonder procrastination is present. It is doing its perfect job to keep us emotionally safe.

After we dialogued about the above root cause I asked them if they wanted me to call this Director in front of them, in essence to cold call and face my procrastination right before their eyes. They all said a gleeful yes! and many reported being nervous for me. I modeled for them that I was breathing deeply to remain calm and focused on my desire to do my best on the call and let go of nervousness and attachment to any outcome. By being in a calm, yet excited state of mind I gave myself a good leg up. I then told them to be as quiet as to hear a pin drop and then I dialed the digits and put the phone on speaker. When I actually got the Director on the line, I found that after I introduced myself he actually remembered me from a brief chance meeting a year or so ago. He also remembered that I have a daughter. This put us on a human level right off the bat. The call ended up going extremely well and I was invited to send him an email regarding my services by the end of the week, which I will do and then follow up.

When I hung up the phone everyone burst into applause, the room was electric. I did a little victory dance and we all shared some glee. We then debriefed about the experience; that is what people learned from the exchange. This led to really amazing comments about how others felt more empowered to face their own fears, excitement that I received a favorable outcome and uncertainty if some of them could pull it off themselves. It was great, and it was extremely good cross-over, conquering my own fear in that moment and having them learn how to do it themselves.

The best part about this story though is the postscript. After I left the college I went to a local coffee shop and who was there? Lo and behold the same Director! I shook his hand and thanked him for the call, we exchanged pleasantries and I told him that I would have an email to him by Friday. It’s almost as if my alignment with my goals and desires to build my business and spread the love in organizations was answered by the universe. Whether or not I get a ‘job’ at this agency is beside the point. It will be nice if it happens, but I am not attached to an outcome.

And the moral of the story? Cold calling doesn’t seem so cold after all.

I Belong Here

In a recent session with a client of mine, I was asking her about her goals for the New Year. A lot of people I have asked about this have been rather complacent about it, as if this human-made construct of the threshold of December 31st and January 1st has some magic fairy dust in it. Somehow at the changeover our lives will have a different meaning and purpose and our goals and visions will finally be realized. My client was revealing a few things that she wants to do this year and she seemed more stalwart than usual. She had some experiences lately that have her become more awake, more in her own power, more ready to assert herself in the world. Then she said something that struck me as powerful. When I asked her about this new found sense of power, she calmly said “I belong here”.

Those three words are very powerful indeed and I have contemplated them. To me, they don’t just mean to belong in a physical location, in space and time. They to me speak of a confidence of owning yourself more fully on multiple levels of your existence. You can belong more fully in your marriage, in your body, in your career, in your hobbies, in your visions and goals. There are so many possibilities of how belonging can manifest in your life.

It makes me think of Maslow. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is very well known. It is a model that is explicit about how our basic needs build on a foundation for belonging, which in turn forms a foundation for self-actualization, that is to realize and fulfill our purpose as human beings. If you are constantly trying to survive physically and emotionally then you never really get to the belonging stage, that stage that you feel like you belong to a group of supportive people on your path. This belonging then gives us the springboard to look at our purpose and what mission we want to fulfill in life. This is a general gloss-over but you get the point.

So I ask you, what is getting in your way of belonging here? Where are those areas that you are perpetually stuck? Maybe it is speaking your truth to others, being a pleaser. Maybe your body isn’t as strong as it could be. Maybe there are relationships in your life that need work. Maybe your career needs an overhaul. For me the turn of the year is a good benchmark, a useful guide on our journey through time to stop and reflect. Reflection can be very powerful and bring insights to those areas that need improvement. And then yes, there is apathy, the “I have tried in the past but it didn’t work out” mentality. If you don’t know your hang-ups, then you can’t move past them. I have seen many people along the spectrum of ages change and improve upon their darker places.

For myself, I feel most of the time that I belong here. I work hard on many areas of my life, which incidentally I have set goals for. I have physical, mental/emotional, business, and relationship goals. I want to resist inertia and stagnation, a moving target is hard to hit. I seek to walk the talk, to show others that I am congruent with my message. I seek to be as positive as possible and frame things as things to be accepted or figured out, instead of problems and woes. I seek not feed the victim, the poor me in my own experience and seek to slay that mentality in others. The victim has no power to belong here. Let us all rise above our fears and anxieties and paint a picture of a new day, a new possibility. Start small. Pick one thing and begin to see it through. Use it as a case study, a test for putting down the yoke once and for all and moving in the direction of your destiny.

Skip the Side of Holiday Drama

As most of us know and feel, the hectic pace of the holidays can put us to the test emotionally, mentally, and physically. With so much to do and so little time, overwhelm and anxiety can be real reactions we have to these stressors of fitting it all in. Maybe your are going to roll smoothly through the holidays with no stress, I say good for you! This is the ideal and you should bottle your secret recipe up and share it with others. For the rest of us however, we have the opportunity to slow down a little bit to keep ourselves intact. And then there is family. Family is a special time for a lot of people, connecting with those loved ones that we don’t necessarily see a lot in our lives. Bringing everyone under one roof for a day or few hours can be both exciting and challenging for some people.

There are those family members that rub you the wrong way, that you have negative history with, that challenge your well-being. I have written about drama in a past post, but the way I define it is as ‘unresolved emotional tension’. We don’t like to see ourselves or admit that we have drama in our lives sometimes, because that’s a less-than-ideal thought about ourselves. But it’s true. We go into our family holiday with judgment, apathy, sarcasm, avoidance and other attitudes and behaviors. And maybe you don’t, but others surely do and that can be a challenge for anyone to field. In the midst of your family members you know what triggers you, or at least you can. By thinking ahead about that certain uncle that is loud or that sibling who talks endlessly about themselves, you can understand what reaction you might have and then prepare yourself to keep yourself more emotionally intact this time. If you tend to react to some of these behaviors you get to ask yourself if you want to do this or not. If you do, then you do. If you don’t then what else can you do instead of react?

People are free to be who they are. But for those special family members that irk you, there is a judgment that they should be different. And maybe they should. But they are not. They are who they are. The deeper question to ask is why things bother you in the first place? What is it about other’s behaviors that leave you depleted, emotionally drained? I don’t have an easy answer for this, but what I do know is that the high art of self-awareness and self-management is to understand your own triggers and why they are there. What are the triggers showing you about yourself? There is a saying that posits, “If it bothers you, it’s your problem”. I tend to agree.

On the other hand, if that sibling who gets drunk and starts acting rowdy perturbs you, maybe they need to know how it impacts you and potentially others. This doesn’t have to come out of trigger though, but out of a respectful message to uphold your boundaries. Feedback is a special gift we can give others, but they also need to be willing to listen.

So in your holiday travels this year, just like skipping that extra sugary treat for your physical health, see if you can skip that side of emotional drama. Your reactions and judgments make for a not-so-good feeling inside. This is something that can be controlled, that you can control. Others’ behaviors are their own deal, borne from their own pain, drama and history, they are not personal to you. So don’t take it personally. Rise above the cloud of negative behaviors and take the high road, not out of superiority and separation, but out of love and compassion for yourself and others. A side of emotional tranquility will taste particularly good.

How Emotional Triggers Work

In my work recently I have noticed a more comprehensive way (in my mind at least) as to how triggers work. There are many reasons why we get emotional upset, but I will give you a scenario that seeks to encapsulate my understanding. Remember, triggers are not just the hot emotions: Frustration, anger, rage. They also encompass anxiety, worry, fear, sadness, depression. Any of those so-called ‘negative’ emotions are what I coach around in organizations because they can cause a lot of havoc when not managed well.

The scenario is a case of negative intention meets negative impact. Let’s say person A is doing something that royally pisses person B off. So Person B is getting emotionally upset and instead of addressing this issue in a positive way he uses sarcasm (negative intention) to deal with it; he launches a sarcastic comment when under duress to person A. Person A then gets upset by the sarcasm (negative impact) and then gives person B a dirty look, then issues a sarcastic comment of her own and then walks away (another negative intention followed potentially by another negative impact!). Each person feels justified for launching a negative behavior because they think the other one has pissed them off. They are both partially right. Person B is indeed having a reaction to something person A is doing, this is true because it would follow that person B wants person A to stop doing that thing or do something different. So person B’s initial trigger wasn’t managed well and he dropped sarcasm, which has not helped the situation, in fact it has escalated it. Person A got hooked by the sarcasm, got triggered by it and launched some negativity of her own, thinking person B was to blame for how she was feeling. This is understandable because negative energy has to go somewhere. We feel justified to take the negative action because it seems like it will work. And even though we feel justified by the negative behavior because it releases our negative energy, it doesn’t lead to a positive outcome and thus a good relationship or morale, which is actually what most people want.

An old colleague of mine used to ask “Do you want to be happy or do you want to be right?” You can launch a sarcastic comment thinking that you are right (and maybe you are), but this leads to unhappiness. So if you want unhappiness in others, then you are fee to keep being sarcastic. I posit too that launching sarcasm might make you feel right, but it doesn’t have you feeling happy because ultimately you have transgressed your values of being a kind, supportive, loving person. If you actually care about other people, which I have found to be 99% true, then maybe some happiness would be a better course of action. So here is the same scenario managed a lot better:

Persona A is inadvertently doing something that has person B emotionally upset. Person B knows he is triggered, and wants to be sarcastic. He stops himself though from launching a diatribe to person A. He calms himself down knowing that taking an action from a triggered place probably won’t be the best course of action. So he shuts his door and takes a few minutes to take some deep breaths. When he calms down he asks himself what he really wants from person A, what his desires or needs are. He then thinks about how to approach person A as respectfully as he can to address the situation. He realizes that avoiding the issue is just as negative for himself as sarcasm because change won’t happen, and he really wants something to change. So, he puts his feelings and desires into a feedback statement and musters up the courage to take the risk to deliver it to person A. He does this in a conducive setting and thinks about feedback as a constructive tool. He thinks about it as a gift. He is looking for a win/win. He delivers the feedback and person A graciously takes the feedback and a good dialogue ensues. Person A hadn’t realized the negative impact she was having on person B and she commits to changing something about her behavior that was irking person B. She does this not out of obligation or pressure, but because of the value of the information person B gave her and the value of the relationship.

These two scenarios are in direct contrast to each other. The first one happens all the time in organizations, and in relationships in general. It may not be sarcasm, but it could be stonewalling, yelling, aggression, lying, etc. As I said before, triggers have their own logic. The negative energy needs a conduit, a pathway to get resolution to itself. However, the negative energy has the seed of change in it, but it gets obscured because we don’t like these kinds of feelings, so we react to them. This reaction is where the rubber hits the road in my work. This is where we need to take 100% responsibility for what we are feeling and then what we do with those feelings. By being self-aware, we can calm down enough to think about the seed of change and then give that seed some sun. Most times others will see this seed and want to let it grow too.