He just shouted at you, and you feel like you can’t take any more pressure. You’re sick of feeling so much stress.
It’s probably not hard to imagine this situation, or multiple other versions of it. Knowing your stressed-out client has a lot on his mind does nothing to settle your racing heart or the tense feeling in the pit of your stomach. You tell yourself, don’t take it personally, but your body isn’t listening.
How come? Your brain centre that tries to direct the body to settle isn’t actually connected to the brain centre that revs it up in the first place. Without communication between these two centres, there is no neural pathway for that message, don’t take it personally, to get through to your rapid heart rate or lurching stomach.
Let’s take a closer look at these brain centres and neural pathways.
Although we humans like to elevate ourselves above the animal kingdom, we are indeed mammals. We’re wired with an autonomic nervous system (comprised of sympathetic and parasympathetic branches) that operates in the background 24/7, outside of our regular awareness—kind of like a server that everyone just takes for granted. This autonomic nervous system is critical to our survival. It regulates our breathing, our heart rate and body temperature. It’s also always on the lookout for danger and has vital short-circuit wiring to get us out of trouble fast.
Let’s say you accidentally spill hot coffee at the desk while you’re working. Your reflexes push you up and away from the scalding liquid before your thinking mind tells you to protect your keyboard and right your coffee mug. The nerves that instinctively register the heat and immediately tense the muscles to pull away are connected in a short loop to get you out of danger quickly. If the signal travelled first to your thinking-reasoning brain, you would keep the coffee off your desk and keyboard, but you would be burned.
That’s why, in times of emergency, we have instincts to bypass our thinking-reasoning brain, so we can act instantly. After we’ve pulled away and escaped harm, then we can think about cleaning up the mess.
that’s activated when someone is yelling. “
The autonomic nervous system that triggers a reflex is the same one that’s activated when someone is yelling. Anger often registers as danger, so this nervous system typically quickens our heart rate and tenses our muscles. We are instinctively readying to run, defend ourselves, or freeze altogether.
How does spilling hot coffee relate to your angry client?
The thinking-reasoning brain that tells you not to take his yelling personally isn’t something that matters to the autonomic nervous system, so the message is often ignored. Your heart is still pounding, your muscles tense.
How can Shayna’s innovative training style help?
Many communication and conflict training workshops teach us to pause and breathe. But we often can’t talk ourselves into pausing and forcing a deep breath doesn’t always help either. Why? Because our body’s instincts have taken over through the autonomic nervous system and are running their course.
Your body isn’t your mind’s enemy. You can train them to work together.
Our mammalian neural pathways weren’t designed to pause in dangerous circumstances. On the contrary, we’re wired to take action, to get away from what our instincts see as danger, or to freeze and become invisible in the face of a threat. Our reasoning brain may know that the client is just stressed out and there is no actual danger, but the body has registered alarm signals and instructs us to act instinctively.
The thinking-reasoning brain and the autonomic nervous system can deliver two opposing messages. When we have emotional outbursts or blurt out things we later regret, that’s our instincts trying to protect us. In some instances, we can freeze like a deer caught in headlights, which is the same nervous system giving us a different instruction. None of these signals are particularly helpful for building professional relationships and getting work done
As a coach and facilitator, I’ll help you learn ways to work with these physical instincts so they don’t take over. So you don’t react in the heat of the moment in ways you’ll later regret, and so you’re not paralyzed and unable to respond. You’ll get practice working with your own instincts, and easing the fight, flight and freeze responses… so that you can settle, release tension, breathe freely, and take charge in a professional manner.
You just responded to a yelling client like a total pro, staying steady and taking care of yourself all at the same time. You’re breathing easier and ready to tackle the rest of your day.
Is this situation hard to imagine? Something you wish you could achieve? Contact me for more information about how I might work with your support you through coaching, or work with your team to prevent burnout.
shayna@shaynahornstein.net
604-731-4076
As a registered physical therapist, my services are often covered under most benefits plans. My affordable rates are less expensive than counselling sessions, and aim to enable you to be your own strongest resource.
Shayna Hornstein is a Vancouver-based trainer, coach and therapist with 20+ years of combined education, research and professional practice in workplace health and safety, as well as treating people with chronic illness.