There are times when my brain is not working at all or in \u201ctime-out\u201d. My recall is just not what it used to be. I am easily distracted, and I am forgetful. The embarrassing truth is that I probably spend more time looking for my cell phone than I do actually using it. I am told that on this side of 50, it is to be expected. These are normal signs of an aging brain. My brain is healthy, and it is often over-worked. My family history causes me to be hypersensitive about my focus and memory issues. My Mother had Alzheimer\u2019s Disease and I can recall what the early signs were; lack of focus, easily distracted, forgetful. In fact, it was not properly diagnosed early because her symptoms closely aligned with the signs of normal aging. So, I work to preserve the brain power that I have. I try to keep stress at a minimum, I get an adequate amount of sleep, I eat food that promotes brain health (berries, coffee, nuts, fish\/omega 3\u2019s, turmeric, and broccoli). I have significantly decreased my screen\/ social media time, and I work to create the right environment for me to focus and produce. It takes a great deal of planning to create an environment absent of distractions. I take good notes, set reminders, utilize a planning app, and create a healthy work schedule. I also play a lot of brain teaser\/memory games. Wordle, Sudoku, Braingle, and Lumosity are some of my favorites. I am always looking for new tools. I was looking forward to reading this book and gaining some insight on how to overcome some of my challenges and hopefully some new tools.
\nI found Your Brain at Work to be helpful, yet I had to read it in small increments. The format of the book made it easier to read in stages. It is long and detailed and too much for one sitting. Each time I returned; I discovered new tools to help make me more effective in my work. While I have made a conscious effort to relate the information that we are learning to my NPO, I find myself also applying it to aspects of my life both personal and professional. The section of the book that discusses relatedness and friend or foe really offered ideas that will be useful in my research, my personal life, and my professional life. Let me state for the record that I completely skipped over the \u201cturning enemies into friends\u201d section. I just can\u2019t conceptualize the trust building that it would take. I don\u2019t have the focus to go there.
\nI have put a great deal of thought into how to create connections between my stakeholder groups. I\u2019m anticipated that a joint workshop will be necessary, and I must create an environment that is conducive to sharing. Admittedly I am a bit nervous. I am able to do this with ease in my professional life. Facilitating workshops and trainings are a big part of my business. I have faced my fair share of adversarial interactions in these sessions. Building connections and common points of interest is essential to moving a group from one point to the next and I have been successful at it. I actually enjoy the work and the challenge that it presents. What makes my stakeholder group different from previous groups that I have worked with? Why am I nervous? Why am I worried about building connections? I believe that working in a religious environment creates an expectation that everyone will be on their best behavior. We all share a kinship through Christ and that should be the strongest connection that we experience. I also know that childhood experiences, exposure to inaccurate facts, explicit and implicit biases and the evils of racism can cause us to ignore the relatedness we have. This is what causes me to worry and makes me nervous.
\nDr. Rock writes, \u201cA feeling of relatedness is a primary reward for the brain, and an absence of relatedness generates a primary threat. A sense of relatedness is what you get when you feel that you belong in a group, when you feel part of a cohesive team.\u201d(1) My work is to continue to remind my stakeholder group of our relatedness through our \u2018familyship\u2019 with Christ, to create a safe space for sharing, and value all input. I anticipate that there will be some tense moments and sometimes when the divide might feel too vast to connect. I pray the I can build a communication bridge that reminds us that we are one family. I also acknowledge that family can be difficult and feel like we are on separate teams, like enemies. Dr. Rock offers this as a consideration, \u201cWhen you think of someone is a foe, you don\u2019t just miss out on feeling his emotions: you also inhibit yourself from considering his ideas, even if they are right.\u201d(2) He continues, \u201cDeciding someone is a foe means you make accidental connections, misread intent, get easily upset, and discard their good ideas.\u201d (3) Without points of connections and intentional space for listening, transformation may not be possible. \u201cThere\u2019s a solid science to this: put simply, when people feel safely connected to others, when there is good relatedness, they think better. We need people to at least feel like friends, not foes, so that everyone can do their best work.\u201d(4) I feel a little less anxious, Loved Ones!<\/p>\n
1. David Rock, Your Brain at Work, Revised and Updated (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2020), 159.
\n 2. Ibid.,166
\n 3. Ibid.,166
\n 4. Ibid.,167<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are times when my brain is not working at all or in \u201ctime-out\u201d. My recall is just not what it used to be. I am easily distracted, and I am forgetful. The embarrassing truth is that I probably spend more time looking for my cell phone than I do actually using it. I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2489,2681],"class_list":["post-32198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02","tag-rock","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32199,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32198\/revisions\/32199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}