<\/p>\n
Pursuing and accepting leadership is a crash course in exposing my triggers. (so is being married and having a child). When I arrive late for an appointment, or make a scheduling mistake on a complicated work-week, or if I am questioned about\u2026.anything – \u00a0my chest tightens, my breath shortens, and my body puts on an itchy sweater\u2026on the inside. It\u2019s unbearable.<\/p>\n
These things are triggers for me. These external circumstances set off an instantaneous chain of reactions in my nervous system. The almond-shaped reptilian brain, the amygdala is the first stop. The amygdala processes emotions, especially fear and threat detection. It uses templates (implicit memories & trauma responses) that have been stored through life experiences (like being hazed in the military for being late), to determine how to perceive and react to my situation in a way that keeps me safe. Notice I said react, not respond. The (re)action of my amygdala is automatic and involuntary. So when I am running late, my amygdala perceives I am in danger. It plays the template of my military experiences like a movie reel from The Man in The High Castle<\/em>. It then sends signals like a telegraph (beep, beep, dot, dot, beep) that activate my sympathetic nervous system (SNS) \u2013 that\u2019s the bad one, the one that does the fight or flight response, as opposed to the parasympathetic nervous system that calms the body down. (why are they named the same and why can\u2019t it just activate the calm one?)<\/p>\n When this happens, the internal discomfort is almost unbearable for me. I HATE it. I get away from it by any means possible \u2013 which typically means running away from the situation or doing something to numb it (like a mid-day IPA). If I can do neither of those things, I am likely to project that internal discomfort onto the situation I have deemed responsible for making me \u201cfeel\u201d this way. In the case of running late, it could easily be my family. Those people move like molasses in winter. The external situation is rarely compatible with the internal discomfort I am feeling. So I am frequently guilty of giving a $100 reaction to a .50 cent problem.<\/p>\n In Leadersmithing, Eve Poole suggests that leaders need to create new \u2018templates\u2019 to store in the amygdala to replace the ones that are still young and afraid and unhelpful. She gives the example of involuntarily needing to pee at age 30 when being yelled at by a male colleague. The template she was working with was still 3 years old responding to being yelled at by her dad, knowing that if she wet herself, he would go away. \u00a0So how do we create these templates? What Poole calls replacing the templates I would call healing the nervous system. Neuroscientists would call it neuroplasticity or neurogenesis (rerouting and creating new neurocircuitry) and the apostle Paul would call it the renewing of the mind.<\/p>\n This sounds great, let\u2019s troubleshoot this amygdala error and get on with our lives as leaders (spouses and parents) that people actually want to be around. So how do we do it? The truth is we can know the problem informationally all day long, but as my story suggests above \u2013 that information does not change these automatic neurobiological reactions that sometimes rule our lives. This is a neural issue, not a cognitive issue. A hardware problem, not a software problem. So information is not going to change your wiring. As Poole states \u201cCognitive psychologists and moral philosophers all think that right thought leads to right action.\u201d Raise your hand if Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) worked for you. (Anyone\u2026? Me neither). Poole offers something akin to a vaccine. She suggests that we intentionally put ourselves in the situation that will cause the trigger, but in a safe way, on a small scale. She uses the metaphor of an apprentice or craftsman who, before entrusted with a large project would need to prove themselves by practicing on and perfecting a miniature version of it first. In short, setting up mini experiments to bring your fears to you on purpose and face them.<\/p>\n While I agree up to this point with Poole that the problem is the templates (implicit memories and trauma responses) and the solution to the problem is healing\/transforming the templates (in her words replacing them), it\u2019s the means by which this is achieved (the process) that I disagree with her on. Poole suggests a cumbersome list of 17 \u201ccritical incidents\u201d that I, as a \u201cleader in training\u201d should set up to strengthen my weaknesses. (Que the anxiety response in me, seeing that list of 17 things I must do to fix my anxiety and become a master leader.)<\/p>\n In her Ted talk she makes the connection about her needing to pee at 30 to her incident as a child. I am doubtful that revelation and connection came from facing her fears in a corporate setting over and over. If I had to guess, I would say that was through a self-discovery process with a professional therapist, spiritual director, or at a minimum journaling\/meditation and thinking deeply about her pain.<\/p>\n I am ok with the facing of fears in public, over and over again. This is good advice. But you don\u2019t need a system more complicated than Zettelkasten to do it. The opportunities to face your fears as a leader, whether they be imposter syndrome, fear of public speaking, fear of failure – or like me, fear of rejection, and fear of being wrong \u2013 these opportunities abound. The worldview of facing them is enough to see these natural opportunities in everyday situations, become aware of what is triggering you, and then work with someone who can help you be honest about what is happening inside. Right now, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Spiritual Direction, and Shadow Work hold the most promise for facing what is really going on inside for me.<\/p>\n Truly healing and transforming the implicit templates controlling our reactions, not just replacing them, is the goal here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pursuing and accepting leadership is a crash course in exposing my triggers. (so is being married and having a child). When I arrive late for an appointment, or make a scheduling mistake on a complicated work-week, or if I am questioned about\u2026.anything – \u00a0my chest tightens, my breath shortens, and my body puts on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[1],"tags":[3434,2091],"class_list":["post-40774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlp04-poole-leadership","tag-leadersmithing","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40774","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\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40774"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40779,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40774\/revisions\/40779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Nuerogenesis & The Renweing of The Mind<\/h2>\n
You May Need More Help Than You Think<\/h2>\n