I know a guy that has battled reactive thinking, and the associated behavior for decades. It seems he ‘always’ take things people say to him ‘personally’ far quicker than he ‘slows down’ to think rationally. His family puts up with his ‘eruptions’ but you can tell they’d prefer to be in another another room – or state!
You're familiar with the tantrums?
I’ve also wondered why it is challenging for him to remember people’s names, or to put lists to memory, like a speech or a lesson. Sure we all have ‘memory’ challenges, but this guy starts sweating on camera with just the thought of ‘forgetting’ all the points he wants to make. The sheer act of ‘remembering’ to not forget triggers his emotions into what Malcolm Gladwell describes as ‘choke’ or it’s nemesis - ‘panic’. In either way, pilots crash their plane, athletes ‘freeze’ and fail, and the self-fulfilling angst explodes in real life color.
This guy I’m writing about instantly mashes paragraph one with paragraph two – like a pent up genius with his mental processor pegged at 109% - combining the ‘emotional’ short fuse with a demanding ‘achiever’ strength until the emotional sparks fly.
I wish the guy would knock it off, but it seems he’s got a long-standing habit that takes a lot of effort to rewire in his brain. The trouble isn’t the guys 'will'. It’s not his ‘effort’. It’s not even his 'self-awareness'. The problem is that the wiring in his head is too closely packed. The emotional memories historic consequences are so closely linked in his hippocampus that his prefrontal cortex hasn’t a moment to be innovative or to creatively solve the quagmire before his instinctive reptilian core moves his physiology into a fearful fit - opening his mouth and tightening his chest and hands in a self-protective posture.
Have you seen this mess?
But wait, there’s more…
I woke up with a brilliant solution for this guy.
First the principle, and then my solution – for me, myself and I – the guy!
The Principle
My memory training coaches (Stephen Glover and Ron White) both suggest that to remember something I simply need to create a mental image that is:
1) grossly scaled – ie.
2) numerically multiplied – ie.
3) sped up or down – ie.
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Then I need to anchor that image to the ‘word’ or ‘emotion’ or ‘name’ that I want to recall.
Here’s the insight I woke up with early this morning, and from which I’m writing a public apology to all the people I’ve wounded through decades of frustrating battles over self, which have caused far more grief than I wish to acknowledge. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Better than that – learn from my maturing recovery.
Here’s the image to recall, and the phrase to anchor to this image, so you, and I, can recall it faster than our primordial ‘reactions’ fire with fight, flight or freeze.
The Application
What to anchor (remember) about this image:
Anchor this:
Imagine yourself inside the International Space Station. Scroll back up and take a really close look at the scale. You’ll see the Shuttle, inverted at the very top. Now get a sense of yourself inside any one of the modules. Harmony (Node 2) is 24’ long with a 14’ diameter. You and the guy I’m writing about would be barely visible.
Anchor this:
Looking down at the United States, specifically focus on the lousy economy - or joblessness. Imagine fixing your attention on ‘entrepreneurship’ or ‘job creation’ or even your ‘bills’. They can’t been seen. Look closely. Even closer. Nope.
Now, close your eyes and imagine yourself on the ISS, worrying about your ‘bills’. Get a clear image of you floating inside a module, paying attention to the stress of the unknown – how are you going to change the situation that comes to mind?
Do it. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the above picture.
Get a clear image of you floating, weightless and surrounded by the essentials you need to stay alive. If the situation you are troubled by can be separated in your mind, like the image above, with your challenge on the ground, and you separated by a HUGE distance from that situation, then the strong feelings can also be separated from impulse to react. This image can break the reactive impulse of fear or fight. Remember this image and see the separation between the individual (you) and the situation beneath the clouds, on the ground, in a building, on a desk, on a screen….
Separate the individual (you) from the situation.
ISS
Individual < Separation > Situation
When we imagine the individual separated from the situation, the focus of our mental activity shifts for just a moment from the emotional core – our thalamus - to our prefrontal cortex.
The picture above can be recalled when an emotional trigger is detected, or an overwhelming feeling comes forward, or a depressing thought grips you. Mentally moving the individual, a person, a human ‘being’, not a human ‘doing’ from inside a situation is all it takes to break the habitual cycle of reactive behavior and ‘stinking thinking’.
It’s working for the guy I’m writing about. Me.
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