So far we've realized that our Safety Brain owns us and controls us. Based on illogical, irrational thinking, it decides what is safe or not (remember, the Safety Brain sees every situation as life or death!)
The emotion that triggers the Safety Brain is fear. It bears repeating: 100% of the time, no exceptions, when someone is being difficult she is scared.
Now the question is: Your most difficult person is standing in front of you, right now, and his behaviour is absolutely at its worst IF YOU COULD REMEMBER THAT HE'S SCARED would that change how you deal with him?
62% say YES how I deal with this person would change
25% sit on the fence... maybe
13% invariably sit in the conference room shaking their heads emphatically NO - he's a jerk and it won't change how I deal with him
As an aside, take a look at yourself if you are in the last category. If you are getting a little annoyed and absolutely refuse to consider that it might change your behaviour, you are sitting there, and a fear of yours just got tapped. YOU are getting defensive.
So, let's walk through this.
It's simple easy situations that trigger the Safety Brain to take over.
One of the most fun, for me, is watching people walk into a seminar room for the first time. Every single person will get through the doors, maybe even a few steps, and then they will pause for between a second to 30 seconds.
Why do they pause? People will say "Well I was looking for a place to sit." Or "I was looking for my friends." Or "I wanted to sit at the back." or "I was seeing if there was anyone else I knew."
Those all sound great but they are rationalizing after the fact. Almost all of your behaviour comes from the Safety Brain. We act first... we make decisions... we talk first... and rationalize later! All behaviour comes from our Safety Brain and then we justify with fact.
So what's the emotional reason that we stop at the doors? We are looking for the sabre-toothed tiger. Everyone does it. It's fun to watch. Everyone get's to the door, inside the door and stops, looks around the room "Are there any sabre-toothed tigers in here?" NOPE and you come on in. (When I'm leading a two to five day workshop and discuss this on the first day, the next day some people will remember and deliberately charge into the room in the morning without stopping. And that's fun to watch too!
Watch yourself. Next time you go to a new place for a meeting, a new store, a new restaurant, a new place... watch yourself get in the door and stop. You are doing the same thing, scanning the room for a sabre-toothed tiger.
Yes, it's kind of ridiculous in this day and age, but our Safety Brains are the animalistic part of us, and they are still in control, so old animal kingdom thinking (or non thinking) applies!
Now let's go a step further.
Have you every gone out somewhere and you fully planned on going there (a house party, a restaurant, a bar) you went in, took a look around, got really uncomfortable, and you left? Why did you leave? (Yeah, yeah, a man always says "Well, I accidentally walked into a woman's bathroom once!") And that's always worth a good laugh!
But what I'm talking about is a restaurant, a party, a bar: you took two steps in, took a look around, and left. Can you answer this question: why did you leave?
People will always say, "Well, I saw my ex!" "I saw someone I didn't want to see." "It was dirty." "People were doing drugs." "It was a gay bar and I'm not gay." "It was a bikers' bar." "It was just really uncomfortable." "I just got a feeling."
I would challenge you that you haven't gotten to the real reason. And I would also say that in each of these situations, the reason was exactly the same...
I would suggest that the reason that you left that restaurant, bar, or party is that your Safety Brain took over and decided it wasn't safe. And the REASON your Safety Brain decided it wasn't safe was...
IT DIDN'T MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS
You weren't expecting a gay bar, bikers' bar, to see your ex, to see that person you didn't like, that people were doing drugs, etc. etc. You weren't expecting it and you didn't like it. That situation didn't meet your expectations. And based on "didn't meet my expectations" your Safety Brain took over and you engaged in a run and hide behaviour. You turned around and left.
You didn't have to leave. You could have decided that people in there would be fun or you could have decided that you would find that one person at the party who could teach you something brand new... gone in and had a great time. That would have been a Thinking Brain way to handle the situation. But you didn't. Your Safety Brain engaged and took you into the run and hide behaviour of leaving.
There's nothing right or wrong with this. Don't get defensive!
Here's the big question:
How many times a day with things NOT MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS?
And each time something doesn't meet your expectations, your Safety Brain takes over and, based on irrational, illogical thinking, you get defensive... irritated? Annoyed? Frustrated? Outright Anger?
What is anger? What is the biggest most common trigger of anger... it didn't meet my expectations.
I started with a question:
Your most difficult person is standing in front of you right now and her behaviour is absolutely at its worst. If you could remember that she is scared, would it change how you deal with her?
There is only ONE ANSWER.
YES. Yes it will change how you deal with her... because how many times a day do things in her life not meet her expectations?
Except if she's over 40 years old...
Jeanette Kasper -- Your Anger UnTangler
Defuse (or Delete) difficult people in your life. Neutralize your anger. DON'T smack them upside the head! No more bodies buried under the copier!
get your personally signed copy of Jeanette Kasper's best seller "Anger Is NOT An Emotion" from http://angerisnotanemotion.com and pick up thousands of tips and strategies so you can gain control on anger forever!
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