Tips for Transformative Leadership: That Space Between Us
In an earlier Tips email we talked about the importance of pausing and being present in the moment. Today we’re going to discuss the importance of the “space” that pausing and being present, in the moment, can create.
It’s important to understand the concept that all behavior is rooted in emotion. No matter how much we try to behave in a rational manner, our emotions are always there. Perhaps they are invisible to us, but others often see that our behavior stems from more than simple rational thought. Our response to emotion is as different as there are stars in the sky. But our response to emotion has an enormous impact on how we process that information and the outward result.
In our extremely busy day-to-day lives we experience a wide range of emotions – joy, fear, sadness, guilt, contempt, disappointment, unworthiness. But many of the emotions we experience every day are considered “negative”. It’s not the negative emotions that are the problem, it’s rejecting the fact that they exist and that we consider them to be negative that is the biggest obstacle to our emotional development. We often hear the message to just “think positive”, but when we force a smile or try to stay positive when we are certainly not in a positive place, we are ignoring vital signals that are there to guide us in the right direction.
Unfortunately many of us respond to “bad” emotions in one of two ways: bottling or brooding. The “bottler” dismisses the emotion completely, suppressing it until it eventually comes out in unhealthy ways. On the other hand, the “brooder” overanalyzes their emotions, putting them in a vicious cycle of worrying about worrying until they find themselves drowning in their own thoughts and accepting those thoughts as facts. Both of these responses can cause a great deal of damage to our relationships both at work and at home.
When we are so busy and focused on an upcoming task or brooding over our thoughts that we lose connection to the present, we leave no distance between the thinker and the thought. Without this space, we lose perspective on what actually happened and how much we are purely reacting to imaginary facts.
When you are feeling a strong emotion it can be difficult to gain the distance necessary to see that emotion for what it is. If you can step back, be present in the moment and gain enough clarity to address what is actually happening to you, you are creating a space to process the emotion in a healthy way. This allows you to take action from a place of clarity and not from false reality.
How to gain distance from your own inner chatterbox:
Step One: Which response mechanism did you identify with? Are you a bottler or a brooder?
Step Two: Over the next week when you feel yourself responding to a strong emotion, take a moment to determine what you are actually experiencing and not merely reacting.
Step Three: Accept that it is okay to feel the way you feel and take time to view that emotion with compassion and curiosity.
Step Four: Take action based on what is real and then move on knowing you have objectively made the best decision for you.