Category: Anxiety And Stress

Managing Anxiety: THIS is What’s Possible

4/6/2022

(Part One of a Three Part Series on Anxiety)

I’m not an expert on anxiety, nor do I claim to be. But I do have some nuggets of insight to share. What I do know is that feeling anxiety is part of our neurological wiring; it is not necessarily a bad thing. Then there’s the anxiety present in situations that can preoccupy you and keep you from functioning to your best abilities. And then there’s debilitating anxiety – the kind that some may treat with prescription drugs. My experience and sharing is geared more towards the first two kinds of anxiety. Specifically, I want to share what I’ve discovered in study and in coaching leaders that have grappled with anxiety. I’ll share one example.

I once coached a senior leader who struggled with anxiety on a daily basis. It was present to the point that she would avoid confrontation due to discomfort and anxious feelings. Somewhere in the middle of our 6-month engagement, she confided that she had tried therapy, somatic bodywork and even working with horses as ways to help her manage the anxiety she felt. However, she felt our coaching process was the thing that really worked for her. So, what exactly did we do that was effective for her?

First, let’s start with a little context. Lisa Feldman Barrett, neuroscientist and author of How Emotions are Made, has done some groundbreaking thinking and research in the realm of emotions. In her book, she asks us to consider a new way of thinking about emotions, which I’ll apply here to help us think about anxiety. Based on her research and findings, emotions are predictions we make as we go through life. In other words, we predict how we are going to feel versus simply reacting to the outside world. Our predictions are based on prior learned concepts for feelings, our biology, and our experiences. We make the prediction of what is going to happen, and signal our body systems to allocate the appropriate energy and resources in that moment. This then translates into a concept or name of an emotion based on our past experience and how our culture and society helped us define this sensation. Our brain then engages in correcting for the prediction, based on what actually happens. This all happens very quickly. And hopefully, we then begin to predict more accurately based on past experience.

However, according to Feldman Barrett, “Anxiety sufferers, for whatever reasons, have weakened connections between several key hubs in the interoceptive network, including the amygdala….These weakened connections likely translate into an anxious brain that is clumsy at crafting predictions to match the immediate circumstances, and that fails to learn effectively from experience. You might predict threats needlessly, or create uncertainty by predicting imprecisely or not at all.”

So, if we view anxiety as an issue of prediction, we may understand our natural regulation system to be out of balance. From a coaching standpoint, the process then is about equipping the leader with sufficient tools to predict more accurately, lessening the gap between prediction and prediction error.

In the case of my client, we first started out by helping her define a different way of being. We helped her define a powerful, internal, confident voice. We even gave it a name and a personality. In other words, I asked her, “What would your XYZ powerful voice say in such a situation?” so she knew how to call on that voice when she needed it. In coaching, it’s really important to separate out the many different voices and narratives that run through our minds, and to develop or strengthen the voices that serve us the most. Because, as you guessed it, different ways of being take in and process the world differently and predict different things! Then, we identified the thread of the negative, critical voice that aligned with memories of some of her anxious predictions. She recently shared with me in helping to edit this piece of writing that she felt her anxiety was not the result of any one relationship or given thing, but rather, a result of the complex combination of circumstances and environment in which she grew up.

In one session, we practiced asserting herself more so she could effectively lead her team. I pretended to take the role of someone in her life she had felt anxious about with respect to meeting his or her expectations. I wanted her to confront me, to speak directly to me as if I were that person. So I asked her to step into her more powerful voice, to really feel it first. I stood in front of her. As she spoke to me, I pushed back with words that this person might have said to her. I asked her how she was feeling in her body. As she checked in with her feelings, we noticed her tendency was to want to physically move away from the interaction. With her permission, I asked her to step closer in front of me, and to pay attention to what was happening to her body. Then, I asked her to speak from her empowered voice to me. With awareness of her body, the more forceful, confident voice emerged. She stepped into her new, powerful way of being, moving towards me with courage vs. anxiety.

In a session following, we practiced what she would say to a real person - one of the team members she needed to confront. In her logical, matter of fact way, she took a stab. I could feel the hesitation and fear in her voice and body. She was back to predicting self-doubt, anxiety and fear. We practiced some more, in her more powerful voice and went through various “what ifs.” What if he gets angry? What if he reacts this way? What if he says this? By going through various scenarios of what ifs, and checking in with her body, we worked on getting her comfortable with and expanding the possibilities for what she might predict from such an interaction.

Before, she was stuck in an emotional prediction cycle around confrontation, based on her past experiences and who she was being at the time of those experiences. By stepping into a different way of being, as well as simulating scenarios for different possible outcomes, she started to alter the prediction her mind was so used to making around confrontation.

It’s not that we got rid of her anxiety, but we gave her the tools to interrupt the prediction cycle she was so used to being in with respect to confrontation. So the next time she had to confront someone, she could do so predicting a different outcome.

Our emotions are wired to concepts we are taught from the time we are infants, to old beliefs and to stories about our self-worth and ourselves. By exploring what we are predicting and paying attention to where emotions are felt in our body, we can start to empower ourselves to shift our feelings. Add to that a few coaching tools and simulation to help clients see other outcomes are possible, it’s possible to empower leaders out of their anxiety prediction loop. It does not happen overnight, and also takes great trust and safety within the relationship, but it is possible to start to change the way we predict, and in doing so, change our predictions around experiences that would have caused us anxiety in the past.

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4 Tips for When You Get Triggered

2/16/2022

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Last year, I wrote a post on what to do when someone around you gets triggered. In the spirit of good leadership, I’d like to spin it around this time and really focus on what to do when YOU are triggered in a situation.

What is a trigger?

Triggers are a little different than getting justifiably angry or emotional at something. The main difference is that triggers show up when something seemingly normal has a very strong impact on you, to the point where you might feel yourself lashing out or wanting to run and hide. (In other words, the reaction is disproportionate to the stimulus, as touted author and internationally known psychologist Daniel Goleman would say). Some people respond by fighting, and others respond by fleeing. Adrenaline and cortisol flood the body. All rational thought goes out the window. Simply put, your pre-frontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for higher executive thinking, is no longer in control. Your mammalian brain (amygdala), however, is. You ROAR! driven by your basic animal instinct. So the question is, how do we manage our triggers? We all get triggered by something at one time or another. Here’s a secret about skilled leaders: they know how to process, manage and recover quickly from a trigger. Here are some tips on how to get started.

1.    Become present to the feelings in your body & BREATHE!!!

Realizing you are triggered is the first step. Often, you’ll know because it will feel like your blood will start to boil. You may feel tightness in your jaw, or in your gut. I remember getting triggered once by an employee. I don’t remember what the trigger was, but I do remember the feeling – one of anger and frustration. My speech got terse and my neck tight. What I wasn’t aware of at the time was that I was triggered. So what can you do if this happens?

First, really become present with the feeling, and notice it. Notice where you might feel tense in your body (like your jaw or your neck might freeze up) and breathe into it. If you happen to find yourself getting triggered in a space like a meeting, take a break, give yourself some time to regain your composure, and then come back. Space is your friend. One technique that is really helpful for leaders is to say, “I don’t like how I’m showing up right now. I want to be at my best for this conversation. Let’s continue this discussion at another time.” Or, "That's an interesting idea. Let me check in with my other colleagues and I'll get back to you on this." Giving yourself space to be present to the feeling and breathing into it will help you manage it. Becoming self-aware of your triggers will slowly help you to manage them. Unless you have awareness of your triggers, you can’t address them.

2.    Do complex math

Well, not really. But counting is a very simple technique to use when you are being triggered. The advice says to count to 10. When you are triggered, your pre-frontal cortex gets hijacked by your mammalian brain, and you are essentially in fight or flight mode, our most basic, animalistic survival instinct. Counting activates the executive function of the brain. I started counting up in 3’s, because it requires more focused thinking and thus requires more of the executive function to do it. (And it did wonders the other day as I waited for 25 minutes while the Office Depot worker continually kept botching up a credit transaction while I was trying to check out. I drove home counting in 3’s and soon I was merry!) By trying to call in that function, you are essentially attempting to bypass your mammalian brain and bring yourself back into using your executive function. You can also write down the numbers, spelling out each one. Note that these are just techniques to use in the moment. You’ll likely need to give space to process the emotion from the trigger after the fact.

If you find yourself triggered and about to write an e-mail, STOP. You will be writing a mammalian-brained e-mail. Take some time to stop, breathe and process before writing that email. Or, write it and keep it in your drafts folder. Go back to it in a day or so when you’ve regained your executive function and then send.

3. Stay curious

Another way to deal with triggers is to get really curious about the other person that triggered you. If the person is making you flip your lid, you want to get to the point where you can start to take steps to separate their action from their intention. Their action may be making you flip out, but perhaps that was not their intention. If you lash out at them and say they are being this way or doing this because of x, you may find yourself in a vortex of projection.   And trust me, you’ll be revealing more about yourself in your words than about anyone else.

Here’s some suggested language to use: “I’m curious: what did you mean when you said <fill in the blank>?” or “I’m curious: when you did this, what was your intention?” In my coaching work with clients, what I find is that most of the time, people are not out to trigger others on purpose. However, the person doing the triggering often can benefit from learning to be more self-aware of their actions and how they may impact the triggered person. The person triggered can work on starting to separate the action from the intention.

4. Get to the bottom of it!

This is a big one. What you have to understand is that triggers are often associated with experiences from our childhood that caused us to feel threatened or fearful. The mammalian brain kicks in and does everything it can to keep us safe, because that feeling or emotion is just too painful for us to handle. Most of the time, those triggered feelings relate back to feelings of being unloved, worthlessness, and abandonment (I know – grim). BUT!!! And I say this again: everyone has triggers – nobody is without them. Understanding the origins of your triggers can really help shed new light on your relationships, and empower you to take control and responsibility for your own reactions and behaviors when you feel triggered. It’s hard to trace triggers back to their origins, but there are some effective coaching techniques that can help you uncover them. Often, when I help a client trace back the origins of a trigger, they cite that the next time they are triggered, the trigger does not have nearly as much of an impact on them as when they were not aware of their trigger.

These are some tips to try. And if you try and don’t always get it right – that’s OK. We are all human, and making changes in our behavior takes some getting used to. And sometimes after mastering one trigger, we’re faced with a new one and have to start all over. Heck, I still discover new triggers in myself from time to time! The point is to try, and to get better at understanding and managing yourself. You can re-pattern the reaction you have to the stimulus.

When do you get triggered? How are you able to effectively manage your triggers? We’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments section below!

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I've Had My Fair Share of Leadership Meltdowns. Here are 5 Things I'd Say to You.

6/26/2017

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It occurred to me the other month that almost every executive leader I know has faced a meltdown at some point in their leadership. Whether it was the nonprofit executive who wept at the daunting task of rebuilding her organization’s entire staff (for like, the 10th time), the small business owner being harassed and taken to court due to a business partnership gone sour, or a financial faux pas leaving the leader of a firm to manage an embarrassing deficit—shit happens. At some point in our human journeys, the systems, pressure, responsibilities, financial anxiety and just sheer workload become too much for people to take, making it impossible for us to hold it all together.

In fact, I’m pretty convinced that, until you’ve had a meltdown, (or two, or three) you haven’t yet experienced the true weight of executive leadership. It’s almost like it’s a necessary hazing for effective leadership. But is it? Why do meltdowns happen? To understand them, let’s look at a bit of neuroscience.

The Neuroscience of a Meltdown

Think resilience. The brain is designed to be self-regulating and energy efficient, and seeks a state of balance. When we are too stressed and our brains are on overload, as I wrote about in “Stress and the Leadership Brain,” we get large releases of norepinephrine and dopamine, the two main chemicals that balance out the prefrontal cortex, the seat of our higher executive functions. And we get releases of cortisol, an inflammatory, stress-induced hormone. As a result, the prefrontal cortex gets knocked out of balance, if you will, resulting in symptoms like lack of empathy, inability to regulate impulses, foggy thinking, poor decision-making and poor memory. In short, our brain’s natural ability to regulate gets thrown off because it is out of balance chemically. Hence, the breakdowns and inability to humanly manage it all. Literally, you are overloaded and your regulating mechanisms are compromised. So, what can you do to keep your head above water and prevent a meltdown?

1. Share power.

We usually think about leadership as one captain solely responsible for where a ship will sail. The lone ranger paving the way. By not sharing power, you hold on to more than you can perhaps manage. Your own need to control starts to actually hamper you. Trust me—I’ve been one of those leaders who needed to have personal oversight of everything. Sharing power frees your brain up to take on other things, and builds a sense of buy-in and accountability to results. Of course, the art of this for any leader is figuring out how much to let go and share and how much to retain continued oversight. This is a balance that can only be achieved with your willingness to accept the inevitable mistakes people around you might make in your absence, and trusting that lessons will be learned from those mistakes. Sharing, coupled with a growth mindset of learning from trial and error, is a crucial element in helping leaders manage stress that can lead to meltdowns.

2. Be more vulnerable.

“I love being vulnerable, because it’ so comfortable and pleasing to the soul and gets you what you want,” said NO ONE EVER. As tough as vulnerability can feel in our culture, where it is often perceived as weakness, it’s a fallacy of leadership that you as the leader have to always solve for everything. Actually, the more you can admit you don’t know HOW to do something, the more it will free you from obligating yourself to fix it. And that means more brain space for other things (remember what we’re going for here—realistic goals and workloads that don’t send your brain into unhealthy overdrive). It will also give other team members the opportunity to chime in with their expertise. By simply saying “I don’t know” and showing a little vulnerability, you invite in new ideas, perspectives and perhaps a collective way of finding solutions to a problem vs. being the lone ranger needing to fix it. (Note lone ranger reference now twice in this post.)

3. Put a stake in the ground.

Remember that old game where a stake with ribbons attached is driven into the ground, and each child would get ahold of a piece of ribbon and frolic around the stake and weave between one another creating a sort of braid around the stake? That’s what I mean here. Defining a stake means that you and your leaders are passionately committed to “dancing around” it and holding it in place. For example, the stake could be quality. It could be integrity. It could be creating community. Whatever you define the stake to be, clarify what it is for your company, or any project, or collaboration. It will help you and your team keep focused so you don’t veer off and start leading into things that do not relate back to the stake, thereby overloading your plate with things other thank the stake, no pun intended.

4. Have someone to talk to.

Getting outside support and having someone to talk with on a regular basis can also help you manage overload. Becoming more present to emotions, naming them, feeing them, creates greater integration and resilience. We are constantly regulating one another’s nervous systems. Ever talk with a person suffering from extreme anxiety and find yourself leaving the conversation feeling anxious wanting to ventilate into a paper bag? Ever come across someone who is as calm as a lake and, next thing you know, you get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside and feel the calmness within you? (This has to do with a concept called sense of self, but that topic is for another post.) So if you are on overload, find calming people to talk with—those whose energy can help to have a positive regulatory effect on your nervous system is key.

5. Invest in people and grow the leadership around you.

Leaders fill gaps. And well, when the going gets tough and things start slipping through your leadership cracks, you will be thankful there are people around you who have the leadership skills to fill in those cracks. If you are just surrounded by followers of your word, you will be overwhelmed—all the time. Investing in growing leadership capabilities of those around you and giving up some of your power can better ensure gaps are filled when shit hits the fan. And I promise you this—shit WILL hit the fan. Investment means taking time to coach and mentor people in your organization. If you don’t have the time, hire external coaches, send your team members to a good quality leadership immersion program, or give them more responsibilities and coach them to succeed. Your biggest assets are your people. Having strong people around you will help you manage the load better.

What did you learn from your leadership meltdown?   If you had to do it all over again, what advice would you give?

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My Brain on Stress: What I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was an Executive Leader

1/23/2017

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The Neuroscience of Stress

Everyone needs a “just right” amount of arousal chemicals for optimal functioning of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the area of the brain responsible for our executive functioning, including thoughtful decision-making and planning for the future, among other things.

Picture a bell curve. To the right of the curve is increased stress / stimulation, and to the left of the curve is decreased stress / stimulation. Our cortex is regulated by two main chemicals (dopamine and norepinephrine) and becomes stimulated (or not) based on the task at hand. When we are alert and interested, we get the right amount of chemical release. But when we are stressed and out of control, we get BIG releases of these chemicals. All the connections in this part of the brain become dysfunctional, engaging other kinds of receptors that actually impair prefrontal cortex function. The impact of being over-stimulated or under-stimulated results in the SAME cognitive impairment of the brain: foggy thinking, poor memory, lack of empathy, inability to regulate impulses. As well, chronic stress results in actual architectural changes in the cortex. You actually start losing dendrites, a branched part of a neuron involved in cell to cell electrochemical stimulation. Stress is VERY real, and actually has the ability to alter the structural make up of your brain. Cray, eh?

So what does this have to do with YOU? Behavior from the top trickles down to your team, so if you are a stressed leader and not taking care of yourself, how can you possibly model good behavior to your colleagues and employees? Moreover, as a leader, you need to be able to access your brain when it is at its best (in balance). When you are overstressed or under-stimulated, you don’t get optimal executive functioning. Below, I share some strategies for managing stress and getting your PFC closer to balance or “online” as we coaches like to say.

Name Your Emotions

According to BeAbove Leadership, an organization specializing in the intersectionality of neuroscience, consciousness and leadership, “research shows that simply naming an emotion reduces amygdala activity.” This is one of the reasons I listen to my clients and try to help them name the emotions that they are feeling. Often, a client will show up at a session experiencing a whole host of different feelings. After listening very carefully to them, I often reflect what it is I hear them saying, and then attempt to name an emotion. I will say, “it sounds like ‘guilt’ or it sounds like ‘grief,’” and in doing that, it helps them make sense of their own emotions. If I’m not right on with the emotion, it’s the opportunity for them to say, for example, “no, actually it’s not guilt; it’s more ambivalence.”

Journaling how you are feeling each day can also markedly help with stress management; simply waking up in the morning and taking 10 minutes to write down how you are feeling that day can help you process stressful feelings when you don’t have an empathetic listener.

Reframe Your Perspective

Shifting and reframing your perspective is one way to effectively reduce stress. I once left a coaching session feeling a bit stunned. My “inner child” wanted to flee. A client who was feeling a lot of anger in his life had taken it out on me by yelling at me and insulting the coaching profession. I left feeling as if I had failed, and the experience had me questioning my coaching abilities. The “stun” was my fight or flight. In that moment, my prefrontal cortex got (PFC) stressed, and I had very little access to it, as it was flooded with dopamine and norepinephrine.

After some introspection and self-coaching, I was able to reframe this session as a gift instead of an utter disaster. Though it felt stressful for me, my client had triggered something that reminded me of how some people would lash out at me for things when I was growing up, thereby stimulating a very emotional response and memory to the stressor. And this made me feel worthless. So in bringing up this feeling again was an opportunity to heal it, to use my PFC to think more about it and to calm my stress response and self-manage through difficult to be with emotions. Moreover, I realized that my client felt safe enough to express his anger with me. Following that we had a breakthrough session and he showed up ready and willing to be coached. Taking the time to think and reframe a stressful event can help build a new neural pathway to thinking about a situation, and bring the PFC back online to help you make sense of your own emotions.

Practice Focus and Attention

The data from studies relating to focus and attention just gets more and more fascinating, particularly around meditation. It’s not just “new-agey stuff.” Studies show that meditation changes the composition of the brain.

Long-term meditators have increased amounts of grey matter in parts of the brain associated with sensory functions, and they also have more grey matter in the PFC. Some studies indicate that meditation also reduces the size of the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for the fight or flight “freeze” response of the brain and strengthens the brain region responsible for processing information related to people perceived as being different front you (our seat of empathy).

What’s this got to do with stress? Well, the data suggests that meditation builds more “good” types of connections in the brain, to help it become more resilient to stress. So with more focus and attention, you can build your resilience and have stronger connections between the logical and empathetic areas of your higher executive functioning brain and your limbic system, making you more resilient to stress.

Make a Powerful Choice

When you are out of balance on the curve, sometimes it requires you to make some lifestyle choices, and sometimes it requires you to make powerful choices. The difference between just making a choice and a POWERFUL choice is that there is often more at stake with the powerful choice. A powerful choice might feel more difficult to make because the consequences of the choice are so life-changing that it is too scary to think about removing the source of the stress. Powerful choices often require courage, as in the event of choosing to quit a job, get out of a toxic relationship, or simply to just stop doing something.

Lastly, our PFC and the relevant chemical release is proportional to the task at hand. While some might feel a little stimulation from something and it feels like a good amount of stimulation, for others it can provoke a much stronger chemical response and overload the PFC with chemicals. What tips and strategies have you picked up along the way to manage your stress? When you are feeling like you want to “fight or flee,” how have you gotten your PFC back online to where things feel just right?

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I Feel the Happiest I've Ever Been. Here's What I Did.

5/16/2016

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Let’s start with morning rituals. In the past year-and-a-half, I developed a morning ritual consisting of meditation, journaling and consciously assessing on a scale of 1-10 how happy I wake up on that day (10 being completely blissed out to the max, and 0 at a basic level of hopelessness). This may seem excessive and even weird, I know. (Those of you who really know me know that I am a little weird anyway!) But in the discipline of coaching, self care actually becomes a critical ally for being available and offering yourself at your highest level in service to your clients. That is the reason I focus on how I feel each morning so much.

Anyway, the process has trained me to be more aware of how I’m feeling in the moment. It has helped me to reflect on the circumstances, relationships or events that made me choose that number on a daily basis. This self-reflection, along with spending the past 4 years constantly reading up on the latest neuroscience research on happiness, inspired me to share my insights about happiness. Why is it that so many people who seemingly have everything – a thriving business, millions of dollars in the bank, a seemingly stable relationship – still rank low on their happiness index? What REALLY makes us happy? How can we bring more happiness into our lives?

1. Understand that your brain is plastic

Neuroplasticity is, simply put, the brain’s ability to change over time. And studies show we do actually have a happiness set point. In other words, no matter how much tragedy or what happens to us, we go back to a set point of happiness. (It’s the reason why, for example, there is no real change in one’s happiness set point before they win the lottery vs. after they win.)

Psychology says there are a few things you can do to increase your happiness baseline – namely, focusing on gratitude and service. Similarly, research shows that meditation grows areas in our brain associated with positivity (left hemisphere) and compassion (right hemisphere), which can also increase our happiness set point. In my experience, it IS possible to re-wire your happiness set point, if even just to give it a slight increase. So, start with the belief in your own neuroplasticity. Actually, it’s not just a belief - it’s neuroscience!

2. Feel the lows in order to feel the highs

Some days I have woken up and felt like a 7 in terms of happiness and have thought, Hey, I’m doing pretty good today. And then upon further reflection, that same morning I could also be in touch with a deep sadness about something. How can we be profoundly happy and at the same time profoundly sad about something? As self-awareness increases, our ability to identify and feel two perhaps very distinct feelings at once also becomes heightened. We become more aware of our integration. The sadness doesn’t trump my happiness per se, but they both exist in me at the same time.

Brené Brown, the touted TEDX speaker, was spot-on in her famous Ted Talk on vulnerability when she pointed out that when we suppress our negative emotions (depression, frustration, sadness, etc.), we end up suppressing the positive ones as well – joy, fulfillment, happiness. So to feel those high places, you absolutely need to take trips to the dark, deep, dank, hopeless emotions of your subconscious basement. I know – I hate going there as well … like HATE! But what I’ve discovered from being able to “be” with those hard emotions and to really feel the lows, is that it helped open up the space to experience the more positive emotions. Whether through coaching, group get-togethers, having an amazing friend with a keen ability to listen or even writing about these feelings, the more we can embrace this idea of feeling places that are not comfortable for us emotionally, the more we make space and open ourselves up to feeling the positive emotions of life.

For example, I started journaling a few years back as part of my daily routine. It helped pass so many feelings through me that today I don’t know what I would do without this journaling practice. I felt a visible improvement in my mood and happiness on a DAILY basis, simply from having daily self-reflection. Think of it like going to the bathroom; in the same way that you have to release stuff from your gut to clean out your system and make it available for more food and energy to process, reflection allows you to do the same cleaning with your brain. Heh heh. :)

3. Hum (I know it sounds weird, but trust me on this one!)

For this, you need to know about the vagus nerve, our 10th cranial nerve. The vagus nerve is fascinating and stimulating (literally), as it is the only nerve that connects to every major organ in the human body. If you haven’t Googled “vagus nerve,” you absolutely should because it is fascinating! So fascinating, it makes me want to start a t-shirt line in honor of its critical importance to our life force and evolution of consciousness and sell it in hipster card shops in Oakland!

Check it.

According to this article on vagus nerve stimulation, low vagal tone (an internal biological process referring to the activity of the vagus nerve, according to Wikipedia) has been linked to depression, inflammation, diabetes and other ailments. Humming (along with slow breathing and other things) was cited as a process that actually INCREASES vagal tone by stimulating the vagus nerve. After reading this, it hit me. I realized that I was ALWAYS humming SOMETHING. Walking in the grocery store, driving my car, cleaning the house and definitely while I was sitting on my surfboard, I always had a tune in my head that I quietly hummed to myself. Could it be that humming was responsible, in part, for my happiness?

Stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline and even dopamine) are released in us when we are at lower level resonating consciousness (the states of fear, hopelessness, frustration). Another way to think about this is that our pre-frontal cortex (PFC) or higher level thinking brain gets knocked "offline" and norepinephrine and dopamine (the two main chemicals balancing healthy function of the PFC) are then thrown off balance. By simply humming and constantly stimulating your vagus nerve, you increase vagal tone, and actually equalize some of the inflammatory hormones in the body. In other words, we are equipped with an internal stress regulator!

This is the scientific reason behind why something like chanting OM is associated with bringing in peace and resonance. It’s because it’s actually stimulating the vagus nerve and increasing our vagal tone. It’s why music, dancing, drumming and vibrations have played such a crucial role for us through the evolution of humanity and spirituality. So, the next time you feel a pang of anxiety come on, try humming. Try it when you are driving or walking. Just hum to yourself always. In fact, quit reading this and go and hum!

4. Protect yourself from toxic people

It took a lot of lessons – A LOT – to figure out how to spot toxic energy and people, and to make the conscious choice NOT to engage. Admittedly, I get swept away by some gnarly tides of energy; I am very sensitive to others and often find myself taking on their energy or emotional states via our mirror neuron process.

To assess and become aware of toxic energies, here’s a tool to use: Metaphor. For example, when I meet someone, I sometimes think of a metaphor of what it was like to be with that person in terms of ocean conditions. (Remember: metaphors are lint catchers for the brain; sometimes you can’t evaluate or see the relationship you are in, so tying it to a metaphor helps the brain see and latch on to your experience or process of it more quickly than just trying to use words to describe or make sense of it.) I ask myself, If this person were ocean conditions, what kind of conditions would they be? Ocean Beach on a crazy-ass day (strong current pulling me down the beach, rough shore break)? Or is the experience more like a fun day at Bolinas – a gentle bohemian enclave of a beach just north of San Francisco – predictable, stable and light? The metaphor process helps me figure out the stability of the energetic zone I’m relating to, or at least what the ride would potentially feel like down the road if I were in a relationship with a particular person.

Once you figure out what your metaphor is (it doesn’t have to be the ocean; maybe it could be movie genres – nightmare, fairy tale, dark comedy or cars – whatever tickles your fancy), figure out what your choices are. I love my surfing metaphor because it gives me 2 options:

1. Get off the wave if it is not the wave you want to be on, or if you just can’t handle it.
2. Change your equipment and try a more stable board and venture at it again (i.e. - equip yourself with a better set of tools and skills to deal with the toxic and unstable conditions by making yourself more stable).

That’s it – change something in yourself to deal with it, or get off it. Keep it clean. Now when I come into contact with a person, I am aware of how I feel, how my body reacts, and what wave I’m on. Use this for friends, business partners, relationships, etc.

These are a few hacks I picked up in life regarding the question of personal happiness. I hope some of them are helpful to you. What insights or practices have you found that have helped you cultivate happiness within yourself? Share your thoughts below!

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Feeling Down? Try This.

7/18/2015

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Dealing with the highs and lows of change is inevitable. I’ve seen competent executives with PhDs get moved to tears because they feel totally incompetent at what they are doing, entrepreneurs on an emotional roller coaster because they lost a good lead and their cash flow is screwed for the month. I’ve also seen people in transition feeling really low because they were a leader and powerful professional at work, and now the people they once did business with won’t even call them back.

And of course there is just the occasional funk, when you just don’t feel so great (like the one I was in last week). We all go through our ups and downs, but how can we try to stay more “above the line” as we would say in coaching – in more resonant and positive emotions when we’re not feeling so great? Here’s what I’ve learned along the way that I’d like to share with you.

1.    Normalize Your Funk

The first thing to remember is that being in a funk is sometimes NORMAL. I had lunch with a dear friend from high school who is now a Harvard-trained practicing neuropsychologist. “What we forget is that it’s normal to have mood swings. We need to start to normalize the fact that we have a range of emotions,” she’d say. We can’t all be in a good, chipper mood all the time. Unfortunately, in today’s society, our moodiness can make us quick to start self-diagnosing – maybe I’m bi-polar, maybe I’m depressed, maybe there is something wrong with me. The truth of the matter is that we need to feel and be with ALL of our emotions. So if you get in a funk from time to time, normalize it, for you are part of the animal kingdom!

One of the principle points that celebrated psychology researcher Brené Brown makes in her TED Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” is that when we suppress our vulnerable feelings like fear, shame and disappointment, it makes it impossible for us to feel the positive ones - like joy, gratitude and happiness. (Side note: if you are convinced you feel no emotion, you ARE suppressing your emotions. Get help accessing and feeling them!) Seen the new Pixar move Inside Out yet? Remember at the end when Joy, after trying to keep Sadness from “touching” any of the core memories, finally lets Sadness “touch” some of them? It’s because she realizes that sadness is a necessary emotion to the human experience. If sadness is suppressed, joy cannot be felt. So, embrace your funkiness. What I mean by that is to feel it. Be with it.

2.    Celebrate New Wins

Unfortunately, our brains are velcro for negative experiences and teflon for the positive experiences. So when we have a negative experience, we tend to hold onto it.

Oftentimes, clients tell me of their wins for the week at the beginning of our conversations and then leap to all of the problems and what’s going wrong. They don’t dwell on their wins, elate in their wins, spend time with their wins. By not doing so, they compromise the benefits of sitting with a positive experience and what it can do for their brains. This is why they say you have to deliver 5 or 6 pieces of positive feedback for every piece of negative feedback. It’s the teflon/ velcro thing.

There have been days in my business where I have felt really low in terms of my progress. As an entrepreneur, I want everything done yesterday. When I can sit down and actually list all the accomplishments I’ve had at the end of the day, or in a week, I automatically feel lifted up. When I focus on all the things I didn’t get done, I feel inadequate and like I am wasting time, which can lead to me to feel stressed and worried. So, when possible, focus on your wins.   If you search for the positive experiences and spend time with them, you train your brain to identify more positive experiences in the future. This is not to say you will not feel down about things, but training your brain to stay in your wins longer will make you more resilient for dealing with setbacks, processing feelings and then getting back on track! (Note: Studies show meditation is one of the ways to also build resilience among people who may be experiencing what we call below the line emotions.)

3.    Remember Your Past Wins

This is a sports psychology technique that one of my good buddies explained to me last year. When an athlete is down or disappointed from their performance, one of the ways to coach them is to get them to remember and recount their past wins. This activates the memories and wiring they associate with competence, success and accomplishment, and can greatly shift their mental state.

After closing C.E.O. Women, the non-profit I ran for 11 years, I initially felt pretty low. I had very little confidence in starting a new venture. At the time, I was working on setting up Brown Girl Surf, now a prominent, global women’s surf community. I saw it as sort of my “transition” work. I remember how much anxiety I had around it. In fact, much of my calls were around telling my coach all the reasons I wasn’t capable of doing the work for Brown Girl Surf. I believed that I had to be a good executor. Unfortunately, one of the last colleagues I worked with convinced me I was terrible at well, almost everything I did (she even criticized how I closed the door in our office), and especially so in the skills of sequencing, planning and execution – traits often associated with the left hemisphere of the brain. And the sad thing was that I actually LET myself believe her. I ended up convincing myself that I wasn’t good at execution, that I had done a lousy job starting and growing the organization, that I didn’t hire right.… the list went on and on. I'm sure this wasn't her intention (and this was before I understood how we project ourselves onto others to avoid responsibility) but the more she complained and placed blame on others for the challenges and shortcomings she faced, the more my morale fell. I forgot about all the things I did do right, the execution that went really well, and all the awesome hires that we did make throughout the year.

My coach at the time listening to me struggling and challenged my thinking. She asked me, on a scale of 1-10, how I rated myself in terms of executing at C.E.O. Women all those years. I know nothing was perfect and by all means I knew I had many areas in which to grow, but I gave myself an 8 or 9, taking into consideration context - the little resources we had, and the fact that this thing grew out of my bedroom with just $1,000, with no executive board, no clients, and few connections. At that point, I started to look at the bigger picture - the risks that were taken, the sacrifices that were made, and all the positive wins and successes my team and I had during that time as well as all the learnings along the way. It wasn't perfect but it made me feel like if I did all that at C.E.O. Women, I surely could build the Brown Girl Surf community. It also reminded me to always look at the bigger picture and context; one person putting down your skills should not negate all of your past wins or create mental blocks for future ones.

(By the way, today Brown Girl Surf is co-led by myself and Mira Manickam, another awesome leader. We have almost 3,000 global followers, have been covered in international media, and just got our first $40,000 grant to support programming for adolescent girls in the San Francisco Bay Area that will foster a more diverse and inclusive surf culture locally and around the world! And, our short documentary on India's first female surfer just got picked up by a MAJOR media platform and will be featured next month to its 8 million viewers around the world!)

4.    Connect with Others

Ever wonder why solitary confinement is used to punish people? The absence of connection - someone to talk to, someone to be seen by, is like slow death for the brain. There are a few things needed to have a healthy brain, and one of those is connection. Our bodies are directly impacted by our connection to others and to the outside world.

When women are down or go through a hard time, they may be more prone to look to connection to help lift them up. Sometimes the same is true of men, but more often than not, they will retreat to their man caves. This may be a necessary process. However, at some point connection and processing is important and can help lift you out of a funk if you’re in one. A simple phone call, going out to dinner with someone, or inviting them to go out for a coffee can dramatically shift your mood. For someone with anxious tendencies, talking with a secure person can often help move them back to more stability. As a coach, I do a lot of my work in isolation. I have had to plan how to get enough connection throughout my weeks so I am not just doing coaching sessions on the phone all day. I lead a weekly, in-person boot camp for executives in transition, make sure I get in surf time and connect with my friends on the break, do some face-to-face client meetings, and make sure I meet and talk to at least one new person a week. If I’m in a funk, I notice my mood dramatically improves when I reach out and connect with my network and friends.

5.    Self-Reflect

I once attended a women’s writing class every Monday. The goal was to do our shittiest writing possible, and through that process, the nuggets within our psyches would emerge and we could craft them into powerful writing. We would read each entry out loud to the group. We could write about anything that was on our minds. Some people wrote about their latest online date and getting picked up in a Maserati, while others had something to say about painful memories of being molested in their childhood. What was profound about the experience was that it allowed us to self-reflect as well as be witnessed by a group. Though it was a writing class, it sort of had a therapy-like effect on the group. People heard you. I would leave feeling so good, as if I had processed an experience and could better make sense of how to move forward from it.

Today, I make journaling an almost daily routine, putting aside time to let the feelings pass through. As a CTI (The Coaches Training Institute) coach, we are trained in something called process coaching. The theory behind process coaching is similar to Buddhist philosophy, in that when we have an emotion but do not feel it, the energy of the emotion becomes stuck or blocked inside us. Layers upon layers of blocking can build up. One thing we do as coaches is help our clients become present to their lives, to get them to FEEL their lives. By doing so, we take them down into their emotion to feel it so they can open up space for forward movement. I LOVE process coaching. It’s a highly unique approach to coaching, but hands down one of the most powerful approaches I’ve learned.

Fortunately, everything I preach I practice as well, and these are some of the techniques and learnings I share with my clients, whether they are moving into a new executive position, feeling the setbacks of starting their new business, or just feeling sad. Know that it’s normal. And also, sometimes just a good cry can do a brain good.   The sooner you FEEL your emotions, the sooner will pass them through. Train your mind to see your wins and focus on them. And give your brain the connection and self-reflection space it deserves to function optimally in service to your best life!

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7 Tips for How to Deal When Someone Loses Their Cool

4/7/2014

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Because leaders are often juggling so many things and are under constant pressure to make decisions, they sometimes function in a mode of overwhelm. And well, overwhelm is not always pretty.

I remember one year meeting with my organization’s treasurer who was a very busy, talented and sought-after accountant. I brought to her a draft budget for the organization, and because of her detail-oriented nature, she proceeded to go through each and every line to identify inconsistencies and mistakes, vs. staying high level and advising on general direction of the budget. It got me flustered, knowing that I had spent many many hours just getting the draft budget together. What I needed was high level oversight vs. nit-picky details that could be worked out later. When I started to get flustered by her approach, it triggered an outburst from her. Before I knew it, she was set ablaze and proceeded to tear apart the budget. It felt more like I was an employee being chastised instead of the executive of an organization.

I am sure upon reflecting on it later, it was likely embarrassing to her; she knew she lost her cool, and we could both feel the discomfort at the level of unprofessionalism of the conversation. The conversation had quite an impact on me, as it felt abusive and unwarranted. In fact, I distinctly remember that incident being one of the only times in the history of running the organization that I actually considered quitting. I also knew that she was extraordinarily pressed in her own business, and fighting the daily demands of being an entrepreneur. SO at a visceral level, I got it. But it still felt bad.

Well, I did not quit. But it was hard to know what to do and how to handle the triggers of the very busy people around me, especially those in a position of power. In the case of the accounting professional, she was my board member and technically had the power to hire and fire. So how does one cope with the ever-stressful business environment of our times? Below are some tips I learned along the way for dealing with people around you that lose their cool. The most important thing I learned is this:

“You do have a choice; you can react negatively and be a victim, or you can turn your victimhood around and be a coach.”

Here’s how.

1.    Understand that it’s not YOU; it’s them

First off, it’s important to remember that there is nothing wrong with you. We all have triggers. C’mon – you know you do. One of my triggers happens to be inefficiency and frustration, and when things get dragged out or are overly processed, I can start to feel my blood boil. Human psychology points to the fact that we all have different trigger points. Inevitably, what triggers us has to do with how we were raised, our value systems, our social conditioning and brain patterning and our perception of things. This is why what triggers something in one person may not have any effect on another person. So know that when a person loses their cool, it is often more a reflection of their own perspective and conditioning. And in the case of leadership, sometimes triggers can even be the result of overwork, overwhelm, and just stress.

2.    Assess WHAT you are feeling, and WHERE

I know this sounds like some wavy gravy new age stuff, but I assure you, there is science behind doing this. We are not really taught to be in touch with what we are feeling when we are triggered. Doing so can take us out of our amygdala hijack zone and into a more reflective zone.

When someone is triggered and they start to go off, pay attention to where YOU are in it. Are you getting anxious? Is your heart starting to beat faster? Is the whiplash in your neck from that accident 3 years ago flaring up? Are your shoulders getting tighter? The sooner you can reflect on what is happening in you, the more empowered you will be to deal with someone else’s trigger and its impact on you. You don’t have control over the other person, but you do have control over YOU.

Try to NAME the feeling you are having. Is it a feeling of stress, frustration, hopelessness, tiredness? Really identify what is going on for you. This will help you take the attention off of the other person, as they may be bullying you without even realizing it.

3.    Take a DEEP breath

Breathing can help calm the nerves and equip you with reflective energy. It is in these moments that you will need to take a step into the space of coaching yourself. Ask yourself (not out loud!): Why am I getting triggered? How can I express this?   If you can literally see your higher self step out of your body and into a calm space, that can be a helpful visualization.

(My first roommate out of college in San Francisco used to come home with such negative energy. It was often so bad that I used to imagine a field of saran wrap between us so that everything she was saying and projecting towards me would just bounce back and land on her. So when she'd complain and start dishing out the negativity, I'd just nod and smile, protected by my invisible plastic force field.)

Step back and tell the person what you are sensing or seeing. Stepping back, reflecting, and mentally taking yourself out of the situation helps to get you in a more rational zone. If you are sensing that the other person is upset, you can say, “I sense some frustration here. I’m curious – what is going on for you? What is it that you are feeling?” This then gets the other person to realize and start reflecting on their behavior. It gets them to talk, realize, and process their own feelings, and to reflect.

4.    Stay CURIOUS

If any of you have ever taken a leadership 101 course, you’ll already know this is the #1 recommended way to behave in situations where someone is getting triggered. Rather than get defensive and assume a limiting belief that they are getting triggered because of you, it is important to stay curious during this time. This goes the same if YOU happen to be the one losing your cool. If someone is getting on your last nerve, stay curious about them. Be curious as to why this person is triggering something in you. Be curious about yourself.

5.    Acknowledge and name their FEELINGS

Acknowledge what the other person is feeling and tell them that you hear them. By acknowledging, you can simply repeat what you hear them say. “OK, so you are feeling frustrated and like we are not valuing your time,” (or whatever the situation may be). Never tell them they are being overly sensitive, or are blowing things out of proportion. Not only is that disrespectful to the other person, it invalidates their feelings. (And frankly, it doesn’t show any real maturity on your part.)

Ask or tell them what your perspective or intention is. Remember, YOU are not responsible for their triggers. (Unless, of course, you know what triggers them and you are doing it on purpose. Again, that doesn’t show any real maturity.) You don’t have to agree with them. Their feelings are their feelings. It doesn’t mean they are right or wrong. Simply acknowledging what they are saying can make the other person feel heard, and sometimes may dissolve any heavy energy.

Remember, your calm and balanced state is important. If you stay calm and balanced, you will not feed into the spiral of the other person’s emotions.   Try to stay cool through it all. Cool as a cucumber.

6.    Ask a POWERFUL question

Here’s where you swap out victimhood for being a good coach. When you are able to state your perspective, follow up with a powerful question. This will keep the conversation moving forward productively, vs. turning it into a bickering rant. A powerful question could be something like: “What do you see is the best way to move forward from here?” Or in the case of the aforementioned CEO, “How would you LIKE to be involved?” Or, “What do you really want?”

Always ask powerful questions. Listen to what they have to say. Think about what assumptions they may be making of your intentions and remain, above all else, curious. Give them a chance to talk. They may have a perspective they want to share that is not able to come out because their brain has been hijacked by their emotions.

7. State your INTENTIONS (again)

Respond with your intentions and your perspective. Let them know you hear them, even if you do not agree fully with them. Ask a very specific question. Sometimes, you may want to suggest to continue the discussion at a later date or in a few hours, so you both have some time to let emotions rest and can come back to the conversation with a calm perspective.

The important thing to remember is to get aware of what YOU are feeling first, so you can coach yourself through the situation and understand where you are in it. If you remain calm and focused, you influence the other person to do the same. Hopefully, this will bring you both to a better understanding. And if they continue to be an ass and rave and rant away, well just paddle over to a different peak in the lineup. Oops, sorry – wrong post. Good luck! ;)

Have you ever found yourself struggling to self-manage during yours or someone else's trigger? What was your strategy for getting through it? We want to hear from you!

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7 Effective Strategies to Prevent Leadership Burnout

3/10/2014

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Burnout is something that can creep in very slowly, without you even realizing it. It doesn’t matter what sector you work in – be it nonprofit, corporate, or as an entrepreneur; if you are in a demanding and high-stress position for a long enough period of time, you are at risk of burning out.

As someone who has experienced burnout firsthand (involving experiences working at nonprofit organizations, where I’ve never worked harder in my life), and now coaching some of my clients through severe burnout, I wanted to share some of the strategies and steps you can take in your work and life to recognize and prevent burnout from occurring in your leadership.

1. Make your actions purposeful

Reflect in order to learn. If an action is purposeful and if there is learning in between, there is less of a chance that that action will lead to burn out. So in your company or organization, for example, if you wonder why you are doing the same thing over and over again, this may be a sign that you’re headed for burnout. But if you know that what you are doing is growing you and your organization in some way, you are much more willing to do it. This is equally true for your employees. Connect the action of the employees to the greater purpose of the organization – remind them why they are doing it and what their role is. Have them reflect on it.

There was a point in my leadership where I would just do. There was very little time for reflection. There was just “stuff” that needed to get done. I said yes to things that came my way without really thinking through their purpose and how they related back to the bottom line impact I was trying to make. This included setting up unnecessary recurring meetings with teams that I did not realize were an inefficient use of my time.

I’ve since changed how I work. Each morning, as part of my practice, I write a list of the 6 things that will make me most happy and most productive in my business. Those become my targets for the day. Because I am such a “doer” and love the sense of accomplishment, it is important for me to be strategic about what it is I get done in a day. And sometimes, I make sure I reflect and do a little journaling at night. I don’t just DO. I have a purpose and I reflect so my actions seem less like they are coming out of a loose cannon and more like they are strategic darts.

2. Have walking meetings

One of the things that leadership often does to you is pin you to your desk, or to meeting after meeting, or to eating out a great deal. Many leaders I talk to have trouble figuring out how to build self-care into their work lives.

One of the best things to do is to try going on a walking meeting. When we are up and moving, different parts of our brain are active than when we are idle. We may think of new ideas and even become more creative.

Give yourself to a different environment and the opportunity for other parts of your brain to ignite. Walking meetings have become such a staple in my life that when I set up meetings with people, I usually recommend we meet and walk somewhere instead of meeting somewhere to get a coffee. I have also integrated walking into my coaching sessions for my local clients.

One of my friends and thought leader, Nilofer Merchant, gave a Tedx talk on this very topic. She is a staunch advocate of the walking meeting. Check it out here.

3. Do not multitask

There are several studies that have come out proving how detrimental multitasking is to our brains because it can overload our working memory. Check out this article for more on that topic. I remember years ago listening to women’s leadership talks about how women are better leaders and have an innate ability to multitask. It was always positioned as a good skill to have.

Undoubtedly, the ability to multitask can come in handy. However, this means you are overloading your brain’s circuitry, and not fully in concentration on one thing. You might make mistakes, you may not be thinking things through fully, and believe it or not, you’re probably going to burn yourself out over time.

4. Work smarter

Pacing and working smarter is the name of the game. And a big part of working smarter is working more strategically. Ask yourself, do I have to have this meeting NOW? Ask yourself, do I have to check my e-mail NOW? One of the recommendations I have is to read e-mails as they come but to schedule time twice daily to respond to them. (And please, do not make responding e-mail a first thing in the morning priority. Use the morning time to do more creative, expansive work).

For me personally, I decided to only link my personal e-mail account to my phone, and to disconnect my work e-mails from my phone. I understand that may be difficult for some of you to do given your line of work, but try reading your e-mails during the day and picking strategic times to answer them. (You can check out this article for more tips on managing e-mail).

Also, remember that we have attention spans that last about 20 minutes. So, taking frequent breaks is a great way to rest and keep you going, as is sectioning off uninterrupted bouts of time (90 minutes) to get your work done – no e-mails, calls or meetings during those 90 minutes; just work!

5. Celebrate!

Often, as leaders, we forget to look back and celebrate our accomplishments. I remember one of the greatest exercises an executive coach did with me was having me and my board list all the things we had accomplished in the past year. The list just kept going on and on, and I hadn’t even realized we had done so much and at what pace we were running. It almost gave me license to slow down a bit and pace myself. It was also a great exercise because it made the board see how far we had come as a team as well.

6. Set boundaries with regularly scheduled activities

Having a regularly scheduled activity can be a great regulator for managing burnout. One of my colleagues who is the CEO of a renowned national nonprofit told me once that she always left the office around 4 or 4:30 every day to get her kids from school. She made the choice to be that type of mom. She had a boundary in place yet I’m sure she could have easily found reasons to work more.

When I was running my organization in the early years (when I was working all the time), I used to leave the office early on Tuesdays and Thursdays to get to dance class. It was just the right break I needed, and it kept me motivated throughout the day because I was equally as passionate about dance as I was about the work I was doing.

7. Know when your time has come

This is not an easy thing for many leaders. Some people are starters, implementers, maintainers, or growers. Know where you are at, and when the lifecycle of the position no longer warrants your skill, so you can move on. It’s more important for your company or organization to have fresh thinking and leadership, vs. someone who is tired and at the helm. I realize this deserves its own post at some point, so I will come back to it.

What have you done to manage burnout in your work or life? I touched on some strategies, but know there are many more from the trenches. I’d like to hear from you!

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Managing Anxiety: THIS is What’s Possible

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4 Tips for When You Get Triggered

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I've Had My Fair Share of Leadership Meltdowns. Here are 5 Things I'd Say to You.

My Brain on Stress: What I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was an Executive Leader

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I Feel the Happiest I've Ever Been. Here's What I Did.

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Feeling Down? Try This.

7 Tips for How to Deal When Someone Loses Their Cool

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7 Effective Strategies to Prevent Leadership Burnout

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