Being an artist of your own life

Yet, there is a part of everyone’s intelligence that can see beyond the horizon. I call it being a “Change Artist”. It is the part of the human psyche that can sense into possibilities before they become manifest. Pablo Picasso once said “Everyone is born an artist, the trick is to recapture that artist as an adult.” When I once asked a group of kindergarten students to raise their hand if they considered themselves an artist, all hands went up. When I asked that same question of a group of adults instead, what do you think happened?
Only about 25% put their hands up. Somehow the older people get the less they seem to frame themselves in terms of artistry. Perhaps it’s how you define artistry. How I like to frame artistry is that it is not about doing something such as drawing, playing music, or writing, it’s about who you are being. For example, you can play music very un-artistically, whereas you could plan your busy day very artistically. To be artistic in conducting your life is to sense into the natural creative flow of life and to get in synch with it, using that energetic flow to manifest just the right outcome in just the right way. It’s an intelligence beyond what we typically call IQ. Let’s call it AQ….your Artistic Quotient.

Symptoms that you may be in The Winter of Change

Using your AQ during The Winter of Change can be very beneficial because it’s usually the time in your life when your outward creative abilities are lying fallow and replenishing themselves. When you feel less outwardly creative, it’s time to tap into a more inward creativity. Few people in our goal oriented culture effectively model this inward creativity and so it’s not as well practiced. The tips below may help you tap into exactly what you need to move forward. Symptoms that you are in a replenishing phase may be:

• Feeling low energy and unmotivated
• Confusion and having little clarity about what’s next
• Grieving the old identity that has fallen away

What’s going on is that the old identity that was tied up with your previous life is breaking down and dying. It’s like what happens in your garden when the cold rain and snow set in. The remains of the last harvest start to disintegrate and the soil begins to compost to get ready for Spring. Humans have an aversion to death and dying, so it’s natural to feel uncomfortable during this phase. But ironically the more you resist it the longer it seems to take. Also, if you try to skip this step, you may find you miss out on the next harvest of your life, or at least miss out on having the best possible harvest. Here are some tips to make it through the Winter with more ease and grace allowing you to get to Spring faster while also replenishing yourself more fully for what’s next:

1. Focus on the breaking down process: If you find yourself wanting to escape the discomfort of the breaking down process, try giving yourself just 10 minutes of being with it. Often people avoid going into those sensations because they are afraid they may end up being consumed by the feelings of loss. However, feelings are like clouds. They come and they go. The focus of your attention on them ironically causes them to evaporate. Just sit quietly in a private place and breathe into the areas of discomfort and see what happens. You may be surprised about how much relief this can bring. If you don’t allow yourself to grieve the old and let go, then you cannot make way for what is next.

2. Time out: People are far more validated in our culture when they are in the Spring and Summer of change than during the Autumn or Winter phases, yet you can’t have one without the other. Giving yourself permission to be less active, less productive, to just rest and muse, will actually make the Winter phase easier and quicker. Different types of “time out” activities work for different people. It may be short, regular activities like walks in nature or meditating, or spending more time doing something you love like a hobbies or a sport. Or it could be a longer activity like a vacation or focusing for a few weeks on your gardening or writing. Be mindful however of doing activities that bring rejuvenation rather than just distraction, for example the difference between watching a soul stirring movie, and watching 10 episodes of The Simpsons.

3. Explore new options: Give your imagination time to explore that is beyond the horizon. Gurdjieff, a Russian thought leader (1866-1949) once suggested that within each person is a committee of voices. Sometimes that committee is in harmony, sometimes not. If you have spent 20 years being a parent some members of your committee may have had to be overruled. For example, if you are recently an “empty nester” chances are those more silent committee members are now voicing their interests. Exploring new options means focusing your attention on areas of your life that may have been ignoring, or welcoming in new inspirations or new committee members who have something valuable to contribute to your next phase of life.

If you would like a process to help you explore new options feel free to check out The Art of Reinvention. It is a 19-page white paper that allows you to explore the next phase of your life from various angles. It only takes about an hour to complete and can be surprisingly rejuvenating, insightful and can help you more quickly usher in the Spring.

I would love to continue this conversation with you. Feel free to post comments, insights, or questions below.

Thank you and best of luck with your reinvention!
In Friendship
Carla

- David Whyte, poet

People are reinventing themselves at a rate never before seen in history

Did you know that, according to the U.S. Department of Labour, many of the most in demand careers today didn’t even exist 6 years ago? Did you also know that the average person changes their role within an organization at least 4 times? People also change their career at least 6 times, their homes at least 12 times and their long term relationships at least 3 times in a lifetime.

In short, people are reinventing themselves at a rate never before seen in history–and it is growing exponentially. As the world changes, the way you belong to the world keeps changing, too. Yet, few of us have had a role model for reinventing ourselves over and over again. Just a generation or two ago people tended to stay in the same job, career, home, and relationship their entire life.

As a result, there exists a huge proportion of people perpetually in transition and entirely challenged about how to deal with it. Transitions are especially uncomfortable when you are between two worlds. You can’t go back to the old, but you haven’t yet found your way with the new. It’s like the winter of change when the old harvest is now gone and the new one needs time before it can manifest.

The winter of change can feel barren and cold

In this stage you can feel lost, lethargic; maybe not even wanting to get out of bed in the morning. Some people even feel like they no longer connect to a meaning for their life, and many things they used to enjoy are now feeling pointless. These are normal experiences during the winter season of your creative life. While it may be summer outside, it can feel like winter inside. Many people think that there is something wrong with them during this phase. Yet it is actually a very important phase of the reinvention process in a person’s life and to ignore it or to anaesthetize it can mean that you miss out on the next harvesting of your life journey.

There are cycles in everyone’s life when it feels barren, like nothing is happening, like the great harvest you experienced before in your life will never happen again. During this state of mind a subterranean part of your psyche is replenishing itself and getting you ready for what’s next. This is the time in your cycle of growth when you need the most support and the time you’re least likely to ask for it.

Carl Jung great thought-leader in the field of psychology, once said: “Depression is often the empty stillness which precedes creative work.” Once you realize this it can create a sense of safety to just be okay with the barrenness of this winter of change in your life. In fact, for some people this reframe alone can make it sometimes a fascinating rather than only an uncomfortable process.

People often enter the winter of change after they have achieved their goal

This state of mind can happen soon after you retire, even if you had been looking forward to your retirement for years. It can happen after your children leave home, even if you were looking forward to finally freeing up your energy from all those years of parenting. Or even more surprisingly after a great success in your life. If you had been working for years to achieve a certain level of career success and then you finally achieve it, there can be an odd sense of purposelessness when it’s over that can usher you into a winter of your creative cycle.

This happened for me about 14 years ago after I’d spent 5 years building my career as an inspirational speaker. I had achieved my dream and I was speaking at huge sales rallies across the continent. I was being flown around and put up in five-star hotels. After the last in a series of presentations had completed I remember going back to my hotel room and instead of feeling elated I felt strangely depressed. I felt as if whatever I was seeking all those years was not worth it or that somehow this dream I was chasing wasn’t giving me what I was actually looking for.

This was the beginning of two years of a barren winter in my life in which I no longer wanted to do this career, and didn’t have the motivation or interest to create anything new. It was a frightening time for me because I knew nothing about this natural time of barrenness that people experience cyclically in their lives. I was afraid that I would stay in this state forever. It took a toll on my health, my relationships and of course my income. The only thing I seemed interested in doing was journaling and walking in nature which in retrospect was exactly what I needed to be doing. I was discovering a new purpose that wanted to be born into my life.

What took so long for me to get through this process was that I didn’t want to let go of the old identity because it was familiar, I knew how to make it work and I was  attached to the social approval I received for this kind of work, not to mention the income and sense of security that provided. Yet, trying to hold on was actually creating more problems in my life.

When I finally let go of my old identity and let myself go into the dark and the unknown I started to discover amazing things, parts of myself that wanted expression. The truth was that I didn’t need to change what I was doing but how I was doing it. Through this 2 years I created a process that I now share with people so they don’t have to go through two years of being lost, confused and resistant to this winter of change. I have been working with people and perfecting the system ever since.

The Art of Reinvention process for getting through to Spring

The Art of Reinvention process helps you move through this period of time more quickly, with ease and grace, and it helps you reframe this process so that you suffer less and enjoy it for what it is. A process like this can also help you avoid the pitfalls that often happen during the winter of change – for example addictive behaviors, creating drama, relationship breakdowns, health issues, financial issues.

This process is useful for anyone who is in transition, having left behind:

• a job or career (e.g. being a supervisor or running a business)
• a relationship  (e.g. losing a friend, or going through a divorce)
• a role (e.g. being a parent, or being a volunteer)
• an identity (e.g. being single, being in your 40s)

And it’s especially helpful if you haven’t gotten clear about what is next, or more importantly how you want do what’s next in your life. Check out The Art of Reinvention process here. It is an easy-to-use, step-by-step process to help you explore the themes of the next chapter of your life.

And just remember, it takes courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful for you. There is actually more security in taking an adventure into the new, because in movement there is life and vitality again.

God, grant me the ability to be as good of a person as my dog thinks I am. – Anon

In a previous blog post we explored The 7 Mistakes Change Leaders Make, and how mistakes are necessary to actually develop success habits. Using the metaphor of the growing cycle we explored Mistake #1 which is Planting Your Idea in Barren Soil. Then we looked at mistake #2 which was Choosing the Wrong Kind of Idea Seed. The 3^rd mistake many change leaders make is to not watering or fertilizing your idea enough.

Linda wanted to help address exhaustion and tension at work. There was a bad “vibe” ever since the latest project went overtime and over budget. While a problem solving meeting had helped, she knew people needed something that buoyed their spirits but that didn’t take much time or money.

She had heard about the simple idea of creating fun contests that would run in the organization’s online newsletter. She went to her boss and shared stories of other companies that did a baby picture contest and a cartoon caption contest and how it improved the mood at work, enhanced relationships between people, and sparked creative thinking. Her boss reluctantly agreed as long as it didn’t pull too much focus from their deadlines.

The pilot project included asking people to send Linda a photo of their pet for a contest in which everyone was then invited to guess who the owner was. Within half an hour Linda was inundated with photos of Portuguese Water Dogs, Persian cats, and love birds. One staff member complained that she wanted to participate in the contest but didn’t own a pet due to allergies. They decided instead that she would send a photo of her favourite Boston fern.

The next week the photos went out to all the staff with a deadline. By Friday, you had to guess the owner. The person with the most correct answers would receive a $75 gift certificate to a nearby restaurant. The restaurant owner had gladly donated the prize. The contest entries came through in droves and one man in accounting got all but four answers correct. He took his two colleagues out for lunch the next week.

Linda’s boss was thrilled with the results of the contest because he saw people laughing again while they tried to trick people into divulging the type of pet they owned. He noticed two people who barely talked to each other were now comparing notes on the idiosyncrasies of Portuguese Water Dogs. Meetings had a more light-hearted atmosphere, ideas about dealing with the project seemed more innovative than before, and less people seemed to be showing up late or calling in sick.

Linda got the green light to do a new contest each month. The only problem was that sometimes people attracted to leading change are not the same type of people who like to maintain the change. Change Artists are those who can do both or at least delegate to and steward those who will maintain it. Linda was enthused about the pilot project, but lost enthusiasm when it came to the on-going “watering and fertilizing” of her change initiative. The next month’s contest was to name the organization’s mascot (a wind up pig that grunted), which was successful, but not as successful as the first one. She skipped the third one because her idea ended up seeming too complicated. The fourth contest didn’t seem to appeal to people, and so by the fifth month she dropped the project.

Linda overhead one day, though, that people were disappointed that there were no longer any contests. She realized that she needed to delegate the on-going maintenance of this idea to someone who liked maintenance. She asked four people with that personality style and one of them agreed to take it on for the next 3 months. Walter in IT made the whole project take off again because he was already handling the “news” section of the organization’s web site, so it was easy for him to do. He elicited suggestions from staff and searched the web for new contests ideas. He made sure others helped him during busy months. And generally, he enjoyed the monthly attention to detail and the joy it seemed to bring people. After five years this organization still does about 10 contests a year. The role of contest maintenance has been passed along gleefully several times to people who enjoy this kind of task, and thus the spirit and purpose of the original idea stays well nourished.

The “Inner Game” of Time Management

Whenever I survey individuals and organizations on their top three challenges at work, I almost always hear that there is too much to do and not enough time. And I’ve heard the same thing for the last 20 years. Even with all the brilliant time management systems out there, even with all the highly innovative and smart people doing the work, and even with all the time-saving technology available to us. It begs the question: “Is time management about doing something different or about being something different–or both?” My answer is that it’s both, but there has been an over focus on the outer game of time management and not enough on the inner game.

The Myth of Time Scarcity

Now I realize this is the antithesis of traditional time management, where it’s all about willing yourself to move faster, prioritizing and sticking to your agenda, etc. But if time management were only about what you do, then why do some people seem calm and centered and others seem flustered when faced with the same deadline?

Have you ever been waiting for an elevator and it seems to take an eternity, especially when you are in a hurry? Conversely, have you ever been on a vacation that was filled with amazing adventures and a month seems like a week? As Kermit the Frog once said, “Times flies when you’re having fun, and time’s also fun when you’re having flies.”

Looking at it from the big picture, clocks reduce time and make it finite. But what is time, but life itself? Time is actually your experience. By measuring time, it turns a succession of unique moments into a number and distances us from our subjective experience.

Lewis Mumford once said, “The clock, not the steam engine heralded the industrial age.” The more finely we measured time, first into hours, then minutes and seconds, the less we seem to have of it and the more the clock usurped sovereignty over our experience of life, until today when we are all — on the clock. Yet industry and business require a precise coordination of human activity. It’s hard to imagine how we could function in our organizations without the clock.

Can We Function in Society and Still Experience the Luxury of Being Unhurried?

This particular conundrum has been fascinating me lately. I grew up in the “hurry” family. I watched my parents race from one activity to the next, living under a sense of constant pressure. Naturally, I followed suit and lived my adult life this way, too. That is, of course, until reading the latest research on hormone imbalances–could it be motivated by the fear of hitting menopause without my hormones in balance? Aging — yet another reason to fear time

Some studies suggest that raised cortisol levels over extended periods of time cause hormone imbalances. Cortisol is a hormone your body produces when you are feeling hurried, inpatient, or overwhelmed, among other things. This requires the body to leech other hormones to regain balance, which eventually leads to long-term imbalances. Hormone imbalances in both men and women cause an enormous array of physical and mental problems that we are only beginning to be aware of.

To that end, over the last few years I decided to experiment with taking up to two months off every year so I could experience the luxury of an unhurried existence. The happiness, creative insights, health and well being I experienced were beyond belief. Yet, as soon as I came back to work I readopted the hurried state of mind. Finally, I asked myself and my clients, “Can we function in society and also experience the luxury of an unhurried existence?” I decided it was a worthy enough experiment, and have been surveying people and researching this topic ever since. Here is my summation of the top 2 ways to do that. For the 3rd best way view my previous blog post on Breathing:

1. Keep Things Handy for Idle Times

Make a list of regular activities that trigger you into feeling impatient. I used to get very impatient in traffic but then I realized I can use this time to be productive or get entertained. I decided to start listening to audio books. If I want a book now I go to a service like Audible to see if they have the book as an MP3. In fact, now I sometimes can hardly wait till I get to drive so I can listen to the next part of my book. Keep small things handy like your mp3 player, a book, or a notepad. Idle time can become brainstorming time. I often create a list of things I want to find a solution to. This could be a new business idea, a relationship problem I want to think through, thoughts about a new blog post or anything else that needs a good thought process. I brainstorm on all possible solutions, and choose my favourite idea and start action planning it.

2. Practice Letting Go Every Day

One of the most important skills you can ever learn is to let go of thoughts that don’t serve you. It will entirely change your life. As David Wagoner says in his wonderful poem, Lost: “What do you do when you’re lost in the forest? Stand still. The trees ahead, the bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here.” The point is that when you’re overwhelmed and lost, stand still. Back up to a place where you feel good, then you will begin to activate the neocortex. Usually when you feel hurried you are operating from the Reptilian Complex, where you are much less innovative, efficient, and able to focus.

Most of us treat time as a precious commodity in short supply. Time is precious, but it’s only scarce if you believe it is. Taking your time ironically lets you operate at a higher level of efficiency. So whenever you find yourself rushing try letting go of the belief in time scarcity and act as if you have all the time the world. Try it for 5 minutes and see what happens. The phenomenon may seem strange but here’s why it works so well. When you are rushing, chances are you are doing one thing while thinking about something else – like where you need to be, where you’d prefer to be. This kind of mental activity prevents us from being present with the job at hand. By actually becoming present, time seems to expand. It’s all in the experience.

If you find it hard to let go of unhelpful beliefs, check out the Sedona Method. It’s one of those easy things you can do anywhere, anytime, everyday. After a while a sense of time expansion can become your default way of being.

What very mysterious things days are. Sometimes they fly by, and other times they seem to last forever, yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours. There’s quite a lot we don’t know about them. Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

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If you’d like to help the people in your organization be better at the “inner game” of time management, give us a call at 1-866-294-2988 (1-604-222-2276). Or check out our web site for more tips and free articles.

Like a silently ticking time bomb, a habit of shallow breathing could be eating away at your health until one day it’s too late. Too many people these days are lost in the trance of scarcity around time, money and resources. This means you probably have a habit of operating too often from the reptilian complex, or flight or flight response.

In this state of mind, your entire system functions much less efficiently. The stress response halts or slows down various processes such as digestion, blood circulation and creative thinking. Prolonged stress responses may result in chronic suppression of the immune system, leaving the body open to infections and disease.

Most people in today’s society are having to do more with less, constantly adapt, be innovative under pressure, re-design everything in a moment’s notice–all because of constant change. Those who can stay calm, confident and clear-headed in constant change are the leaders of the future and indispensable to those they serve.

I call this being a “Change Artist”. Change Artists have regular habits that allow them to benefit from the changes affecting their world and inspire creative thinking in others, all the while staying grounded in integrity. One of the top habits of Change Artist is that they breathe more fully than their more “Change Challenged” counter-parts.

For a fun perspective on the situation check out this mock commercial for breathing:

Breathing is one of those safe, inexpensive, readily available techniques that doesn’t get used often enough.

For an easy to follow conscious breathing technique you can practice check out this video below. If you do a technique like this enough times consciously it will eventually become an unconscious habit.

Once that is done, now you are ready to plant the seed of your idea, which leads to another common mistake: choosing the wrong kind of seed. There are plenty of examples throughout history of “wrong seeds” being planted in fertile soil — in society, in organizations or within an individual. CBC TV is right now airing a documentary entitled Love, Hate and Propaganda, about leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini and how they manipulated a populace aching for change. Had their intentions been benevolent and focused on the common good, their ideas could have been sustainable. Unfortunately, they were planting the wrong kind of seed.

The Fast Ferry Scandal is another example of the wrong seed being planted in the right kind of soil. A major impetus for the program was in direct response to public complaints. Citizens wanted less waiting traffic and quicker transit times between Vancouver and Vancouver Island. The idea was planted in fertile soil, but the idea itself was flawed. The project had massive cost overruns and long delays. The ferries also created such a huge wake that shoreline eco-systems were being adversely affected. In the end, the ferries were sold for a fraction of their original price.

In contrast was Gandhi’s idea of a non-violent approach to attaining independence for India. Because it was the right kind “idea seed” it was both sustainable and led to other such successful approaches around the globe.  Another example was David Packard decades ago in the early days of Hewlett-Packard. In an era when bosses dwelt in mahogany-paneled sanctums, Packard took an open-door workspace among his engineers. He practiced what would become famous as “management by walking around.” Most radical of all for the time, he shared equity and profits with all employees. This seed of a great management idea ended up effusing the spirit of Silicon Valley even to this day.

Sometimes, however, the wrong seed can be transformed into the right one. An organization I worked with needed a culture change. They wanted to turn around a habit of complaining amongst staff. In response, the director of one department made it mandatory that staff only comment on what was good, what was working, and what they appreciate about any idea or project. What happened was that negative comments went underground and grew toxic. It was the wrong kind of solution. I helped them alter it. We decided to safely allow staff to comment in both negative and positive ways. They were encouraged however, to express negative comments in terms of what’s they’d like to see instead so that it was a solution-focused comment. This made all the difference to the idea “sticking” and an effective bottom-up communication process that improved all aspects of the department.

For example, I gave a presentation at a conference and after driving for 30 minutes, realized I left my purse in a public washroom at the conference. At first my thoughts were constructive. “I better turn around and go back. I better call the conference organizer”. These were actions I could take at that moment. However, when I discovered the organizer had gone home, and when I found myself locked in rush hour traffic, my thoughts began to darken. I watched my mind create increasingly worse scenarios. “I won’t find my purse, I’ll have to get new ID, I won’t be able to go on my trip tomorrow, someone will buy a Winnabago with my VISA card”. I became very bad tempered and anxious.

At one point, I realized that it made no sense to ruminate about “what if’s” because there was no action I could take yet. I started listening to Stuart MacLean’s Vinyl Café. After laughing through a story or two, the adrenaline eased off. I arrived at the conference center 30 minutes later to find the janitor had picked up my bag and was holding it for me, everything intact.

Worry is a mental parasite

Worry thoughts are like parasites that want you as their host. A worry thought convinces you it is your friend, that without it you would die or be a bag person with no legs, one eye, and a stock portfolio worth 2% of its original value. Worry thoughts fly through the stratosphere at millions of bytes per second. You can download them any time, anywhere, at no cost.

Beware of the Law of Attraction

This Law states that our negative thoughts attract negativity, and our positive thoughts attract positives to us. Therefore, if you spend time worrying about not having enough money, over time you are training your mind to not have enough money. In other words, what you resist persists. It makes more sense to spend your thought time in joyful, positive ways. After all, life is short.

How do you actually change your focus?

If you have ever spent a sleepless night worrying, you know that actually changing your focus can be difficult. You can download joy thoughts just like worry thoughts, but they tend to be more elusive. They are like flower seeds that must push up through all the dark matter in order to thrive. The proportion of worry thoughts to joy thoughts floating around at our present time in history is probably about ten to one. That is why it is so easy to get caught like a freeway commuter at quarter past five. Ridding yourself of the worry parasite requires a commitment to a habit. Here are some tried and true habits for daily Mental Flossing.

1. Refuse to download

Have you ever been assaulted by a pop up window asking you to download something? Worry thoughts are like pop-ups. You can simply click NO.

2. Observe and label

Okay. You got sucked in. You downloaded and the worry parasite has taken hold. Notice that you let it happen. This “observer” state can often help you detach and eventually delete the thought.

3. Do a reversal

What is the opposite of the worry thought? “What if my work isn’t good enough?” becomes “What if my work is excellent?” Or, “I might be late” becomes “I might be on time.” Just like trying on clothes in a store, decide to take off the worry thought, and try on a positive one instead. See how it feels.

4. Laugh about it

Laughter is THE cerebral laxative. It can purge you of unwanted thought matter. I remember racing through Vancouver Airport barely holding onto my wardrobe bag, computer bag and boarding pass. I came whizzing around the corner and saw a bronze statue of a man racing through the airport barely holding onto a wardrobe bag, computer bag and boarding pass. I suddenly saw myself from the outside and had to laugh. I walked the rest of the way to my gate resigned to whatever fate awaited me. Once there I discovered my flight was delayed 20 minutes. Look at yourself from an outside perspective and remember that “Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be amused.”

Then, do you notice that when you are in a low mood that life can feel stuck and more full of conflict? You see mostly obstacles. You can act petty. You take yourself and life very seriously and feel as if the world is out to get you.

Most humans have a shadow side, a split persona to one degree or another. Being able to have more choice about who will run the show can be one of the most important life lessons you will ever learn.
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Here is Carla talking about some tips for dealing with conflict at work or at home:

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What neuro-science is now telling us

Neil Slade has a great way of explaining neuro-science in practical, layman terms. When you are in a low mood the energy of your brain resides more in what neuro-scientists call “The Reptilian Complex”.

The brain has three layers:

1. The Reptilian Complex is the inner core: This is where we get our instinct to survive, fight, flee, gain territory and reproduce.

2. The Limbic System is the next layer: This is where we get our urge to nurture, to love, to join with others and follow laws and rules.

3. The Neo-cortex is the outer brain: This is where we get the skills to make peace between the R-Complex and the Limbic System, the ability to forgive and to temper justice with mercy, to reason and see the big picture. The frontal lobes of the neo-cortex in particular help you do your best problem solving and decision making.

While we need to have all parts of our brain functioning in order to thrive and survive, most people when under stress revert to the Reptilian Complex. They are disconnected from the more outer parts of the brain. Being able to trigger the frontal neo-cortex can put you in a good mood and help you be your better self more often.

How do you know when the Reptilian Complex is running the show?

The Reptilian Complex is more likely to be active during change, challenge and conflict, but can appear at any time. Learn to notice when that is happening. Usually you feel more tense, worried, fearful, distrustful, and hyper-vigilant. In short you feel like fighting or fleeing. Few situations in modern society require the Reptilian Complex to be running the show completely. Yet that’s where a lot of people are operating from a lot of the time.

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What can trigger the “petty self”?

Many factors can contribute to you getting more easily triggered such as:

1. Multitasking or having your awareness scattered.

2. Hormonal imbalances (in both men and women).

3. Excess toxins in your body from health issues or from stimulants such as coffee, alcohol, sugar and other drugs (both pharmaceutical and recreational).

4. Little or no reflection time.

5. Unresolved issues (at any age).

6. Psychological habits picked up from your family or society.

7. Lack of exercise.

8. Sleep deprivation.

9. Dehydration.

10. Feeling hungry or undernourished. Blood sugar imbalances.

11. A habit of shallow breathing or mouth breathing.

12. Not examining the validity of your thoughts.

13. Unexpressed creativity.

14. Lack of meaning in one’s life.

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Tips for activating your more “graceful self”

Here are a few tips for activating the brain to move from the Reptilian-complex to the frontal neo-cortex. Make sure you do something to put yourself in a better frame of mind before dealing with a conflict. For particularly high stakes conversations email us at carla@artistryofchange.com for a free copy of the Preparing to Have a Courageous Conversation worksheet.

1. Laughing and having fun. Laughter opens up the whole brain. Find the lighter side of the situation. Search YouTube for comedians you love. Call or talk to someone is good at making you laugh.

2. Paying attention to the present moment without interpreting it (E.g. like when you are focussed on a task you love or appreciating a sunset)

3. Focussing on one thing at a time Don’t try to deal with conflict when your focus is scattered, for example while trying to drive your car or while checking email.

4. Giving yourself the amount of sleep that your body wants (usually 7-8 hours for most adults). Wait til your rested before having an important conversation.

5. Asking “What’s good?” Ask yourself “What’s good about this situation?” What might you be learning from this conflict? What might be a great outcome from sorting out this issue?

6. Releasing negative thinking loops EMDR or Emotional Freedom Technique can help you release stuck negativity and trauma. Also, many conflicts result from escalating a small issue into a large one through an over-active imagination. The work of Byron Katie or The Sedona Method are useful for helping people examine the validity of their thoughts.

7. Doing regular exercise .Do something active before an important conversation to help release toxins from the body and increase the oxygen levels in your body.

8. Nourishing your body on a regular basis with good, nutritious food. Make sure your blood sugar levels are normalized before starting an important conversation. Drinking 8 glasses of purified water a day and stay hydrated during conflict. This will help your brain work more efficiently.

9. Creating meaning and purpose in your life. Explore your purpose and live your life from that value system as much as possible. As Les Brown once said, “If you know the why for living you can endure almost any how.”

10. Having a creative or recreational outlet. Singing, dancing, writing, art, gardening, golf, tennis, skiing, etc. These activities will keep you in your “graceful” self more often.

11. Getting inspired daily. Leave inspirational literature by your bedside. Watch inspirational movies or listen to inspirational audio programs. Watch inspiring speakers on TED or just type in “inspirational speech” or “motivational speech” into YouTube.

12. Practicing conscious breathing Try typing in “conscious breathing techniques” into YouTube and follow the instructions.

13. Getting regular physical contact. Loving touch activates the whole brain (E.g. Hugs, kisses and massage)

14. Getting organized and defining your work more clearly (try David Allen’s Getting Things Done)

15. Surrounding yourself with people who are generally optimistic and good-natured. The moods and thoughts of others can impact your well being. Establish healthy boundaries with people who like to create drama and conflict.

16. Thinking in possibilities. If you feel stuck about how to solve a problem ask yourself “If I were exceptional at solving this problem I would…”

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Do you have a tip to share?

If you have an example of how you activate your best self please let us know. It just might inspire others. Please email it to carla@artistryofchange.com