Having a conversation with someone is not usually a life threatening experience! You have to find a way to stop reacting as if it were, and to realize that in everyday conversations people are generally supportive and friendly. This means learning to respond more appropriately with your adult mind, maintaining state control, going with the flow, rather than reverting to the instinctive flight responses stemming from childhood hurts.
If you perceive a conversation as stressful, that tells you that you need to make some changes. One of those changes involves loving and honoring yourself no matter how you speak. Speaking is just talking. The fact is no one has ever died from blocking.
I asked some of my clients for their response to this idea. One replied:
I think the real fear is that I am NOT going to die. If I died then I would not have to live out the shame and humiliation. I am not in a life threatening situation but I am in a self-esteem threatening situation. What is more painful, being totally humiliated or dying? At least dying will end my misery. But being humiliated seems never to end and it is a real threat. That is why it kicks the fight/flight syndrome into action. Seriously, death is easy compared to living a life of humiliation. Sounds weird but ask any PWS how many times they wished they were dead. It is not the fear of death that activates the fight/flight mechanism it is the fear of humiliation. [Italics added]
Therefore start managing stress by raising your self-esteem and stopping thinking so much about other people’s opinions of you. When you create new meanings of (reframe) the old triggers that produced blocking, there will be no need to become stressful, and you will be able to enjoy your conversations.How to achieve relaxed alertness
To avoid the fear and anxiety emotions that set off blocking, the following Flying Into Calm pattern shows how you can learn to recognize the bodily symptoms of stress, to accept these as part of the normal functioning of the body, and to use various breathing, stretching and muscle relaxing exercises to achieve a state of calmness.
How can you become truly masterful in coping and handling the demands, challenges, threats, fears, and so on, of communicating at work and at home so that you don’t stress out about these things? How can you?
Exercise 5.1: The Flying Into Calm Pattern
This is a self-help pattern for overcoming blocking. Overview
Recognize the presence of stress.
Notice your strategy for stress
Practice flying into calm.
Find your calm state.
1. Recognize the presence of stress.
You can only control or manage something effectively when you are aware of it. Therefore notice your bodily responses in those contexts which trigger the stress that initiates the blocking, and become aware of any stress in your body.
Stress usually shows up in the body of a PWS as tightness in the throat, chest and jaw. The muscles tense in those areas and become inflexible. Now it may be that you have become so habituated to those stresses that at first the stress is not apparent. If you do not feel anything, you may find it useful to have some massage or bodywork sessions. Having gentle pressure applied to your body will let you know where you are holding the tension in your body – it will feel knotted up, and hurt a bit.
Interpret the stress as a message from your body that you need to do something different. By communicating with the tension and tightness it can teach you. Be still and establish communication with that part of you responsible for causing the tightness and tension. Of course you can talk to parts of your body. Just try it, and notice what happens. (There is more below on talking to yourself.) Once you have introduced yourself – (Yes, I’m serious: say “Hello” to that part of you) – you could ask the tightness in your neck or in your chest:
“What message do you have for me?”
“What are you trying to do for me?”
“What is the purpose of tensing in this way? Why have you tightened this part?”
When you ask such questions, you will find that you do get answers forming in your mind. Heed them, whatever they are, even if they surprise you.
2. Identify your strategy for stress.
What physical elements contribute to your stress or prevent you from operating from calmness?
Shallow breathing.
Tight throat and jaw.
Poor posture.
Contracted abdomen.
Lack of focus; constant eye shifting.
Tightening and holding neck muscles, pulling the head back.
It is also possible that you have emotional responses relating to these physical tensions in your body. It is as if the tension sets up pressures and needs requiring your attention. However, stress inhibits your ability to do this appropriately, and this then creates even more stress which can lead to impatience, frustration, and anger – which make calmness even further away.
Does your stress have a feeling of anger in it?
Does impatience contribute to your stress?
How much does the desire to speak fluently contribute to your stress?
3. Practice flying into a calm.
People sometimes describe getting angry as “flying into a rage”. With a strong trigger, people can fly into a rage at a moment’s notice. Could you also fly into a state of worry, dread, and anxiety? Sure you can. Well, if you can do that, then you have already have the ability to do the opposite, and fly into a calm. Doing that would put you in an appropriate state for speaking fluently. Flying into
