Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash

Reconnecting With What It Means to Be Human

When COVID-19 hit and we were isolated from loved ones, I called my mother to see if she was all right. She indicated she’d been through isolation before and in the worst of times.

Several years ago, I found myself at a family reunion in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. My mother’s family wanted to see the American concentration camps where her family and relatives lived during World War II. Although very young at the time, her memory was crystal clear. As we walked through the museum, she pointed at photos and belongings, people donated. Stepping into a so-called replica of the barracks, she scoffed. “I wish it was as nice as this!” She talked about how the frigid wind blew dirt through the open spaces in the barrack walls and how a pot belly stove was the only warmth they felt.

As I listen to her stories, it saddened and angered me. My grandparents who owned a grocery store in Los Angeles were good law-abiding citizens who worked hard. They, like so many of Japanese heritage, were stripped of what they owned; separated and isolated from their communities because of their race; then put behind barbed wire fences with armed guard towers as many Japanese American sons volunteered to fight and prove their family’s loyalty to a country that imprisoned their parents.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR US TO BE HUMAN?

When I see the hate and injustices continue in our world today, I wonder what’s it going to take for us as human beings to wake up and finally transform our culture and treat people in a humane way? Even 78 years later, we’re still putting people in cages; objectifying others who look different than us; putting our black brothers and sisters in fear of their lives every day and killing innocent people of color like George Floyd in horrific ways.

One of the reasons I felt called to do transformation work with leaders is because of the pain and suffering I’ve seen others experiencing in the workplace, ones I’ve experienced myself. It’s my way of standing up against the injustices and bringing healing to our world through my work of Sawubona Leadership (a Zulu word meaning “I see you”). Yet with all the inequities happening today, I sometimes feel, it’s not enough. What more can I do?

TRANSFORMING INJUSTICES LIE IN ADDRESSING THE BATTLEFIELD IN OUR BODIES

Then I came across the work of Resmaa Menakem and his book, “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies”. I felt I found the truth of why we still haven’t learned from the injustices of the past and what we can do to transform that. What Menakem points to is that for many years we’ve fought hard to enact and change laws for the betterment of mankind. But in the process, we forgot to also change ourselves.

This resonated with the holistic work I do as an executive coach. You can have “insights” that things need to change; take action – speak up, march, protest, pass laws that better protect people, strive in your company for gender equity, inclusion and diversity with numbers to prove it. All are so important. Yet, unless you change yourself at a cellular level, and “embody” a new way of being, you won’t transform and more importantly, your community won’t either.

Menakem says: “We tried to teach our brains to think better about race.” …..”While we see anger and violence in the streets of our country, the real battlefield is inside our bodies.”  ….”If we are to survive as a country, it is inside our bodies where this conflict needs to be resolved.”

This pertains not just to race and trauma that has been passed from generation to generation, but the wounds and suffering of genders, generations, social classes, bosses, and their people. Here’s a simplistic example of the importance of including your body in the change process. You can have INSIGHT – that “ah-hah” moment, that you need to be patient. You can act patient by not interrupting as your mind cries out, “Get to the point!” But until you do PRACTICES consistently that allow you to “embody” what it feels like to be patient, you’ll never form the HABITS where you have the COMPETENCY to naturally be patient. If you’ve not “embodied” patience, at some point when “acting” patient, you’ll lash out at someone with your frustrations.

THE REAL WORK BEGINS WITH OUR PRACTICES OF LIVING

How do you begin the work to change the narrative towards a more humane and compassionate world in yourself, family, workplace, community, the world?

It starts with your daily practices. One of the biggest practices is how you live your life. Yes, your life is a practice – the time you wake up; food you eat; whether you work out or sit on the couch; see the gifts in your people and praise them or see their flaws and reprimand them; set boundaries or take everything on. Doing these on a consistent basis forms habits leading to a competency where your body automatically feels comfortable doing this.

The practices you do turn you into who you are.

Yes, how you are with yourself and others is a practice that is sowing the seeds for the world you and more importantly, your children will live in.

NOTICING AND BEING WITH OUR REACTIVE SELF UNDER PRESSURE

It’s important you notice your reactions; how you connect, listen, respond; what supports you, triggers you, stresses you out.

Especially, when we’re stressed, pressured, or triggered, we sometimes act in ways that are unsupportive for all involved. We fail to realize that each judgment (especially right/wrong) affects us. Suppressing it can build to an explosion of anger that can impact others and ourselves in harmful ways. Randomly letting it out, even the little slights we make, can hurt others so they get defensive. But when we notice the energy in our bodies, be with it, acknowledge and be compassionate with it, that energy begins to subside. Then we can re-center (see practice below) and come from a grounded place. We can redirect this powerful energy to better support ourselves and others.

If we are ungrounded or grasping, we tend to distort the information by mixing in our fears and desires.  In building the capacity to be with the energy in our bodies, we can ground and relax ourselves when we feel sensations; accept the energy and insight that arises with them.  By becoming more present in our bodies, we can learn to trust our sensations.  This enables us to bypass analytical thought and have clear and compassionate action.

HOW WILL YOU BRING YOURSELF INTO THE WORLD?

Depending on where you are in your life is how you view the world you live in — what you pay attention to. It’s like looking at the sky through the tiny hole of a straw. You can only see a portion of the sky. You’re blind to other areas until you bump up against the edges through events in your life that shows you how limiting your beliefs are – a divorce, marriage, new job, promotion, death or unexpected illness. It’s because of these events, you wake up to discover there’s more to life than what you’re seeing, demonstrating, and who you are being.

COVID-19 and the movement of “Black Lives Matter” are showing us how limiting our beliefs are. They’re a wake-up call to look deeper at ourselves; ask how we are living; what is the world we’re creating?

The vows we make shape our lives – those big commitments that may be impossible to meet but we’re committed anyway? What’s your vow? Mine – “To see each person as a doorway into a new world.”

Why are you here? What’s your purpose? How can you create a compelling future where you feel a part of something greater than yourself so that in challenging times, you still move forward with the passion to make it happen? Mine: “To help leaders bring back the humanity in the way they lead and live their lives, so they live in their gifts and purpose and support others to live in theirs.”

How will you bring your voice into the world and take a stand even if it’s unpopular? Your voice is more than your words. It’s your way of being. It’s how you see and accept other people’s views with the same openness you want them to see and accept yours?

Today our world needs us to wake up! It starts with an awareness of what’s happening inside our bodies. If we listen to the wisdom of our bodies, it will speak to us about our wounds, joy, suffering, and aliveness – those we’ve experienced and those passed on from generation to generation. By starting within ourselves, we can begin to heal, transform ourselves, communities, our world.  Doing the work at a cellular level, we can reconnect with what it means to be human. Then healing the injustices carried from the past will no longer lie in our grandmother’s hands but in our own.

Sawubona!

Susan

* Sawubona: A Zulu greeting meaning “I see you.”

COACHING STRATEGIES WITH A CALL TO ACTION

“If we are to survive as a country, it is inside our bodies where this conflict needs to be resolved.”

– Resmaa Menakem

Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

Taking a Timeout: Getting Unstuck When You’re Triggered (Self-Observation)

Purpose: To notice the reactivity in your body when triggered by situations or people so you don’t act on what triggers you; instead create an opening to re-center, be present, and act from a centered and heartfelt place, thus supporting yourself and others with more wisdom and compassion.

How Often: When feeling triggered by any challenges, situation, people, or experience.

What to Do

• Do each practice listed below many times separately while not triggered; it will then be easier to do them together when triggered.
• Next, focus this self-observation on one person who triggers you a little bit and whom you see frequently in person or talk with over the phone. Don’t choose the most challenging individual. Later you can focus on people who trigger you more.
• When triggered, take a timeout; do the self-observation. If you’re too emotionally charged, take a long break, even if it’s for a day before you do it.
• This self-observation is a combination of three other practices:
  • Noticing My Reactivity When Triggered
  • Re-centering
  • Connecting into My Heart

Practice 1: Noticing My Reactivity When Triggered

Step 1: Drop the Storyline, Turn Your Awareness into Your Body, Get Curious!

• When triggered, first do a simple sitting practice. Sit in your chair with your back straight but not stiff and your feet uncrossed and placed flat against the floor. Drop your arms by your side as you say, “Aha.” Drop your shoulders and jaw. Lift your hands and wherever they naturally fall on your thighs, let them rest. Shut your eyes. Let all the thoughts you’re having fly into your head. Don’t push them away. Let them come. Let them collect like a heavy ball in your head. Then imagine dropping that heavy ball from your head into your hara (a point three fingers below your belly button and two fingers into the center of your body). Take five deep breaths as if breathing through your hara, slow and deep. Take your time.

This step will help you to drop the storyline, disconnect from the intensity, and turn your focus inward to your body.

• Finally, get curious about your reactivity. Ask, “How am I feeling? What physical sensations am I experiencing?”

Step 2: Name Your Emotions and Notice Any Physical Sensations

• To yourself in a soft tone of voice, name the emotions you are feeling (e.g., frustrated, angry, sad, anxious, scared; etc.).
• Notice the physical sensations in your body (e.g., heart is beating faster, palms are sweaty, head is feeling tight, shoulders are tense).
• Notice the physiology of your body: where are you feeling tense, stressed, contracted?

Step 3: Be with and Relax into Your Physical Sensations

• Be with your emotions, physical sensations, and physiology; notice how they are affecting how you feel.
• Relax into the areas of stress, tenseness, contraction. Don’t pull out of it immediately. That physiology and those contractions may also tell you something about yourself and your patterns.

Practice 2: Re-centering

Step 4: Change Your Physiology, Breathe, Connect into the Earth

• Change the physiology of your body into a more centered shape. (If you are sitting, then stand; if standing contracted, then stand straight; if leaning forward, then bring yourself upright; etc.)
• Notice how the new shape changes the feelings in your body compared to the previous shape.
• Breathe into areas of your body where you feel tension. Relax into the tension and/or contraction.
• Bring an awareness to your feet, which are connected into the earth. Keeping that awareness, bring an awareness to the top of your head.
• Now keeping an awareness of your feet connected into the earth and the top of your head, slowly open your eyes and adjust to the environment.
• If you are feeling grounded and centered, then act out of that feeling. If you are still feeling reactive, either emotionally or physically, then go on to step 5 below and continue with the third practice.

Practice 3: Connecting into My Heart

Step 5: Drop into Your Heart and Bring a Sense of Joy

• Close your eyes. Drop into your heart.
• Take 3-5 slow, deep breaths as if breathing from your heart.
• Then bring into your heart someone or something that the thought of brings you a feeling of joy, fun, or laughter.
• Experience that positive feeling in your heart. Receive it. Appreciate it.
• Now expand that feeling from your heart to every part of your body like the golden rays of the sun going out to the top of your head, down your arms, down your legs to your feet and toes. Feel the feeling of joy, fun, or laughter in your entire being.
• Now continue to expand that feeling out into the universe as far and wide as you can.
• Part A: Ask your heart, “What do I need right now?”
  • Listen to your heart and let it tell you through a word, image, symbol, or the like. Remember, the heart knows!
  • If this is not working, then be okay to end the practice here and come back to it. Or take a Walk in Beauty (CS-14) or do another practice of appreciation that opens your heart before proceeding.
  • Part B: Once your heart tells you what you are needing, ask, “If I had more ______________ (fill in with what your heart told you; for example, compassion, patience, joy, presence, calm, energy) in my being, what would that feel like?”
  • Ask the question three times and, after each time, pause and see how your body responds.
  • Notice what shape your body takes, and feel and experience the shape and feeling of what you need. For example, the shape and feeling of patience, compassion, courage, etc. Sometimes our body does not respond at this step because it doesn’t know what the shape of, say, fun is. So that will give you additional information about what you need to develop.
  • This is the shape and feeling you want your body to get comfortable with rather than the previous shape, which may be the stress or contraction of worry, fear, etc.
• Part C: Now, take 5 deep breaths as if breathing through the heart. Slowly, open your eyes. From this new shape, which is more centered and grounded, decide what it is that you need to do. Don’t vent your story to others, as every time you do this, it will bring up the same triggers again.

Photo by Kelly Lacy from Pexels

Remember if you are really triggered, then do the above and then wait a day before making a decision or taking action with the person you are triggered with. This is so IMPORTANT! If you don’t wait the day, you will do something that will not support the person or you . . . and then you will have another mess to clean up. The above approach is a more leader-like way to deal with these kinds of situations.

At the end of each day, scan your day. Write about your observations in your journal so you can begin to notice patterns.

Journal the following:

• What happened when you quieted your mind and turned your focus into your body?
• What allowed you to get curious about your reactivity? What prevented you?
• In being with your emotions and physical sensations and not pushing them away, what happened? What did you notice about yourself? About the patterns you get stuck in?
• In what ways did being centered feel different from the triggered state you were in?
• What allowed you to drop into your heart? What prevented you?
• What did you notice when you brought a feeling of joy, fun, or laughter into your heart? How did that change the feelings in your body?
• When asking your heart what you are in need of, how challenging or easy was it for your heart to tell you? What allowed it to speak? What prevented it?

• What are you learning about yourself regarding being triggered in this way?
• From what you observed, what would you like to see more of within yourself and how you are with others?
• What actions will you take to make this happen?
• What do you need to let go of so you achieve what you envision for yourself and others?

Join our Global Sawubona Community here.

Learn more about the story behind Sawubona Leadership here.

Learn more about what a Sawubona Leader is here.

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