Someone at work says something annoying…
Your chest tightens ever so slightly, your throat loses that one, vital percent of moisture and your voice wavers up an octave. You deepen it to compensate, but this only makes things worse and the person opposite you, it seems, can sense that you are irritated.
So they say something even more annoying and your chest tightens further. You respond with (passive) aggression, sarcasm, anything to cover up your irritation/fear.
Congratulations. You have a new enemy at work.
Maybe they remind you of the school bully, a failed relationship, a dead pet…Maybe you had a dream about them in which they hid your clothes at school and left you, butt-naked, reading the bible in morning assembly and… ahem.
Never happened to you? Really? If not, you might be a psychopath and therefore beyond help or reason. For the rest of us, this situation is avoidable if we understand what is happening to our mind when our memory (and fear) starts driving our conscious acts in the present.
In Sane New World, Comedian Ruby Wax is adding her experience, energy and education (she recently earned a masters’ degree in mindfulness based cognitive therapy from Oxford University) to the amazing work of previous Books for Breakfasters David Eagleman (Incognito) and Dr Steve Peters (The Chimp Paradox).
You need to read the whole book to get your head around the broader subject, but here are my top five tips for not going mad in meetings, totally paraphrased from Ruby’s breakfast with the members of WOMEN IN ADVERTISING AND COMMUNICATIONS today..
HOW NOT TO GET MAD IN A MEETING:
1. Stop. If things are getting tense, take time out and…
2. Change your environment – go to the loo/outside for five minutes on your own
3. Listen to a sound or some music (in your head if necessary) that you know will calm you down or visualise something/someone benign in your life.
4. Realise that the person opposite you is also afraid/human/having a bad day, unless they are actually physically attacking you, in which case run away / call HR.
5. Imagine your “opponent” is on the toilet. This last one is not in the book, but it works for me. NB – be careful not to confuse this with imagining that you, yourself are on the toilet, which could backfire.
Books For Breakfast 