Lion Spotting

I received advice concerning walking with lions that relates to emotional triggers as well. "It's not the lions you see that should worry you. It's the lions you don't see." Triggers work the same way. As we become aware of situations, issues or people who are likely to push our buttons we prepare ourselves and guard against an "amygdala hijack." But how can we prepare for the ambush triggers when our guard is down?

Knowing what you are feeling removes the bullet from the chamber before the trigger can be pulled. Noticing how you are feeling, good or bad, is a start but identifying what you are feeling, frustrated, content, energized, angry, etc, helps you respond intentionally in the moment. If you become aware of your feeling and identify to what event or interaction that feeling specifically relates you can better manage your emotions. Rather than fighting the urge to react you can use your best judgment to choose the behavior that increases your influence and inspires others. Increasing your awareness of feelings prevents the trigger from ever being armed.

Can you invest 20 minutes a day next week to work on this competency? Each day, Monday through Thursday, schedule four 5-minute chunks of time in your calendar. Spread them throughout the day, between meetings or at breaks, after crucial phone calls or just at random moments. Take the 5 minutes to answer these three questions in your journal:
What am I feeling? (be specific. use day 2, pg 14 from your PLP participant guide for specific names for feelings)
Why am I feeling this way? (you may have to ask this why question several times.)
How is this feeling effecting my ability to influence and/or inspire others?
Schedule a 20 minute block of time on Friday to look over your journal entries. What do you notice? What happened just before and after the journal times? What types of interactions or situations sparked positive emotions or gave you energy? What sparked negative emotions or drained you of energy?

This simple activity takes power away from triggers by bringing your awareness of feelings closer to the moments when this competency can be most useful.

Check out Stop Overreacting by Judith P. Siegel for more ideas

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