A reminder that the first round of the Wellbeing Study is currently open – I urge you to participate in this important piece of research on factors that make our lives better.
Speaking of which, I’m pleased to report that I’ve been following the advice which I dispense to my clients with a ladle. I had a series of incidents yesterday involving traffic diversions, missed flight connections, unexpected driving in unfamiliar territory, and an overcomplicated cellphone and came through it, on the whole, calmly and positively by practicing a couple of the emotional management techniques that I recommend to so many of my clients. In particular, I used the Welcoming Practice and anchoring to calm myself down so that I was able to deal with an evolving situation rationally and effectively.
I also used reframing. Psychology experiments have shown that context has a lot to do with how we interpret our emotion-related physical feelings – as fear, anger or excitement, for example. At one point I reframed the situation to myself as “I’m on an adventure”, and immediately my nervousness (about whether I would get through traffic in an unfamiliar city in time to catch my flight home, and at driving through an underwater tunnel) became an alert excitement instead.
I won’t pretend I was cool, calm and collected throughout the whole experience, which lasted most of the afternoon. But I was able to moderate my own emotional reactions and replace them with more helpful responses for the situation. And I did catch my flight home, so all worked out well in the end.
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