"Come back, Sirius": the assumptions we make

When my black labrador was six months old, and he decided to chase after a cat, I did what any other person, with little experience of what a hyper-energetic, brainless puppy would do… I ran after him, yelling and calling; which incidentally had absolutely no impact on the dog whatsoever.

The labrador eventually was returned to us, by one of the neighbours who said the dog must have lost sight of the cat, then decided the open door of their flat was an invitation for him to go in and give them a big greeting. 

The incident, in itself, was not memorable if I just looked at the facts of a puppy running away to chase after a cat. If this was all there was to the incident, it would soon be forgotten. The context is what made it memorable to this day.

At the time my labrador ran away, I was running a traditional 312-strong first year Hall of Residence. The staff had surprised the residents by transforming the Hall into Hogwarts overnight. When the residents woke up, the floors had been renamed into Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, & Hufflepuff.  Pictures were changed, the dining room was transformed into The Great Hall, and the courtyard was turned into a Quidditch pitch. All the staff were dressed as one of the Harry Potter characters for the day. I had transformed into Dumbledore thanks to the costume.

I was in the courtyard, which the residents windows faced out onto, when Sirius (for those of you not familiar with Harry Potter - Sirius Black was the name of a character who transformed into a dog) decided to do his runner!

So there I was, dressed as Dumbledore, chasing and yelling “Sirius, come back…”, while all the residents watched me.  After a couple of minutes of running, by this stage I was out on the main road feeling somewhat foolish.

There are some parallels with what happens when we don't have all the facts and simply rely on what we have either, seen, heard or felt.

In a mediation or complaint situation often the facts are the tip of the iceberg. It is only when a person is able to tell the ‘story’ do you discover the context to their words or actions. Sometimes the reason something has escalated has very little to do with the actual situation.

We can quickly make a judgement on a situation based on first impressions, or just on the facts initially presented. We may be missing part of the story. This often leads to an escalation of an issue to a point where parties start to lose trust in each other, because neither feels or think the other party has understood them properly, or have the “correct understanding of what happened”.

It is not beyond the realm of possibility for someone to have had a rough nights sleep because of a baby teething, slept through an alarm, missed the bus, forgotten to take their phone, arrived to work 30 minutes late for an important meeting, and then reacted when someone commented on the difficulty their being late created.

The simple question of “Help me to understand…” can - and does - lead to a richer conversation, and more opportunity for either party to get a better understanding of context, and what informed a person’s actions.

Towards the end of the Hogwarts day, I overheard a group of residents comment about how much Simon had got into it, running around yelling out Sirius Black. It was only at that point that I clicked they hadn’t seen the dog running away, and could only see me running and yelling dressed as Dumbledore…If only they knew!

Getting the 'good' to stick

Your boss wants to see you in her office. You have no idea what its about. You enter the room where she’s finishing a meeting with two other senior members. Everyone goes quiet, the others pack up their papers and silently shuffle out.  Your boss hasn't looked up or asked you to sit.  

What do you think? If your thoughts automatically jump to a negative scenario, such as "I'm in deep trouble" there's a reason.

It’s evolutionary; we’ve still basically got a stone age brain wanting to protect us from being eaten by a tiger. Being acutely aware of possible threats kept our ancestors alive. It was more important to be able to react to threats than to opportunities. Our brains are wired so we have a trickle of anxiety to protect us and keep us alert.  

This is what’s known as  the ‘negativity bias’, we are much more likely to recall and be influenced by negative experiences than neutral or positive ones. Think of feedback forms - you may get one negative comment to 10 positives, and it’s probably the one negative comment you focus on.

Negative events and emotions affect us more than positive ones. Our mind reacts to ‘negative' experiences much quicker, stronger and more frequently than to ‘good’ or ‘positive’ experiences and remembers them more intensely. 

Dr Rick Hanson describes our brain as like, “Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.” So although we remember vividly for months a conversation we found toxic, we may forget within a very short time span a conversation we found uplifting.  

I recently attended Dr Hanson’s 'Positive Neuroplasticity Training'. We learnt how to "take in the good" or beneficial experiences to help build our inner strengths and resources. Resources such as resilience, emotional balance, grit, patience, generosity, mindfulness, confidence, feeling cared about, self-understanding and compassion. Given the negativity bias, learning how to use our mind to help encode positive resources into our neural structure is fundamental to wellbeing and our experience of life.  

And it’s really pretty simple. It’s about making a point of noticing and absorbing good facts and experiences, to grow positive resources in the mind so we feel happier and have a greater equilibrium when the ‘bad’ stuff comes.

Rick Hanson teaches a four step strategy to do this which he gives the acronym 'HEAL':

1. Have a beneficial experience. Actively look for good facts and experiences that make you feel good. Really notice them! For example, a compliment from a colleague, a lovely dinner with friends, the beauty of a flower, or the laughter of children at play.

2. Enrich the experience. Savour it, dial up the intensity and enjoy it for at least 10-30 seconds so it starts developing neural structure. Open up to feeling it in your body.

3. Absorb the experience. For example, try soaking it up like water into a sponge, or warming you up like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day. Whatever image works for you.

4.  Link the positive to negative material to either soothe it or replace it. You do this by holding both a positive and a negative emotion in your awareness, while making the positive emotion more prominent.  For example you could feel the sense of accomplishment and joy when completing something fun you did well, while feeling apprehensive about a project at work. If you find yourself getting lost in the negative, drop the negative and return to the positive. Linking is an optional step. 

Rick has both a book and an audio walkthrough of the method if you want to find out more.

Focusing our awareness on the good opens us up and expands our thinking. By giving ourselves permission to strengthen positive emotions such as joy, peace, contentment, belonging, compassion and curiosity we build more positive neural networks. It also better resources us to respond to negative emotions and unpleasant experiences. 

As positive psychologist Dr Barbara Fredrickson points out,

Negative emotions are necessary for us to flourish, and positive emotions are by nature subtle and fleeting; the secret is not to deny their transience but to find ways to increase their quantity.

Richard Branson on Work-Life Balance →

If I do topple off the tightrope, overwhelmed with work, I like to get my head back in the game by going kitesurfing. Secondary to being with my family, I am most happy when I am kitesurfing. Kiting helps me to clear my head.

Being aware and having a clear plan or strategy when starting to feeling overwhelmed with work means you have options to avoid explosion or implosion.

Key Habits of Top Mediators →

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has some great guidelines on what top mediators do to make sure their mediations are successful.

• Gain a certain level of knowledge about the history and nature of the dispute.

• Establish a positive and open atmosphere.

• Quickly understand the essence of the conflict.

• Be completely neutral and impartial and convey that to each of the parties.

• Patience and perseverance.

When did "Should I or shouldn't I" creep into my brain?

In January 2016, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to facilitate training over five days of 41 students on the Spirit of New Zealand training ship. 

The purpose of the voyage was also to teach leadership and team work skills, which the crew of the Spirt of NZ did an amazing job with. Jumping off a ship at 6.30 am, climbing to the top of very high rigging on this tall ship, working as a team to hoist very heavy sails, and living and sleeping in very close quarters, were all part of the experience.

My role was to provide training to the 41 student representatives on different parts involved in being an elected representative of a board.  The motivation and willingness of these students to participate in all aspects of the voyage experience was inspiring. More so considering the rolling seas meant seasickness was common.

What struck me most was the willingness of these young people to give things a go. This meant for some pushing the boundaries of their personal comfort, which they did with positively and intent.

At one point in the voyage, an activity of a rope swing which meant you stood on the railing of the boat, walk back as far as you could on the railing, then swing out and let go over the water. The activity itself was not particularly high risk, as the worse case scenario was slight pain from doing a bellyflop into the water and any associated embarrassment as you realise others watched the epic fail.

For some reason I hesitated about giving this activity a go. I watched the young people and crew leaping off, screaming and laughing. I stood there weighing up the pros and cons of having a go myself.

The deciding factor for me was when one of the crew commented, "will you regret not giving this a go?" I am pleased to say five minutes later I was up on the rope swing and thankfully not a bellyflop in sight! 

While I was glad I did give it a go, I was a bit annoyed with myself for even contemplating not giving it a go.  These sorts of activities ten or fifteen years ago I would be close to the front of the line, and certainly not just doing the activity once. I reflected on what had changed.

It struck me that somewhere along the way doubt had crept in. The saying, "do something each day that scares or challenges you" came to mind. I wondered how many other people there were in their 40s or 50s who had started to lose confidence in their ability to do things which previously would not had bothered them.

I believe as we get older we can become more narrow in the things which are in our comfort zone. This happens without us realising it.

A friend of mine works alongside the elderly who are close to death. Her experience is those who struggle most during this transition were ones that had regrets about missed opportunities and unresolved regrets. It was very common to hear people say, if only...

One of my favourite movies is The Bucket List. While I am not advocating for people to climb mountains, and have untold remarkable experiences, I think the message about giving new things a go, and consistently living each day and a life where you are open to find things which expand your comfort zone will mean the question, should I give it a go, probably won't even enter your head.