Composure (future proof pt1.)
Is it just me or does the pace of life seem to be getting faster. Does life also feel less stable generally? A short while ago I decided that I needed to up my own game. I needed to future proof my life if I was going to feel more comfortable. To my mind there are three areas that need to be looked at when future proofing life, resilience, adaptability and composure. I decided to use hypnosis to build my skills in these three areas, so I created a program to understand each of them better and then to improve my own abilities and skills. This blog post is a very brief summary of my investigations into the first part of that trio that led to the change programme.
Composure – noun - the state or feeling of being calm and in control of oneself.
We can control ourselves, or we can be controlled
Having a locus of control describes the extent to which we believe we have an influence over the outcomes of events in our life, Having an internal locus of control means we have a greater belief that we have a say in what happens in our life. Whereas having an external locus of control means that we see our life as determined by exterior forces, out of our control. You can take a test to see understand your own locus of control here.
So how do we increase our ability to control our life and by definition remain composed even when under pressure? There are a few areas to address.
Don’t allow emotions to get in the way
Composure is not about suppressing emotions; it’s about actively working with them in the moment. Our survival instinct is to avoid pain or discomfort, so when we’re having an unpleasant experience, we resist it. A better approach is to notice our emotions and accept them as happening initially, then deal with them. Labelling our emotions diminishes the intensity of uncomfortable feelings while simultaneously amplifying the intensity of positive emotions. By building an emotional vocabulary, we can increase our understanding of how an intense situation affects us and practice bringing our feelings to the forefront of our awareness. I believe it was Victor Frankl that said ““Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” Composure allows us to stretch that space and choose our response.
Don’t Take Things Personally
Use Hanlon’s razor – never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
The Roman emperor and stoic Marcus Aurelius said that if we are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb us, but our own judgment of them. And it is in our power to wipe out that judgment now. Taking things personally means that they affect us more, we expend energy unnecessarily fighting or worrying about what was said or what others think of it. People have their own issues and live in their own world; we just need to live in ours. By reframing our thoughts and using compassionate self-talk, we can activate sections of our prefrontal cortex that help us move forward in control.
Keep a Positive Mental Attitude
Worrying just takes us down the rabbit hole. Ruminating leads to a single incident eliciting several stress responses, not just one. Both rumination and bottling things up activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, our adrenal glands release the cortisol into the bloodstream, prolonged elevation of cortisol levels can lead to adverse health consequences. Multiple studies have shown that optimism (which can be learned), is what enables people to survive difficult or frightening events.
Respond Decisively
So, if we are stuck in a situation making us worry what can we do? Make a decision, neuroscience research shows that making decisions reduces worry and anxiety. Often in a difficult or frightening scenario if we can do one little thing to make it a little bit better, then do that. If we can do another thing and then another thing, and then we can have cascading positivity as opposed to spiralling negativity. Making decisions engages the prefrontal cortex reducing worry and anxiety. It also helps to overcome striatum activity, pulling us away from negative impulses and routines. So, just ask what is my next step to make this situation just slightly better? Looking objectively at the situation and asking, what kind of problem is this? Allows us to remember similar situations we’ve been in before that looked like this one. We can than leverage our prior experience (or the experiences of others) to allow us to wrap our brain around a frightening scenario and see it as just another version of a problem we’ve solved before. Another useful approach is to imagine what we would say to someone that we cared about in this situation.
Take responsibility
How we feel is heavily influenced by our interpretation of experienced events, rather than the events themselves. We are not disturbed by events, but rather by our judgments about events. Once we understand that there are some things we control and some things we don’t, we can focus on those we can. Taking responsibility for things we can control puts us in a position to react more usefully to things we can’t. We mustn’t abdicate our power, Ralph Waldo Emerson said: What lies behind we and what lies before we are tiny matters compared to what lies within.” Self-regulation is the ability to understand and manage our physical, emotional, and mental reactions so that we can perform and behave more skilfully under stress.
The process I used in hypnosis allows me to access greater levels of self-regulation. It has given me greater ability to control responses within myself, involving both behavioural (personality) and biological (temperament/disposition) approaches. Using hypnosis psychological skills can be developed to manage positive and negative stressors leading to greater composure.
A part of the process involved working with my core beliefs and cognitive distortions to radically change my approach to life and my management of adverse events. Our core beliefs shape how we interpret events, and our cognitive distortions arise from these interpretations.
I also now have better “arousal control”, I have a better handle on my emotions and work with them rather than against them.
Other things that I find help include visualisation and preparation.
Visualisation of problems that might occur and how I might overcome them. I take time to mentally rehearse and visualize myself succeeding. The trick with this process is not to merely fantasize about being perfect and just make myself feel good, because positive fantasies predict poor achievement, they do not generate enough energy to motivate us.
Preparation. Interestingly, as a part of this process I have become more aware of things that may be an issue in the future and I prepare more for what I think may happen, rather than waiting and hoping they won’t happen. I read somewhere that people in difficult situations need to be very realistic about the danger they’re in, balanced with confidence in their ability to handle it.
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