… even when you’re trying not to
Have you ever had a conversation at work or in your personal life, where you wanted to either share something – or find something out, and somehow the dialogue deteriorated to a bad place?
I know that in the spirit of walking my own talk, when I engage someone in a discussion, especially if it’s a topic of significance – I approach the communication with a sense of openness and a conscious intent for a mutually beneficial outcome.
But sometimes, even when I’m using the same tools that I share with audiences and clients, the situation backfires on me and becomes exactly what I was trying so hard to avoid.
There’s a phenomena in the human psyche referred to as anchors. It happens when a person is in a highly emotional, agitated or fearful state. A psycho-emotional-physiological association is imprinted as a memory attachment to that particular moment in time.
What’s bizarre about this is that sometime down the road, even decades later, that very same highly charged state can be instantaneously reactivated for no apparent reason.
Here’s a couple stories that demonstrate what I’m talking about.
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Years ago I was having a communication with a lady after dinner. We were talking about how our relationship was evolving and beginning to explore what a future together might look like. She shared with me that she had some trust issues stemming from people having let her down by not being there for her when she really needed them to be.
I positioned my chair so that our knees were almost touching and placed my hands on her knees. I was proceeding to let her know that I would never behave like the people she was describing to me, and before I’d even finished the first sentence, she pushed herself away, jumped up and became highly agitated – to the point she almost ran out of the house to protect herself. I was dumbfounded.
After calming down, she told me an incredible story. Her earliest childhood memories were of her mother (a woman who was eventually deemed clinically insane) sitting her down in a chair directly in front of her, knee to knee with her hands on her knees and scolding her in a psycho-emotionally violent way for hours on end.
And here I was, decades later, pushing on the very same button, and causing her to go into a state of sheer panic. This was so not the end in mind I was aiming for.
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In a more recent situation I was dating a lady, and this relationship had an extra degree of challenge because our primary languages weren’t the same, and we’d each grown up in very different cultures.
A few times I noticed that we were drifting apart rather than becoming closer, so being Mr. Communication, I suggested we sit down and have a nice chat, thinking this would help to close the gap. Each time I used this strategy she’d become defensive, and once again, the situation was moving in the exact opposite direction of where I was hoping it would go.
Remembering the encounter from the earlier story, I decided to ask her what happens inside, mentally, emotionally or physically, when I asked for us to sit and talk. She replied that in her cultural upbringing if she was performing as was expected of her no mention was ever made, however if there was a problem with her performance, her parents, older siblings, teachers or employers would ask her to sit down so they could express their dissatisfaction.
So here I am again, with the best of intentions, pushing a button to an anchor I didn’t know was there.
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The message here is that if you’re attempting to have a meaningful communication, and it’s going badly, you might want to explore the possibility of an anchor having been tripped. If this is the case and a button has been pushed, until that anchors dealt with, the likelihood of a healthy and productive communication is not so good.
Try inquiring as to what happens internally when you engage them about this particular topic, or how they may be reacting to your communication style. You might find some interesting pieces of experiential information tied to an anchor which is inevitably hindering your good intentions.
Barry Moniak
Change Agent
