Are you Reactive or Responsive in the face of a surprise change? What clues does your body give when you have something come out of left field?
Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist, psychologist and Holocaust survivor, spoke of an essential piece of knowledge that will help you move from reactivity to responsiveness:
…between stimulus and response is a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.
If you have a tendency to fly off the handle when confronted by surprise change, learning to practice a different way of being will be helpful to your body and your people.
Here is an acronym for you to practice: NICE
- Notice what you are experiencing in your body with the surprise change
- Identify where in your body you are experiencing the reaction
- Count–practice box or square breathing. Inhale for four counts, hold your breath for four counts, exhale for four and hold for four
- Engage with the change from a more calm, centered place as a result of the first three steps of the acronym
We all want to be nice, right?
A resource that helped me begin this practice is Aundi Kolber’s book Try Softer. Her words are straightforward and invitational:
Our bodies do communicate with us; even if we feel disconnected, our bodies are holding and witnessing the experiences of our lives–and if we can learn to listen, if we can learn to speak the language of our bodies, we can unlock a whole new understanding of how we move through the world.
I would love to hear your thoughts and if you apply NICE as a practice, what you learn about yourself. As always, please reach out to me lisa@lisalewiscoaching.com OR sign up for the monthly Resource Recap newsletter at letgoleaninpodcast.com
