You now have two tools you can use for life. The Reactivity Scale helps you monitor your reactions to various situations, particularly those in which your reaction doesn’t sync with the requirements of the moment. The Activation Triangle helps you determine the nature of your reaction: have you escalated toward fight or flight, or have you moved toward a state demobilization.

Often the mere recognition of a reaction will suffice to bring equilibrium. You may have noticed already that when you use these tools to gain a deeper awareness of your reaction that your reaction dissipates under its own power. That’s great! Like I said in the last Audio Note, not all reactions hold a deeper meaning. For those that do, I’m eventually going to introduce you to a framework you can use to sharpen your understanding of what’s actually going on in those moments.

My assumption throughout the Selfship process is that humans operate at a less-than-conscious level. Our reactions emerge from us without premeditation. One minute we’re in Zone 1 and the next we’re at a 10 in Zone 4 when the situation required a 4. We didn’t plan to react. We didn’t put it in our calendar—“Have a massive over reaction at 1:30 today.” It just happened.

This assumption flies in the face of how most of us perceive ourselves most of the time. We go through the day upright and conscious. In that state we believe because we’re conscious and not asleep we go through the day assuming that a state of “eyes wide open” must mean we’re conscious. The reality is that even though we’re conscious, we’re not aware that what drives our perceptions, assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors takes place at a less than conscious level.

We take in about 11,000,000 pieces of information per second through our five senses. The majority of the information comes through the eyes—10,000,000 signals to our brain each second. How much of this information are we able to process at a conscious level? About 40 pieces of information. That’s like eating eating for a year but only converting that one piece of lettuce you ate at Thanksgiving into nutrients your body can use.

But just because we don’t process the information consciously doesn’t mean we flush the other 10,940 pieces of information. As it turns out, this information shapes what some call our “adaptive subconscious.” As we take in information, our adaptive subconscious hones its ability to recognize patterns in our environments. The fact that we’re not consciously aware of these patterns is no indication that we’re not tracking them. We are. All the time. And it’s from these patterns that we derive meaning about what we believe is actually going on in our environment. Take a look at Strangers Unto Ourselves, by Timothy Wilson, and Predictably Irrational, by ????? For future exploration.

Several Audio Notes ago I mentioned a leader that stood up and walked out of a small group when we started to talk about self awareness. As the 11,000,000 pieces of information came flooding in each second, his adaptive subconscious detected a pattern that he translated as a threat to his survival. He could see where the conversation was going and what that it would require him to reflect on himself. For reasons I’ll probably never know, the prospect of deepening his self awareness triggered an early warning radar system that took him into Zone 4. In a fully mobilized state, he fled the room. All of this took place at a less-than-conscious level.

So what can we do about the fact that we’re most mostly unconscious beings? To whatever degree the Reactivity Scale and Activation Triangle, you’re way ahead of the game. As I said in the last Audio Note, our subconscious expresses itself in our reactions. With the use of these tools, you can begin to take advantage of what your subconscious has to teach you about yourself.

As I said, we’re going to get into frameworks you can use to deepen your understanding of yourself in this way. For now we’re focussing on the tools you need to be the most self regulated person in the room. Focus on using the Reactivity Scale and Activation Triangle to monitor your reactions and regulate yourself.

Now that you have these tools in hand, here are a few practices you can employ to improve self regulation when you experience high levels of activation. The reason these practices work is that they reconnect you with your body. Anytime you enter the Zone 4 (Over activation) or Zone 5 (Under activation), you create psychological distance between your conscious self and your body. Psychologists refer to this as dissociation. The following activities reconnect you with your body.

These movements help you ground when you notice your reaction grows out of sync with a situation. Select the practice that matches the severity of your activation. These are going to sound weird at first, but once you try them and see the value you’ll recognize them as anything but odd.

1) Moderate Activation

Use subtle movements to refocus your attention on your body and pay attention to the sensations these movements produce. Curl your toes in your shoes, or rub your hands together. Just notice how the resulting feeling.

2) Medium to Severe Activation

The goal for these movements is to produce a sense of exertion and release in your larger muscle groups. Press your feet into the floor until your quadriceps tire then slowly release the energy. I’ve done this in a board room seated at a table without anyone ever noticing. If you’re in a space by yourself try slowly pushing into a wall until your arms are fully extended, then relax. Both activities will help ground you.

Notice that you’re proceeding with a high degree of control and gentleness. While you may feel like making more aggressive movements in a state of high activation, doing so often serves to further escalate your already-activated state. That’s why it’s paramount that you proceed with caution.

Books like Anchored, which I mentioned in the last Audio Note, contains additional practices you can use to reconnect with your body. Try these and notice how you respond. Pay attention particularly to your breath. A healthy discharge of energy will produce an involuntary deep breath. Then you know that you’ve drawn closer to the grounded state in Zone 1.

Life is the best teacher of all. We want to be open to what it brings out in us, but we need to develop the ability to regulate our reactions so that we can learn from them instead of being swept away by them. That’s the point of these exercises. Put them into practice and see how it goes.

In summary, the takeaways from this note include:

1) We operate throughout the day at a less-than-conscious level

2) Our reactions can teach us if we’re willing and have the tools to learn from them

3) We can use controlled movements to bring ourselves back to Zone 1

Now we’re ready to move into Nature and Nurture.

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