What happens when you challenge
Tuning In
someone’s thinking?
Listening with an integrated mind takes
In order to define who we are and make sense of the world
around us, our brains develop constructs and rules that we
strongly protect without much thought. In Who’s in Charge?:
Free Will and the Science of the Brain (Ecco, 2011), neuroscientist
Michael S. Gazzaniga says we get stuck in our automatic
thought-processing and fool ourselves into thinking we are
right. When someone asks us why we did something, we
immediately come up with an answer even if the response
doesn’t make complete sense. We instantly concoct a brilliant
reason for procrastinating on a task, for prioritizing reading
email over a project deadline or for making life decisions based
on how we will feel in the future when, in truth, we can never be
sure how the circumstances will impact us emotionally.
To disturb this automatic processing, you reflect holes in your
client’s logic and ask questions that reveal the fears, needs
and desires keeping the constructs in place. NeuroBusiness
Group founder and CEO Srinivasan S. Pillay, M.D., writes that
this coaching approach is the only way to stop the automatic
processing. Reflection and questions crack the force field that
protects your client’s sense of reality, enabling her to explore,
examine and change strongly held beliefs and behavior.
The reaction to bringing these things to light will register
somewhere between slight discomfort and an emotional
outpour. Momentary confusion and abrupt realizations trigger
emotional reactions. The truth can hurt or at least surprise you
before it sets you free.
Therefore, negative emotions can be a good sign. When
your client realizes she has blocked a truth that was in her
face the entire time, she may feel mortified, angry or sad.
She is finally confronting her rationalizations and seeing her
blind spots. For a moment, her brain does not know what
to think. As Nessa Victoria Bryce writes in the July/August
2014 issue of Scientific American Mind, this pause in certainty
as the brain rushes to reinterpret information is necessary
for a clearer and broader understanding of the situation to
emerge. In researching how coaching works in the brain for
The Discomfort Zone, I found this moment of uncertainty is
necessary for behavioral learning to occur. Only with this new
awareness will your client willfully commit to behaving in a
conscious and consistent practice. Here are
four tips to help you access your intuition
and positively challenge your clients:
1. Sense what your client is
experiencing as you listen.
Don’t just analyze her words. Feel
what emotions come up for you and
reflect to her what you notice without
assessing if you are right or wrong.
2. Ask yourself what you are feeling.
Your emotions are likely reacting to
what your client is feeling. Either you
are experiencing empathy where your
brain is mirroring hers or you are feeling
anxious because you sense her anger,
fear, disappointment or confusion. Ask
her if she is feeling the same emotions
as you. If her experience is different, she
will let you know, thereby creating an
opportunity for deeper exploration.
3. Allow your heart and gut to have
a voice.
Sit up tall and ground yourself in the
present moment. Consciously guide
yourself to feel curious (open mind),
compassionate (open heart) and
courageous (open at your core). Try to
keep your head, heart and gut open and
balanced while you listen. When you feel
uncomfortable, speak and listen more
deeply from your gut. When you feel
impatient or begin to judge your client,
focus on reopening your heart.
4. Use silence to allow your client
to form new thoughts and
perspectives.
Silence is often an indication that
your reflections and questions have
penetrated your client’s protective
barrier. A new sense of self and reality is
trying to emerge. It may take some time
before your client can articulate what
she now understands to be true. Be
quiet while her brain is working.
different way.
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