In her Ted talk, Jill Bolte Taylor describes her stroke and losing her language skills, but having an acute sense of people’s intentions when they were in her room. She asked people to be responsible for the energy they were bringing into her room.
How do we get responsible for our energy? We have heard the expression – he/she brightens a room. We don’t actually mean that they added more physical light to the space, we mean the energy they bring to the space feels like light. They are people that are quick to smile, are upbeat and have a contagious effect on those around them. They draw people to them and inspire people to want to be more like that or have more time with them. We have also likely experienced the opposite, someone dragging into a room, scowl on the face, slamming stuff down on the table. Not exactly inspiring confidence that the upcoming meeting is going to be a great one.
How intentional are you when you show up to a space? Do you bring energy or drain energy from a room?
Sometimes it isn’t even what you say, just your posture and facial expression can add or subtract from the environment.
So, on days when you are feeling like a drain – are you just supposed to hide from people so you don’t drain energy from rooms? Well, that is one approach. You might also try this:
- Recognize what your posture, self talk, facial expression, body language is saying in the moment. Ask yourself, is this the message I want to send? If yes, you are good to go. If not, move to the next step.
- Get intentional about what you would rather be communicating and feeling instead of how you are currently feeling and communicating. Think about how your desired state looks and feels.
- Fake it. Fake a posture and facial expression that don’t match how you feel right now, but do match how you would like to feel for a few minutes. See if smiling and sitting up straight, shoulders back doesn’t help shift your energy a bit. Maybe try some exercise, get your body moving and you may be more energized and more able to share positive energy with others. Or perhaps you need to slow down and get calm, take some deep centering breaths. Whatever it is that best mimics how you want to feel, try mimicking the behavior and thoughts you associate with that feeling.
One morning I “woke up on the wrong side of the bed”. I could feel myself dragging and being an energy drain. I knew I had a meeting to attend as soon as I got to the office. I don’t want to be the drain, but I don’t have energy to do anything else I thought. So, I challenged myself to smile all the way to work. This was an interesting exercise for me. I didn’t feel particularly happy about anything, so my smile at first was very fake and felt silly. Feeling silly was a little bit funny to me. Then I started thinking about how I might look to other drivers with a ridiculous smile on my face, that made it even funnier to me and my smile became genuine. I started to look for things to smile about and people to smile at as I drove into work, having challenged myself to smile the whole way into the office. My cheeks started to hurt, but I kept doing it anyway (I am a bit stubborn when I set my mind to something).
When I got to the office, I was in a great mood. I could hardly remember what made me grumpy earlier in the morning. Just sitting up straight and smiling during my ride into work, while at first faking it, turned into genuine smile and gratefulness for my day and left me with a much improved mood. I have no doubt, I showed up a better person to that meeting.
How do you take responsibility for how you show up? What techniques do you use to “show up” better?
I’d love to hear from you about how this work or other ways you take responsibility for how you show up. Contact me at nikki@ridgelinecoaching.com.
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