Self improvement: Turn Down the Rheostat

I woke up one morning with a terrible sore throat that got worse as the day went on, instead of better, as I had hoped. By the time I realized it was a true case of laryngitis, and all I could do was croak, it was too late to cancel the Cub Scouts who were due at my house right after school. I wondered how I would manage when I could only whisper, and then I discovered the miracle. Those squirming, busy, full-of-energy exuberant 8-year-olds hung on every word I said when it was whispered.

Instead of having the usual management problems I did when I raised my voice with commands or laments, things went very smoothly. My voice must’ve sounded very soothing to them. Also they had to quiet down in order to hear me. After all, they didn’t want to miss their brownies and milk!

It was a real lesson to me that my loud voice and strident tones were the cause of more friction than I was aware of.

I also noticed at work when I had a cold and my ears were stopped up that I had a better disposition. The loud and strident tones of others weren’t affecting me the way they usually did. The buzzing and clanking of machines, the shouts of others, the ringing phones all were muffled and seemed far away. I didn’t notice every little thing that went on and it was easier to concentrate. Not that I’d want stopped-up ears all the time, but what a gift upon occasion. It made for a much quieter world, and this affected my disposition.

If you’re highly sensitive and experience internal as well as external stress, or if you’re experiencing a lot of external stress, you need to slow it down and, as they say, “stop the madness”.

Put up a Plexiglas shield between you and the stimuli from the outer world. Don’t hear as much, and don’t talk as loudly yourself. In fact cut down on the amount of talking you do, as well. Calm things down and you’ll calm yourself down. Manage the external stimulation that’s coming your way, and you’ll feel less stressed.

I was reminded of this when reading an email from someone on one of the lists I belong to. She was talking about how her perfectionism got in the way of her housecleaning, and that when she started getting that way, she took off her eye glasses to do her cleaning and then everything was fine.

It’s sometimes a relief to hear and see less, yes? And you can also apply this to forgiveness, and what you remember. I have a friend who’s well into her 80’s whose memory is a bit less than it used to be, she tells me. She tells me, “I’m a much nicer person now than I used to be. I no longer remember every single thing someone tells me, every slight, every negative comment. I’m much more forgiving.” I think she has a point.

One of the less mentioned benefits of developing your emotional intelligence is that eventually you can modulate your emotions. They don’t “come in” as strongly. You don’t experience them as strongly. Therefore they’re easier to manage, like the cub scouts no longer agitated by my loud tones who were therefore better behaved.

You can also benefit by learning to turn down, your negative self-talk. These are the things you’re always telling yourself in your head that you may or may not be aware of, which actually make things worse. These are the things that pop out of your mouth when you miss an appointment, for instance, like, “Why am I so stupid?” or “Can’t I ever get it right?” Pay attention to how you talk to yourself. Make it positive and self-soothing. The other doesn’t work. Get off your back and on your side!

Slow it all down. When you immediately react to what someone says is when you are most likely to say something that will either agitate the situation, harm you or the other, or that you’ll regret having said later.

This is when we speak like the knee jerk reaction when the doctor taps our knee with that rubber thing – as if it were automatic, and we had no control over the words that come out of our mouths, or the gestures and expressions we use, which can be equally damaging. If someone has rolled their eyes at you in disgust when you’ve made a suggestion or asked a pertinent question, you know what I mean.

This is when we get that flash anger and say, “That’s it. I quit,” or “Pack your bags and get out.” The take-home point is to ‘get’ that you’ve been insulted or what not, but not to take it so “hard” that you can’t deal with it in a way that’s constructive and that won’t sabotage you.

Work with an emotional intelligence coach and learn how to slow down your reactions to things. It will give you time to think them through and this will almost always bring better results.

And try the thing about whispering next time you’re with a young child. It works beautifully. In fact they’re kind of fascinated by the whole thing. Which is to say, as we say in coaching, “try one thing different.”