'In the moment-Emotional Agility in Action.'

An approach that helps me navigate forward through uncertainty.

Summary

Inspired by the work of Dr. Viktor E. Frankl¹ and Dr. Susan David², I developed an ‘everyday mindful approach’ to help me navigate challenging situations and emotions. Can it help you?

Below is a ‘How-to guide’ based on Frankl's quote and the corresponding explanations of David’s Emotional Agility.³ I love visual explanations, e.g. mindmaps⁴. Breaking down the quote demonstrates how profound Frankl’s words are. Being mindful of how we’re affected by a stimulus can give us greater clarity and agency. Leveraging the work of Susan David gives us the practical tools to do this.

Viktor Frankl’s quote:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

- Viktor E. Frankl

First step illustration of this quote:

1. Stimulus and Showing up to our emotions

Something happens, and an emotion is triggered. These are the corresponding articles containing the work of Dr Susan David.

• Dr Susan David 'Teaching Emotional Agility to Children' (December 21 2019) A short 6 minute video-interview.

• ‘Decoding Emotions and Experiences’. Emotional Granularity. Drs. Susan David and Brené Brown help us decode our emotions.

• 'Wholehearted living: Avoid Toxic Positivity and Rethink our beliefs around Emotions.' Showing up to our Emotions. Adam Grant & Susan David.

‘Showing up’ to our emotions and to ourselves. Acknowledge the feeling, even if you don’t know precisely why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling. Try to articulate the emotion. This results in a de-escalation of the feeling. Not ‘I am frustrated’ but ‘I notice that I’m feeling frustrated’. Dig below the surface.

Rethinking our relationship with our emotions can help us be more compassionate toward ourselves. Learning more about our feelings can also help us manage ourselves and others more constructively in times of crisis.

2. How can we recognise the need for space? Be self-compassionate.

• Resource: Dr Susan David's Concept of 'Stepping Out' (Oct 29, 2016) 2-minute video.

Self-compassion is about relating to ourselves kindly, including our flaws.

Here’s an introduction to Dr Kristin Neff and Dr Chris Germer’s work on self-compassion:

• Resource: Managing the Mental Load. Understanding and Enabling Yourself.

The three core components are:

• Treating ourselves like we would a friend, with kindness.

• Common humanity. Not how we are different from others but how we are the same. The shared human experience. We are ALL perfectly imperfect.

• Mindfulness

I’ve found that slowing down and being present in the moment has helped me ‘catch myself’, think, and pause. Instead of having knee-jerk, reflexive, automatic reactions, I’m improving at stopping myself from reacting mindlessly. We can’t do this one hundred per cent of the time, but we can get better at it when it matters most.

Being more mindful has helped me become more aware of what stimuli may lead to specific emotions. My head and heart are better ‘primed’ to ‘create space and think’. Journaling and investing time to build insights about myself gives me 'a frame of reference’. It’s also easier to see patterns, recurring themes, and potential triggers.

These two articles give you insights and tools to discover more about yourself based on your historical life events.

• Recommendation: Bruce Feiler's 'Life is in the Transitions'. Mastering Change at Any Age. TEDx Talk and Book. Free access to the video. Paid access to suggested prompts for generating your own insights.

• Inspiration: 'The Timeline Exercise' for an up-to-date Frame of Reference. Putting events into perspective.

3. How can we create more thinking ‘space’?

You can create more distance and space from the stimulus or the situation by moving out of the room or taking a moment to pause and breathe for five to ten seconds. Emotions are transient. Depending on the situation, this may constitute part of the choice/decision/action.

You can detach from old stories that ‘hook you into a way of reacting’. Resource: Dr Susan David's Concept of 'Stepping Out' (Oct 29, 2016) 2-minute video.

4. Is it possible to optimise this thinking space?

What can we do to be more effective in our thinking? E.g. a series of questions to help support you in thinking something through:

• ‘Hey! Pause and breathe. Don’t say anything right now. Take a time-out.

• CHECK. Are you ‘hangry’, thirsty, tired?

• What’s going on here? What exactly are you feeling?

Second Step illustration of Frankl’s quote

Second illustration of the Frankl quote.

5. How can we harness our ‘power’? How do we choose our response?

We can harness our power to choose our response by understanding ourselves more deeply: our talents, gifts, strengths, and weaknesses.

We can employ that power more effectively when we identify and become more aware of the default automatic reactions/stories from the past that can derail us.

Preparing ourselves for ‘those moments’ when we’re affected by a stimulus gives us more agency and control when we think we have none. We can’t control everything that happens, but we can be better prepared and primed so we can think.

Bruce Feiler’s TED Talk and the Timeline exercise noted above can help you build more insights. In addition, I use ARQs to review more recent events.

• Inspiration 'Ten Annual Review Questions.' ARQs to give you pause.

‘How’ I choose my response relies on being clear about my values:

• Resource: Dr Susan David 'Walking your Why' Interview with LeadersIn. (July 18, 2016).

Values-driven actions, ‘qualities of action’, take me closer to the person I want to be. There is a choice point in the ‘space’ to move towards or away from your values. Hence, it's helpful to mindfully prime yourself to be ready to make these choices in the heat of the moment.

Painting a mental picture of what could happen long term if you keep ‘walking your why’ and moving towards your values can help you stay on your path. Articulating your definition of ‘meaningful success’ also makes it feel achievable.

Third and Final Step Illustration of Frankl’s quote.

The final illustration of the complete quote.

6. How do we make the response? What is our growth and our freedom?

• Emotional Agility: 'Moving on' with the help of Piggybacking Habits. Values-aligned action habits. Dr Susan David, Charles Duhigg and James Clear.

Mindfulness, awareness and being present enables agency. Realistically, there are many actions which become automatic.

You’ll see here Charles Duhigg’s quote, in which he highlights that habits are our brains’ effort-saving instinct to be as efficient and energy-saving as possible. However, habits can also be conditioned by unconscious bias or succumb to emotional or intellectual rigidity. This is why I wholeheartedly believe in curating a growth mindset.⁵

‘Fear walking’ is part of that growth mindset—choosing a response that aligns with your values regardless of popular beliefs or norms.

“You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great,” Maya Angelou told Bill Moyers in a 1973 interview. (27 June 2017)

Every choice point and decision is an empowered leadership act of self.

• Professor Carol Dweck: 'Developing A Growth Mindset'. Embracing The power of 'Not yet' (October 9, 2014)

Our power is capitalising on our agency, empowering ourselves so that we don’t mindlessly abdicate our power and responsibility to someone or something else.

We have the capacity and ability to choose to be the authors and leading characters in our life’s story, to learn, grow and reach our full potential freely. What we decide and why is our unique power and gift.

It is our life, our story, our growth, and our freedom. Thank you, Viktor Frankl and Susan David!

Please ‘❤️’ LIKE the article & consider subscribing!

Carer Mentor by Victoria is free to read. If you have the means and would like to support the publication, I welcome monthly (£6) and annual (£50) subscriptions. Thank you for your ongoing support.

1. Source: Brittanica. Viktor Frankl (born March 26, 1905, Vienna, Austria—died September 2, 1997, Vienna) Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist who developed the psychological approach known as logotherapy, widely recognized as the “third school” of Viennese psychotherapy, after the “first school” of Sigmund Freud and the “second school” of Alfred Adler. The basis of Frankl’s theory was that the primary motivation of an individual is the search for meaning in life and that the primary purpose of psychotherapy should be to help the individual find that meaning. Subjects Of Study: depression, ethics, hedonistic paradox, suicide. 1942 Frankl and his family were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where his father perished. In 1944 the surviving Frankls were taken to Auschwitz, where his mother was exterminated; his wife died later in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. As Frankl observed the brutality and degradation around him, he theorized that those inmates who had some meaning in their lives were more likely to survive; he himself tried to recreate the manuscript of a book he had been writing before his capture. Click here for a biographical timeline.

2. Susan David, Ph.D. is one of the world’s leading management thinkers and an award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist. Her TED Talk on the topic of emotional agility has been seen by more than 10 million people. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal and often appears on national radio and television. #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author. Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award Winner. Harvard Business Review Management Idea of the Year. Cofounder of the Institute of Coaching (a Harvard Medical School/McLean affiliate). Click here for her website.

3. Susan David's Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life, published in 2016, and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, first published in 1946.

4. Explanation of how to make a mindmap using Mindtools. A helpful resource hub for self-development. CLICK here

5. Professor Carol Dweck ‘Embracing the Power of Not Yet’