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The 90 second rule ..... |
As part of our Life Coach Training, we get a once a month life coaching session with Martha Beck. We had one today and what a privilege! TAO is a philosophy that she uses in her coaching and training which stands for TRANSPARENCY, AUTHENTICITY AND OPENNESS! Well, she definitely walks the talk.
One of the issues we all have as a Coach, psychotherapist, or anyone who deals with people and their feelings/behaviours on a daily basis, is that one can so easily take on the baggage of these people. An issue that came up in our session today - what if we really empathise with this person and cannot help ourselves with showing our emotion - whether it be shock or tears. Are we supposed to put on a mask and not react to highly charged, emotional issues? Are we supposed to be strong and not allow ourselves to show emotion or allow ourselves to react? Of course, this is what we are generally conditioned to do - be strong, you cannot show your emotion as it is a sign of weakness, boys don't cry, you have to be strong for everyone, etc. And there are so many more examples I could probably fill a page with the conditioning we received when growing up.
What was Martha's response? Of course it is okay to show emotion in front of your client!!!! It shows your authenticity. She then referred to Jill Bolte Taylor's 90 second rule ... (I'll explain this in a minute). I read JBT's book a few years ago as my father-in-lay died of a brain aneurism. My grandmother died of a stroke when I was about 10 years old - something I will never forget. So when she mentioned JBT, I immediately had a "oh that sounds interesting!" reaction and noted it. Martha calls it the marmoset response. (read up about the marmoset's - they are only found in Madagascar and are very interesting little creatures).
Ok ... so what is the 90 second rule .... according to JBT ....
"it only takes 90 seconds to have an emotional circuit triggered, flush a physiological response through a body and then flush it completely out. She calls it the 90-second rule. “We can all learn that we can take full responsibility for what thoughts we are thinking and what emotional circuitry we are feeling. Knowing this and acting on this can lead us into feeling a wonderful sense of well-being and peacefulness.”
Martha used it in her training today to explain (and this is not verbatim - just hopefully gives you the gist of what she was saying) ....
It takes 90 seconds for an emotion to pass through you without fighting it. Bad emotions only last for 90 seconds - feel the feeling for 90 seconds. This will only benefit the client if they know you are genuine and empathetic by showing you emotions and explaining what you are feeling - this will allow them to FEEL as well. So much of our disfunction comes from holding back our grief. If you fight the feeling it tends to stick around for much longer than 90 seconds and could maybe stick around for a life time."
OK ... so how does this help us as ADDer's or AD/HDer parents? Firstly, many of us cannot immediately identify our feelings except for the fact that we are feeling something and when we react (generally inappropriately) we are told off! Many of us cannot identify emotion in others or don't understand why someone is reacting the way they did!. Phew! This makes it very difficult!!!
So the point I am trying to make ... if you are feeling emotional and you don't know why or someone else is emotional and you don't know why... allow this emotion to happen - it only happens for 90 seconds......! Don't try and make them or yourself stop feeling the emotion ... If you do ..... you will store it somewhere in your body (mine normally my shoulders or my stomach) and that is no good! My teen who has ADD stores it in his jaw. We initially thought he had ear infections (which he did occasionally) but we were often told by the doctors - but there is nothing wrong with his ears. Finally, a doctor gave us an explanation of why he constantly complained about earache - it was referred pain from his jaw muscles. The stress of ADD and not being allowed to feel frustrated, angry, tearful, etc and being told constantly that he was not making an effort and that he is lazy was stored in his body. Now when he has an earache and it's not an infection - we start looking at what has been happening in his life. Firstly, Boys are not the greatest communicators - ask them "How was it at school today?" Answer : "Fine", or "same as yesterday". And secondly, they are conditioned by society that they are not allowed to express their feelings except through being physical.
Another thing Martha brought up that I think is really significant! As women we feel marginalised but men these days even more so as they are being crushed into little boxes and don't have much room too move at all and are being suffocated. They are the ones that are most affected by our societal norms! Even though they initially established the rules of conduct, they are now being held at gunpoint for the value systems they introduced, implemented and that were accepted by all for centuries!!!!
The biggest issue for men ... of course they can't show emotion ... it is definitely a sign of weakness! So they store all their emotion somewhere in their body usually leading to heart attacks, strokes, cancer, etc.
I'm a woman and a feminist ... so why should I care? I have 3 boys (actually 4 including my husband - :-)). They see me as an esoteric mad woman who is far too emotional and introduces far to many concepts that are emotionally based. I have tried very hard NOT to bring them up in the traditional system but alas, I have failed ... or not? Try to teach boys to play with dolls and not with boy toys!!!! They gravitate towards the boy toys naturally. Anyway that's okay.
As parents - let's allow our children to show emotion! Let's show them that we are authentic and honest - be vulnerable and take your mask off ... 90 seconds of emotion is better than a lifetime of issues!
One of the issues we all have as a Coach, psychotherapist, or anyone who deals with people and their feelings/behaviours on a daily basis, is that one can so easily take on the baggage of these people. An issue that came up in our session today - what if we really empathise with this person and cannot help ourselves with showing our emotion - whether it be shock or tears. Are we supposed to put on a mask and not react to highly charged, emotional issues? Are we supposed to be strong and not allow ourselves to show emotion or allow ourselves to react? Of course, this is what we are generally conditioned to do - be strong, you cannot show your emotion as it is a sign of weakness, boys don't cry, you have to be strong for everyone, etc. And there are so many more examples I could probably fill a page with the conditioning we received when growing up.
What was Martha's response? Of course it is okay to show emotion in front of your client!!!! It shows your authenticity. She then referred to Jill Bolte Taylor's 90 second rule ... (I'll explain this in a minute). I read JBT's book a few years ago as my father-in-lay died of a brain aneurism. My grandmother died of a stroke when I was about 10 years old - something I will never forget. So when she mentioned JBT, I immediately had a "oh that sounds interesting!" reaction and noted it. Martha calls it the marmoset response. (read up about the marmoset's - they are only found in Madagascar and are very interesting little creatures).
Ok ... so what is the 90 second rule .... according to JBT ....
"it only takes 90 seconds to have an emotional circuit triggered, flush a physiological response through a body and then flush it completely out. She calls it the 90-second rule. “We can all learn that we can take full responsibility for what thoughts we are thinking and what emotional circuitry we are feeling. Knowing this and acting on this can lead us into feeling a wonderful sense of well-being and peacefulness.”
Martha used it in her training today to explain (and this is not verbatim - just hopefully gives you the gist of what she was saying) ....
It takes 90 seconds for an emotion to pass through you without fighting it. Bad emotions only last for 90 seconds - feel the feeling for 90 seconds. This will only benefit the client if they know you are genuine and empathetic by showing you emotions and explaining what you are feeling - this will allow them to FEEL as well. So much of our disfunction comes from holding back our grief. If you fight the feeling it tends to stick around for much longer than 90 seconds and could maybe stick around for a life time."
OK ... so how does this help us as ADDer's or AD/HDer parents? Firstly, many of us cannot immediately identify our feelings except for the fact that we are feeling something and when we react (generally inappropriately) we are told off! Many of us cannot identify emotion in others or don't understand why someone is reacting the way they did!. Phew! This makes it very difficult!!!
So the point I am trying to make ... if you are feeling emotional and you don't know why or someone else is emotional and you don't know why... allow this emotion to happen - it only happens for 90 seconds......! Don't try and make them or yourself stop feeling the emotion ... If you do ..... you will store it somewhere in your body (mine normally my shoulders or my stomach) and that is no good! My teen who has ADD stores it in his jaw. We initially thought he had ear infections (which he did occasionally) but we were often told by the doctors - but there is nothing wrong with his ears. Finally, a doctor gave us an explanation of why he constantly complained about earache - it was referred pain from his jaw muscles. The stress of ADD and not being allowed to feel frustrated, angry, tearful, etc and being told constantly that he was not making an effort and that he is lazy was stored in his body. Now when he has an earache and it's not an infection - we start looking at what has been happening in his life. Firstly, Boys are not the greatest communicators - ask them "How was it at school today?" Answer : "Fine", or "same as yesterday". And secondly, they are conditioned by society that they are not allowed to express their feelings except through being physical.
Another thing Martha brought up that I think is really significant! As women we feel marginalised but men these days even more so as they are being crushed into little boxes and don't have much room too move at all and are being suffocated. They are the ones that are most affected by our societal norms! Even though they initially established the rules of conduct, they are now being held at gunpoint for the value systems they introduced, implemented and that were accepted by all for centuries!!!!
The biggest issue for men ... of course they can't show emotion ... it is definitely a sign of weakness! So they store all their emotion somewhere in their body usually leading to heart attacks, strokes, cancer, etc.
I'm a woman and a feminist ... so why should I care? I have 3 boys (actually 4 including my husband - :-)). They see me as an esoteric mad woman who is far too emotional and introduces far to many concepts that are emotionally based. I have tried very hard NOT to bring them up in the traditional system but alas, I have failed ... or not? Try to teach boys to play with dolls and not with boy toys!!!! They gravitate towards the boy toys naturally. Anyway that's okay.
As parents - let's allow our children to show emotion! Let's show them that we are authentic and honest - be vulnerable and take your mask off ... 90 seconds of emotion is better than a lifetime of issues!