The Power of the Herd (52 page)

Sure enough, doing a quick body scan before entering the round pen with Rasa, Amy couldn't feel her feet. Yet rather than asking her to “make” her body
“get grounded,” as she had been taught to do — with limited success — I invited her to explore what her body was trying to achieve. Knowing that Amy had been working with Emily for over a year and had already learned some important self-regulation skills, I felt confident that she was ready to try a little somatic experiment, one that I had seen work reliably with other ungrounded people over the years.

“In scanning your body, how far down does your awareness go?” I asked Amy.

“To just below my knees,” she said tentatively. “I guess down to my shins.”

“Breathe into your shins, and ask your body: ‘Why stop there?'”

Amy closed her eyes and seemed to struggle for a moment, then sighing in frustration she said, “All I get is the phrase
lighter than air,
but I can't make any sense of it.” In checking in with her shins again, she still couldn't feel her feet, but Amy did notice that her legs seemed to be “getting warmer,” suggesting that she was on the right track even if the message itself wasn't yet decipherable.

“Okay, I want you to imagine two different scenarios, and we're going to see how your body reacts to each one,” I said. “First, imagine going in with Rasa alone. What happens to your body?”

“It feels the same,” Amy replied, shrugging.

“Now imagine me going into the round pen with you and Rasa,” I offered.

Amy's eyes got wide as saucers, and she began to smile. “I can
feel
my feet!”

As it turns out, Amy's body easily
grounded itself
when supported in choosing actions that felt safe. From that day forward, she and Emily began using what they called the “lighter than air” technique for decision making. Amy's lack of sensation in her feet became a warning signal, keeping her from stepping forward until she had weighed her options. “I play through different scenarios in my head as I check in with my body,” Amy explained. “When I can feel my feet, I know that I've hit on a good option, and my body hasn't steered me wrong yet!”

Now that we've explored a number of case studies and helpful hints, it's time to put the body scan into action. Using the following method often, sometimes just for fun, will help you gain confidence in listening to your “horse,” accessing all kinds of information you can put to any number of uses.

Before you enter a situation involving other people (a business meeting, for example), scan down your body in a neutral environment where you are alone (your office, your car, the restroom). Notice what sensations you are feeling — without trying to “relax out of them.”

If any sensations or postures stand out, dialog with your body by expanding the sensation and asking it for a message. What information is that sensation or posture holding? It may be a tension, a feeling of pins and needles, energy, excitement, anxiety, openness, fullness, and so on. (So-called negative as well as positive sensations can hold valuable information.) Imagine breathing into the sensation, sending it oxygen and awareness. This encourages the sensation to “speak,” almost as if it's sending an email to your mind in the form of an image, brief text message, color, memory, song fragment, cliché, poetic phrase, or strange, irrational phrase, and so on. Remember that the message can be simple and straightforward. Feeling “the weight of the world on your shoulders” or that “someone has kicked you in the belly” or that “you don't have a leg to stand on”
is
a message in the form of a metaphor, no less meaningful because it is common!

When you receive the message, whether it makes logical sense or not, check in again with the sensation.

If it has
released completely,
this means the message was received to your body's satisfaction, even if your thinking brain doesn't completely understand the symbol. (Proceed to step 4.)

If the sensation has
released slightly,
it means you're on the right track, but that you probably need to change something. When Maggie's ankles began to relax in response to the message “Gotta be on your toes,” she still had to dismount and connect with the horse before her heels would lower completely in the stirrups. Sometimes you can't immediately address the issue raised, such as a tension related to your spouse that you notice when you are at work. In this case, take note of the body's insight or recommendation, and put it into action the next time you have some quality time with your mate. If a work-related
tension arises at home, you might discuss it briefly with your spouse in order to become congruent, to make sure that he or she doesn't take the agitation, frustration, or anger you're experiencing personally, perhaps inspiring him or her to offer valuable suggestions or support.

If the sensation has
intensified,
it generally means your body has more to say on the subject, or it has other issues to address. (You may choose to ask for another message, if time permits, or check in with the body again later for more information. Remember to invoke the self-regulation program, releasing one “horse” at a time.)

If the sensation
stays the same,
it may mean the circuit between your mind and body has been interrupted or is “off-line” in some way. In most cases, this happens when an initial, subtle message from the body has been ignored or judged as irrational and the mind has come up with a message it thinks is more appropriate. The lack of response from the body means the mind has missed the boat. Go back and engage with the sensation, remaining open to how the body might speak. Remember that the body is often more like an artist than a scientist in its communication style, using imagery, color, song fragments, or odd poetic phrases to communicate insights that are too complex to fit into plain linear statements. However, if you still can't get a message, just move forward with your day, noticing if the sensation changes when you interact with other people, horses, situations, and so on.

When you dialogue with the body, sensations will change. Before you walk into that business meeting, scan down your body one more time, without dialoging, to get a new baseline reading.

If your baseline reading included tension in your right shoulder, butterflies in your stomach, and energy in your hands, notice how these sensations intensify, release, or shift (or what new sensations arise) as you enter the meeting, sit down, and interact with your colleagues. Any new sensations that come into your body are a direct result of something nonverbal that's already happening in that meeting before anyone even speaks a word. If the butterflies in your stomach go away, and the tension in your shoulder releases, your body feels
not only safe but also nourished by the setting or people involved. On the other hand, if you feel like you're getting kicked in the stomach whenever you look at one of your supervisors or potential clients, your body is sending you a potent alarm. If you feel inexplicably agitated by someone who is smiling and saying he's “fine,” this person may be incongruent — in other words he's consciously or unconsciously hiding something. It may be a personal issue, trouble at home, and so on, and truly none of your business. Even so, this person is likely to act unpredictably because of his conflicted emotional state, and his judgment regarding work issues may be temporarily impaired. It is to your advantage to be aware of this.

As new sensations rise or previous baseline sensations intensify, breathe into them and ask for input. Most business meetings offer lots of little opportunities for checking in. Rather than resorting to daydreaming or mentally going over your grocery list when things get tedious, check in with your body, watch other people's nonverbal responses, and take notes. If you feel uncontrollably tense or overwhelmed, you may choose to take a bathroom break. Rather than stepping outside for a smoke (a way of releasing tension
without
getting the message), step into a private space and dialog with your body.

Teams of individuals who are fluent in using the body scan and assessing the messages behind sensations and emotions can engage in consensual leadership, a principle I explore more deeply in Guiding Principle 10, in
chapter 22
. Here the word
consensual
does not mean that everyone agrees, but that everyone is willing and able to “sense together” in determining the most promising course of action. In teams that employ consensual leadership, the group can more accurately assess which team members are calmest, clearest, most experienced, most inspired, or most invested in handling certain challenges.

Using the “other 90 percent,” teams can also enter the unknown more confidently, realizing that their own bodies will flash them little “warning lights” when the plan needs to be altered or reassessed — early enough to avoid a mishap. By checking the Emotional Message Chart in response to these subtle somatic alarms, members can tell the difference between fear (a legitimate environmental threat) and vulnerability (performance anxiety, a need for additional staff or training, or a challenge to an outmoded method, paradigm, or belief system). They can tell the difference between anger (boundaries that have been crossed) and frustration (blocks in the road to success). (These self-assessment, intersubjectivity, and emotional-fitness skills are helpful in
overcoming what Patrick Lencioni calls the “five dysfunctions of a team” in his bestselling leadership book by that name, which we will explore as a part of Guiding Principle 5, in
chapter 17
.)

You can also use this scanning and messaging process privately to aid in problem solving, accessing your body's genius — its direct line to creative, metaphorical, poetic, and intuitive forms of wisdom — to help you develop fresh approaches to challenges that your linear, logical mind might not otherwise entertain or even begin to imagine. Like Amy, you can learn to sense when your body is skeptical of a certain course of action, when it feels safe, and when it feels excited moving forward, allowing you to “really put your heart into” whatever you decide to do.

With
all three
intelligence centers online and aligned, you'll have much more energy to accomplish your goals. Other people will sense your clarity, vision, focus, inspiration, enthusiasm, and
authentic, full-bodied
conviction, finding it difficult to resist following your lead — whether you're the official leader or not. That is
charisma
in the purest, most productive sense of the word.

I
magine you're visiting New York City,
attending your first New York Philharmonic concert, in this case the 2012 Opening Gala with violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman as guest artist. You may be surprised to find that even the cheap seats cost close to a hundred dollars, but you decide to spring for a midpriced ticket. It will be worth the additional investment to sit in the optimal acoustic center of Avery Fisher Hall to hear a living legend accompanied by some of the finest musicians in the world. The evening opens as scheduled with Respighi's enchanting
Fountains of Rome.
Then Perlman takes the stage. Silence falls over the audience as the conductor lifts his baton.

But what if, rather than playing the rhapsodic, emotionally invigorating Tchaikovsky
Violin Concerto
as promised, the orchestra and soloist suddenly decided to play one long, peaceful, optimistic, supportive, C-major chord — beautifully, expertly — for an entire hour?

Imagine the confusion and disappointment you'd feel. Even if you were adaptable and open-minded — or you stayed out of sheer curiosity — your own enjoyment of the music would soon be compromised by the people around you. After a mere two minutes, people would begin to whisper. At five or ten minutes, they'd start leaving, quietly shaking their heads in disgust. Another twenty minutes into this bizarre performance, even prim, finely dressed patrons would probably start booing the stage.

The simple truth of the matter is that no one treks to Lincoln Center hoping to hear soft, mellifluous major chords all night. The average person wouldn't put on a clean shirt and drive ten minutes to see a 3-D IMAX film
of tranquil ocean scenes, either. When it comes to art and entertainment, we want awe, excitement, pathos, tragedy, sadness, longing, and power, in addition to joy, ecstasy, solace, and triumph. The more feelings expertly portrayed, the better. And yet great art promises something that we often miss in everyday life: honest emotional engagement that is transformational, not self-indulgent. That's how we judge whether we got our money's worth — and decide whether we'll buy the DVD or CD to relive the experience again and again.

However, at work, school, church, or home, people get irritated, sometimes offended, when emotions — positive or negative — enter an otherwise perfunctory planning or problem-solving discussion. No matter how hard we try, though, the timeworn practice of wearing a mask of contentment or control to hide our feelings simply doesn't work. As previously noted, research shows that when even one person suppresses emotion during an interaction, the blood pressure of that individual and
everyone else in the group
rises, even though none of these people may notice. This isn't a problem if the hidden feelings are mild or resolved productively soon after an interaction or meeting. Strong emotion suppressed over the long term, however, can cause the blood pressure of a team to rise so significantly that higher thought processes are compromised. Without the ability to manage emotion effectively, people can become defensive, mistrustful, overstimulated, and aggressive. They may undermine others — without even knowing why — as unspoken emotions spread like wildfire through an otherwise intelligent, well-meaning group. Social-intelligence researchers Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee recommend that
leaders learn to drive others' emotions “in the right direction
to have a positive effect on earnings or strategy.” But how in the world are people supposed to do this when
suppressing
negative emotion is like cleaning the floor with dirty water and a moldy old mop? And when force-feeding people simplistic, happy “chords” might very well piss them off?