It's All In Your Head – Cultivating Conscious Conversations
Written by: Janet Macaluso, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
This is Part 2 on the topic of Breakthrough Communications.
When you inaccurately imagine something, “It’s all in your head.” It’s also what the car mechanic thinks when you complain about that clicking sound that mysteriously disappears during the inspection.
How often do we hear someone say, "I don't know what their problem is" or "They don’t seem to care?" Well, those are the storylines going on in our heads. Our automatic assumptions that source and lead to external outcomes.
Our invisible self-talk directly impacts personal and professional communication success. During routine conversations, stepping back to assess our internal narratives is a fruitful nice-to-have.
During head-scratching “We Have to Talk” conversations, however, critical self-reflection escalates to a requirement. Delicate *undiscussable* – like hosting opinionated in-laws for an extended visit, trigger fear, dread, and avoidance. They pack a double punch when the fact they’re undiscussable, is also undiscussable.
Here’s the thing… According to the research¹ behind “Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence” (2003) we’re blissfully unaware of our inabilities – unless we skillfully examine our thinking. This incompetence degenerates our ability to generate higher-order thinking. A form of unconscious incompetence² – we don’t know what we don’t know.
Failing to recognize we’re relying on incomplete thinking, we unwittingly succumb to “paradigm blindness.” And when delicate social interactions over-activate emotions, our self-talk effortlessly morphs from stories in our heads to facts we tell ourselves and others.
Cultivating Conscious Communications through Metacognition
Breakthrough conversations evolve and uplift the situation and the relationship to the next level of potential. They require generative thinking – an ability to discern and analyze the quality and source of our thinking. Metacognition.
Meta, meaning "beyond", or "on top of;" the conscious awareness of one's own thought processes, assumptions, and patterns behind them
Simply put, the process and discipline of metacognition is thinking about our thinking. Applied to communication, metacognition offers a higher-level quality of thinking that uplifts entrenched perspectives resulting in more innovative options. Yet, as humans, it’s not easy to deliberately seek alternative perspectives from the seemingly accurate stories in our heads.
“A big skill, if you want to play for a long time, is just being honest in assessing how you’re playing. If you wait until the coach tells you you’re not playing good, a lot of times it’s too late.” – Jason Spezza, professional hockey player, Canada
Assessing Default Paradigms
How do we find the presence of mind to apply metacognition processes given the physical, social, political, and emotional stresses during daily interactions? And how do we maintain emotional equilibrium during awkward undiscussables so we’re sourcing our actions from a more-purposeful and less-reactive space?
Stopping reflexive thinking and communication is challenging, even when we know better. Yet it’s nearly impossible if we don’t. Knowing better requires us to examine the root cause – our mind-less, unexamined thinking. So to strengthen metacognition muscles during social interactions, I created four Levels of Communication.
Self-Assessment
To self-assess your common default mode, first consider a real and relevant communication challenge. With that situation in mind, read the descriptions below and reflect on your automatic tendencies. Is there a difference between your personal and professional communications?
You’ll increase your odds for engaging Breakthrough Communications once you become conscious of your automatic default communication paradigm.
To gain deeper insight, take this brief self-assessment Quiz and receive your detailed Results Report.
For a detailed assessment and a Results Report, take the Quiz:
Elevating to the Next Level: Conscious Communications
Breakthrough Communications call for penetrating insight and discerning wisdom. A regenerative approach beyond following “Do’s & Don’ts” from active listening scripts. At the Regenerator paradigm level, the aim is finding innovative solutions that uplift outcomes and, build vibrant whole-some relationships. When thinking regeneratively, we tap into our true essence – beyond personality, reactivity, and ego – and connect to the unique human being(s) involved. It’s beyond resilience – springing back to the previous status quo. And it’s beyond generic, split-the-difference compromise solutions.
The stock phrase, “It’s all in your head” has wide repercussions and implications. Self-awareness offers the presence of mind to notice the early-warning signals. With practice, we can sense consciousness-raising hints that tip-off a looming undiscussable. Clues come in the form of ruminating internal chatter, or physical tension, or changes in conversational volumes.
When we do find ourselves collapsing to default narratives, practice regenerating in the moment, by asking one simple question: “What would my Best Future Self do now?” Then become your Best Future Self, Now.
Notes:
With gratitude: my thinking has been deeply influenced by learning from Carol Sanford
¹Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence.¹ David Dunning, Kerri Johnson, Joyce Ehrlinger, and Justin Kruger. Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (D.D., K.J., and J.E.), and Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois (J.K.). 2003 American Psychological Society
²Unconscious Incompetence. See Paul R. Curtiss and Phillip W. Warren in their 1973 book The Dynamics of Life Skills Coaching
See previous Brainz article: What’s Worse? Scary Movie 3 or We Have to Talk?
Want a detailed assessment and a Results Report, take the Quiz: “What’s Your #1 Blocker to Breakthrough Communications?
Janet Macaluso, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
After a 25-year corporate career developing executives, teams, and organizations, Janet founded Learning2LEAD, a Regenerative Leadership Development practice based in Cambridge, USA, and Malaga, Spain.
No stranger to personal regeneration, Janet reinvented herself from a college dropout to a flight attendant and aerobic instructor to an award-winning coach and global executive with three academic degrees.
Janet created Learning2LEAD to reflect the life, legacy, and impact she wants to leave. Applying modern science and ancient wisdom, Janet stewards successful mid-life change-makers, leaders, and rabble-rousers ready to transform their "1st-half" successes into "2nd-half" significance.
Whether in virtual workshops or leadership hiking retreats in Spain, Janet nudges clients to move toward their Best Future Self Now - so they can do the same for their people and places. Her mission: To Ban Average!
