Welcome to "Thinking Out Loud" with Dr. Joe Currier!  Here, we'll be regularly sharing Dr. Joe's latest groundbreaking insights.

Episode Transcript:

Andrew J Mason:
This is Thinking Out Loud with Dr. Joe Currier, episode one, Fight, Flight, or Flow. Welcome to Thinking Out Loud with Dr. Joe Currier. My name's Andrew J. Mason, and this is the show where we hit the pause button on life, head to the locker room for some life-changing halftime inspiration, and then zoom back in and grab the tactics direct from Dr. Joe's playbook to pull it all together when we're on the field. Each week, we'll hit a different topic, and, like we said, today is all about uncertainty, such an applicable message for the time that we're living in. So, now, with further ado, here's Dr. Joe.

Dr. Joe Currier:
Many of us, I think, have a, kind of a hero rescue fantasy in our minds these days. We think that someone somewhere is gonna come up with a vaccine to protect us against this nasty virus, and I began to ask myself, "Why are we not thinking about a vaccine to rescue us from the other side of a pandemic, namely the debilitating psychosocial forces of the uncertainty, the worry, the distress?" You know, we tend to be left these days with PTSD, grief, feelings of isolations. So many people are struggling and asking questions like, "What the heck is next, and what if?" And you and I could spend all kinds of time just filling in those blanks.

Dr. Joe Currier:
The fact is, historically, we already have a type of immunity to face distress. It's been called the fight/flight reaction. Generation after generation, dating back to our cave-dwelling ancestors, they built types of reactions to fight or flee under stress. So, I believe our bodies, and the scientists will tell us that our bodies automatically go into a kind of hot reaction. Pupils dilate, spot the danger out there. Our hearts start racing. Why? Pump more blood to where we need the strength and less blood to where the extremities where you might get cut. A lot of the blood is not flowing up to the brain. Why? Because it's time for action, not thinking. You know, you either fight or you flee.

Dr. Joe Currier:
Here's where the problem begins. Long before this pandemic, there was a danger that the fight/flight reaction was actually starting to kill us because it's built for short-term reactions. If you look at the definition of stress, it's simply the rate of wear and tear on the body. So, long before this coronavirus comes along, we needed new strategies. You and I could picture the driver sitting in traffic saying, "This traffic is killing me," and it really is because your high blood pressure, your migraine headaches, your ulcerative colitis, it comes out of the reactions to distress.

Dr. Joe Currier:
So, fast forward now to the current pandemic, and we hear about this new normal. Man, what kinds of thoughts and feelings does (laughs) that trigger? Community shutdown, social distancing, people are flooded by a tsunami of negativity. People are constantly saying, "I don't feel safe." Well, uncertainty and worry are like monsters at the gate, and the vaccine I'm proposing is an antibody. The operative words are embedded in me forces. Words like, "I don't feel safe," the operative words are I and feel. Why? They're under our control. Events are not. Events have no emotions. They simply trigger emotions in us.

Dr. Joe Currier:
So, when I look at what's happening, things like uncertainty, in a way, it's a myth, it's an illusion, it's a story I own. I constantly remind myself, in the absence of information, I make up stories in my mind. So, uncertainty, by definition, is out of my control. It's a future event. So, I'm not saying that we're not looking at significant dangers from the events. What I'm suggesting is the impact that challenges us is the I and we, what you and I can do, alone or when we unite. You and I can control and better manage the impact, what we think, what we feel, how we behave in the face of the crisis. It's a matter of choice, and to be a little bit poetic here, choice is like a pen that writes new life chapters. The question is, are we writing them in the positive or the negative? Are we doing it like a weather person, where we simply report the events, or are we doing it like a Hemingway, when we craft our adventure in the face of challenge?

Dr. Joe Currier:
That's a way of saying that the old fight/flight formula needs an additional antibody. We can fight, we can flee, or you and I can flow, and flow is a body/mind solution. It connects the two, the mind and the body, but let me play with words here a little bit, but we need to introduce antibodies, not anti in a sense of fighting our body. I believe we need to reverse the energy sequence from body/mind to mind/body. It's a mind/body inoculation we're looking for, beginning with the principle I am what I think.

Dr. Joe Currier:
So, if we look at the textbook, stress is not an event. It's our perception of an event, things like fear, things like worry. They're actually friends and allies if you and I manage them with our minds/eyes wide open. So, the formula that I had been playing with in my mind isn't intended to eliminate negative stress. Our goal is to convert the energy into positive flow.

Dr. Joe Currier:
In the spirit of some of the research by a gentleman, he talks about world-class athletes who produce peak performance. How? They convert pain intention into competitive high, or we look at some of our action heroes, these men and women, the first responders, military, fire, etc., who turn fear into courage.

Dr. Joe Currier:
So, again, if we go back to looking at some of the definition and some of the things we know about stress, stress itself is normal. It is neutral. It can go one way or the other. It can be distress. That's the negative impact, distress, or there is eustress, E-U-S-T-R-E-S-S, positive impact of an initially stressful experience. That's eustress.

Dr. Joe Currier:
So, Andrew, I'm proposing this mind/body inoculation to better manage the stress and build adaptation energy, and adaptation energy has specific strategies and techniques to produce personal and professional power, and I play with that. Again, I love playing with words, and that power breaks down into five forces, passion, ownership, wellness, excellence, and relationships, and we've worked hard to build what we call a power advantage that you and I can use in the face of both big and small crises, to both minimize drag and maximize momentum.

Dr. Joe Currier:
So, eventually, I hope that you and I can go deeper into some of the specifics. For now, I think we need to think well and be well, and, occasionally, like to tell people, "You also should have a giggle and a hug," because, man, laughter is often some of the best medicine when we're facing, you know, a mountain of stress.

Andrew J Mason:
Dr. Joe, I so appreciate that level of inspiration that you just gave us, and now that we're zooming into the tactical nuts and bolts part of this conversation, uh, I am familiar with this very specific technique that you use to combat uncertainty called belly breathing, but, for those of us who aren't acquainted, what is belly breathing?

Dr. Joe Currier:
Kind of goes like this. Distress closes down your full breathing. When people are tense, they tend to breathe in two parts. They inhale and they exhale, more from the chest, high up, and this creates an oxygen debt that interferes with clear, productive thinking, and all human beings need to keep their mind clear, thoughtful, focused when they're feeling a need for safety and comfort. So, we ask people to breathe in four stages. You put your hand on your belly, on your stomach, and imagine that your stomach is a balloon, and as you slowly inhale to the count of three, your belly rises just a little bit. You pause for one brief moment, and then with the number four, just exhale, and you feel your stomach fall, pausing once again.

Dr. Joe Currier:
So, again, you're breathing in four stages, the brief pause, on each end, inhale, pause, exhale, pause. It allows the oxygen and the carbon dioxide to exchange. The good air comes in, and the old air goes out. So, what we do, again, is we say, "Just sit, close your eyes, inhale, one, two, three, pause, exhale, four." Like, you think, "Calm down," as you exhale.

Dr. Joe Currier:
Now, we also combine the diaphragmatic breathing, this belly breathing with thought stopping. So, let's say you're facing some type of fear or you're repeating some type of thought or image, and it's troubling. So, again, we ask you to close your eyes, and you begin by imagining a big, red stop sign, has a unique shape. It's not round. It has a unique shape. You see the red with the beige letters, stop, and then you take that deep breath in, slow and easy, pause, and then exhale, and exhale and you let go and calm down.

Andrew J Mason:
I'm not gonna lie. I feel like that was almost a, a meditation, you know, ninja that (laughs) just surprised me out of nowhere, you know? We were talking about uncertainty and calmness, but, uh, I didn't expect to really experience the calmness as we were talking about that. So, thank you for that gift.

Andrew J Mason:
What do we do when that person says, "You know, I've been making the transition from saying, 'I feel stressed,' to I, I'm actually a stressful person." Uh, they, they actually take it on as a part of their identity. Uh, what would you say to that?

Dr. Joe Currier:
First, as an old guy who's been around the block more than once, I've learned a few things on my way, and also as a psychologist and an executive coach who's had the privilege of sitting in the stressful situations with incredible people and watching them respond, not react, one of the things we start out with is don't try to change old habits. Create new ones. They're so embedded, that this concept of mind and body, body/mind, they have been mentally rehearsed and practiced so many times, they're embedded, and, therefore, we even make up stories, you and I. Well, I've always been that way, but that's a story that we make up to describe past behaviors, often that we model from other people or we experienced and used as a child when younger, hot-headed reactions were more acceptable.

Dr. Joe Currier:
So, the first part here would be to slow down and develop by practicing, mentally rehearsing and experiencing changes in the mind and body, such as belly breathing. Somebody has you on hold during a very busy day, and you're sitting, it's a perfect time to say to yourself in your mind, "Wow, thanks, I can kind of do a little bit of belly breathing for a second. This is the first time I had a chance today to stop." So, John or Harry says to you, "Gees, Andrew, can you hold on for a sec?" and they put you on hold. Perfect to cycle a couple of the belly breathing, four times, and keep mentally rehearsing and practicing where this becomes more habitual.

Andrew J Mason:
That's so helpful. I feel like this gives people a framework for changing. Uh, don't try to undo old habits. Replace them with new ones, and you mentioned that these often unlabeled feelings that just well up within us, uh, and the difference between distress and eustress, and they're often the same feeling, but we just ... You're saying we mislabel them?

Dr. Joe Currier:
No, no. It's, again, looking at some of our behaviors. By the way, I wanna go back to something you just said. We call that necessary lies, stories that you and I make up to justify behaviors that aren't really serving us, but we don't know what to do. It's what pe-, you know, good people do this over and over again, and, yet, they're driving themself into the ground with distress, etc. So, so part of this is also silly questions. When was the last time you played? You know, we ask people kiddingly about their sex life, but how's your laugh life? When was the last time you really had a belly laugh, versus we seem so serious and focused on the next event that we forget that we're human beings, and deep inside is also a child that wants to play, an adult who wants to dance. You know, these are the types of things that we don't do enough of.

Dr. Joe Currier:
Do we ever also do any real ... You know, I don't wanna call it meditation. People may misinterpret that, but do you ever go into what we call a quieting stage where you sit and just simply say, "I wanna stop the world for a few moments, and I wanna go inside and check things out," and we kind of look at from the very top of our head, look at some of the distress. Are you scrunching up your forehead muscles? You know, is your jaw muscle so tight? Are you bent over, like Quasimodo as if you're gonna ring bells in the Notre Dame? You know, check your body to see where the stressors are, and we do certain repetitive five-minute exercises, five-minute exercises, quiet mind in the moment, quiet mind in the moment, and evens, even as I'm talking to you, I would slow down the cadence of our conversation because I wanna go into a different body/mind rhythm, rather than the 100-yard dash, and there's a time for that.

Dr. Joe Currier:
When I deal with great athletes, I had the privilege of working with the Baltimore Ravens, for example. The athletes, when the clock is running, when the bell rings, when the whistle blows, they are in elbows to the door, so to speak, but when the whistle blows again and stops, they've gotta learn to quiet their body. You can't stay in that, that, that, that tension state all the time.

Dr. Joe Currier:
Any rate, so those are some of the things, and that's where the adaptation energy is. It's a series of techniques, specific techniques from physical activity to cognitive restructuring in terms of the way we think, reexamining some of our core beliefs. Some of the things that we believe don't even belong to us. They come out of a good-willed adult, for example, who was operating out of anger and fear because they wanted us to, to perform better. Are you stupid? That's not a real question, but that's a loving father who is so distressed or a mom who is just really worried about our future that they ask these questions and, unfortunately, we internalize the response, and we get into this rhythm of anger and frustration, and I'll show you.

Dr. Joe Currier:
Take a breath, stop, and just go into that belly breathing. I often use those two magical words. Oh, well.

Andrew J Mason:
You see, I appreciate that because that speaks to, you know, there's this circle of things we can control, and there's things outside of that circle that we can control, and what a more health response than (laughs), "Oh, well." Uh, that's it.

Dr. Joe Currier:
And, again, it gives me a chance to say, "You know, a lot, maybe true, may be happening, but I need to take a brief time out." What does every coach do when the game is starting to turn against them or police officers running into a chaotic situation? They call a timeout. You and I need to do that.

Andrew J Mason:
That's perfect, and I feel like that's a perfect spot to leave it for today's episode, as well. There's s-so much more to go into. Uh, next week, we'll be talking about the warrior, the philosopher, and the frog. You don't wanna miss that conversation, and we'd so appreciate your feedback, as well. Remember to subscribe to us in iTunes, and, until next time, this was Thinking Out Loud with Dr. Joe Currier, leadership transformation, growth acceleration.