Is your storytelling brain keeping you up at night?
When clients are stressed, exhausted, and look battle worn before the work day has even gotten underway, I ask, “How do you sleep at night?”
Often I hear something like…
“How can I sleep when my head is churning with all that consumes me? The impact of decisions I have to make the next day. How someone will respond to feedback I have to give. Conflicts I will have to solve, deadlines that I might miss, and everything else outside of work. The anxiety can get overwhelming in the middle of the night. I toss and turn. And then, the next day, I’m exhausted.”
This unproductive speculation is what we name as “future tripping” in Navigating Challenging Dialogue®. It’s worrying about what might happen in the future while missing what is happening right now – like sleep.
Sleep is not a talent, luxury, or special gift. Sleep is your birthright. And it is essential to your ability to function in healthy ways.
How do you calm your thoughts so you can actually engage in sleep?
When you’re engaged in future tripping, your brain is spinning stories that seem to be an attempt to help you problem-solve something that hasn’t even happened yet. It is a strategy your ego employs to try and protect you. But when your mind conjures up these stories that focus on negative outcomes, it triggers even more anxiety.
Let’s say you have to give critical feedback to a staff member the next day.
You wake up at 1:00 a.m. and start thinking about the feedback and the employee. You start turning the delivery over and over in your mind. And predicting all the ways the person might react. Will they be mad? Will they tell others you don’t know what you are doing? Will there be an outburst? Will they cry?
In those stories you likely don’t imagine them saying, “They will say thank you so much. I think you are right. You are such a great boss. I appreciate you.”
In a positive scenario, there’s nothing for your brain to protect you from.
If you had positive thoughts and predictions, you’d be asleep before you could finish the thought process. Instead, your brain starts considering all the negative outcomes. You begin to problem solve for things you can’t possibly predict or know will happen. Before you know it, you can’t relax or get comfortable. Soon, it’s 3:45 a.m. and you are exhausted and maybe even feeling anxious. Future tripping will often activate emotional hotspots*.
In NCD, when symptoms like anxiety, discomfort, or anger show up in response to our thoughts, we call that activating an emotional hotspot. It can manifest in physical symptoms:
Your heart may race.
Your palms may get sweaty.
Your chest may feel tight.
Your stomach may ache.
None of these are conducive to feeling calm and falling asleep.
What can you do to deactivate an emotional hotspot?
Whether you’re trying to relax, or you’re about to give challenging feedback, or you’re meeting with an angry person, the steps are the same to put yourself in a centered mindset:
Breathe deeply.
Ground yourself (imagine your feet connecting with the earth like roots on a tree)
Think about all that is positive at this very moment. Make these as simple as possible. The meal you had. Your warm bed. People you love. Listen for the beat of your heart. If you can’t hear it, imagine it.
Feel gratitude. You can’t hold negative thoughts and gratitude simultaneously.
Continue breathing deeply and slowly.
Repeat as necessary until you feel relaxed (or fall asleep!)
If You Are In A Leadership Position
Future tripping often involves telling another person’s story of how they will respond or react to what you say or do.
The only person you can truly manage is yourself.
One of the core principles of NCD is embracing this fact. You can’t control what other people think or do.
I invite you to instead commit to yourself that during your waking hours, you will deal with each thing that comes your way with integrity, empathy, curiosity, and a focus on the good of the whole.
When it is time for rest, turn off future tripping as soon as it starts to creep in.
Of course we all have some nights that are less restful than others. But adopting a practice to clear your mind when you begin unproductive speculation helps prepare you to show up as healthy and emotionally present as possible.
Here’s to more sleep for all of us.