2. About This Session
• Is not a “Learn about Coaching
101” session.
• Brain Science is an evolving field,
multiple models exist for complex
processes
• Though I explain a “process” by
itself, the brain “parallelizes” a lot
of processes at the same time
• Same brain regions can be active
during different processes
6. What different strategies do
you use to regulate your own
emotions (as coaches)?
Lets Talk About Emotions
What different strategies do
you use with your clients to
regulate their emotions?
11. Would You Buy a Car If …
• The brakes are fragile, get
worn out easily
• Works only now and then
and is temperamental
• Capacity to apply brakes
decrease each time you
use it?
• Consumes a lot of “fuel”
when you use the brake?
12. Our Brain’s Braking System
Motor (associated with
movement) Self Control
Cognitive (“thinking”)
Self Control
14. Talking About Emotions
• Would you feel better
or worse if you talked
about your emotions?
• Labeling vs Venting
• Labeling with Symbolic
Language (metaphors,
metrics, simplification
of the experience)
• Ironic inference after
“Affect Labeling”
experiments
15. Labeling / Naming Emotions
HELLO
My emotional state is
Certain intentional activities have incidental or
unintentional effect on emotions
16. Exercise:
What questions can you ask your
coachee so that he/she can “label”
emotions?
Example:
In a word or two, how would you describe
that experience?
17. Labeling – Tips and Tricks
• Disentangling input from interpretation of input
(feelings) makes it easy to label emotions and
makes it easy to identify them when they arise
• An emotionally rich vocabulary will help someone
label emotions better
• Ability to observe our own thoughts, feelings and
behaviors will help us be more aware of our
emotions
• I.e. Merely seeing yourself promotes self-restrain
• Affect labeling also promotes decentering (ability to
perceive thoughts and feelings as both
impermanent and objective occurrences in the
mind)
20. Intentional Emotional Regulation
Would you rather have
$5, no strings attached,
or instead flip and coin
and win $10 or nothing?
I give you $10, you can
give me $5 back, or we
can flip a coin and can
lose $10 or nothing
Our “Feeling Brain”
is more sensitive to
framing whereas
our “Thinking
Brain” is more
sensitive to facts
21. Intentional Emotional Regulation
Cognitive Reappraisal:
Our realities derives from
the stories we tell
ourselves, at least the ones
we believe
Works when we are not in
the most intense part of
our emotional reaction
• Some cognitive clarity
needed
• Depends on other people
in the room
22. Intentional Emotional Regulation
Perspective Taking:
Ability to think in terms of
what the other person
might be thinking
• Empathy kicks in before perspective taking
• Taking a third person perspective and first person
perspective activate different regions of the brain
• Shaking off and physically moving (to a different
perspective) help brain get more oxygen and also
generate new thoughts
24. Counter Mirroring - Mirror Neuron
Intervention
• Identify what you are feeling
• Entertain the idea that your
brain may be mirroring others’
feeling
• Stop negative self-talk, attacks
and complaints temporarily
• Your emotions also reflect the
sum total of other people’s
emotions
• Think about a complementary
feeling or action
Suppression – brute force approach – control one’s facial expression, tone and body language to hide emotions
Suppression is distracting
impairs perceiving incoming information, memory and focusing on task
What topic would you want to learn more?