Uh oh, I think we have a problem

People ask me, “What is the benefit of learning how the mind makes decisions?” 

Persistence, self-initiative, critical thinking, creative thinking and innovation, collaboration, communication, and their opposites all begin in the mind. When you learn to recognize how the mind operates in each of these spheres, and learn how to move minds into resourceful mindframes, you will accomplish more and you will recover faster from conflicts, unanticipated obstacles, and detrimental emotional responses.

Here is an education example from real life.

A district was evaluating digital textbooks for science, and they asked for teacher volunteers to review a few offerings from respected publishers and make a recommendation. Each textbook was already in use at hundreds, or even thousands, of districts.

The teachers pull together and after a few weeks of reviewing the materials and sharing insights, they are close to selecting textbook A.

Just at that time, the district’s curriculum director realized that the district had received a grant for teaching science, and that the grant included purchasing textbook B. He cannot in good conscience pay for a different textbook when the district would be receiving copies for all students, support materials, and even PD for this one at no charge.

He informs the teachers, takes responsibility for the mistake, and says he is sorry.

The teachers are angry. They aren’t buying the apology.

Here is how a mindshifting practitioner would look at the situation.

At this moment the teachers are angry. Anger emanates from the more primitive areas of the brain, the limbic system. When the limbic system activates anger, it also secretes the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisone which focus the brain on reactions to the threat that is causing the anger, shuts off the innovative and critical thinking parts of the brain (which tend to exist in some of the more recent areas to develop, the prefrontal cortex) and direct those areas to generate reasons or stories the justify the anger.

These stories are phrases like:

• The district doesn’t respect teachers
• The district took advantage of me
• I’m going to show them that this textbook isn’t going to work
• They never listen to us
• That’s the last time I put in extra time or effort for them
• It’s always just about the money, they don’t really care about the children at all, only we teachers care about the kids and look where that gets us

While the teachers are angry, and while their critical thinking, creative, and resourceful parts of their brains are shut down, the teachers will not be receptive to anything that administration says or does to justify the decision or to move on; in fact those efforts are likely just to reinforce the negative stories that their brains are feeding them.

What can’t people just move on?

Before the teachers can move on, their limbic anger has to dissipate, and their limbic brain must reset.

There are three ways to reset the limbic brain and give access to calmness, resourcefulnes, or playfulness.

1. A person can be aware of when their limbic brain is controlling their reaction. Sometimes just realizing that you are angry (or afraid, or anxious, etc.) is enough to reset.
2. Mindfulness, or focusing on sensations such as breathing, sounds, the environment, meditation, trees, or the bodily sensations of the emotion may open up enough space to reset,
3. Positive internal chatter, talking to yourself in positive terms such as, “maybe this is really for the best,” “what does this now open up for me to best live my life,” “of course I am disappointed but I wonder how I can make the best of this now.” Note that this is internal chatter, no one wants to hear this from someone else, it has to be internally generated.

Along with the three ways of resetting the limbic brain, there are only two ways of getting over a past disappointment or negative outcome.

1. You can decide that this outcome was not really that important, choose to dismiss any slights or anger, and move on. In fact, over time, this often happens. In ten years (probably less), virtually all of the teachers will likely have moved on from this event; we all do.
2. You can find a gift or opportunity in this outcome. For example, the district will now have hundreds of thousands of dollars that they can spend on other things, can those actually be more beneficial than using textbook A? Or, in the process of reviewing the textbooks, the teachers were exposed to many different tools and teaching techniques, can any of them be incorporated into teaching along with textbook B?

When teachers are trained in mindshifting

they learn the skills to reset their own limbic systems and to move past disappointments. This significantly reduces the chances situations like this turn into crises. Imagine listening in to the internal thoughts of a mindshifting teacher:

• What? All that work for nothing?
• Wait, that’s my lizard brain working up to anger.
• Let me take a few minutes to calm myself.
• Okay, in the grand scheme of things, this really isn’t so terrible, what can we salvage from this?

These teachers were not.

If the administration had been schooled in MIndfulness

They would have recognized that the teachers would regard this as an empty apology; all form but no substance, or what behavioral psychologists might call a “denial” apology: “I’m sorry but it wasn’t my fault.” They would have either formulated their initial communications to the teachers in a form that would connect better with how the teachers would likely feel and react, or, if they overlooked that step, they would have quickly realized the situation and reacted in a way to restore the teachers’ sense of connection and value.

These administrators were not.

So either the teachers remain in anger mode until their anger dissipates over time, or the administration needs to use some mindshifting techniques to coach the teachers.

Here are two mindshifting techniques that could be used in coaching

Someone can coach the teachers. A good coach could connect with the teachers and help them move forward, perhaps with mindshifting techniques such as motivational interviewing.For example, one possible coaching technique would be starting a discussion of other times each of us has been angry, and times when when we were able to move out of anger and into calm and action. The process of recalling and recounting those instances would be a way to trigger a form mindfulness, and provide space, and then recalling instances when they diminished the anger on their own might give them access to their own resourcefulness.

The administration could provide a “gift or opportunity” to the teachers. For example, they could talk about their error, and that since the district has this extra money and since the teachers have been so helpful, they would like to give the teachers the opportunity to determine how some of that money would be spent for the students.

It’s not that these different possible solutions couldn’t be arrived without Mindshifting, but

1. With Mindshifting, if one understands the dynamics of how the brain is operating and the mechanisms for controlling the mind’s operation, the problem is framed in a way that naturally leads to possible interventions such as these.
2. If the teachers and administration were already skilled in Mindshifting, the recovery from issues such as this would be much quicker and likely autonomous.

Want to learn these techniques for yourself or your students?

The next class, Mindshifting 1: Growth Mindset and Critical Thinking for Educators will start on October 18 and run for 8 sessions. More info and register here.