Coaching Through iPEC’s COR.E Dynamics: Awareness

This episode includes our interpretations of copyrighted works done by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching or iPEC. 

Cristina Amigoni: And bringing it back to the influencers, what's influencing their reaction? The more aware we are of what's influencing the reaction, the more we could preemptively take that breath. 

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives.  

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves.  

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens. 

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni.  

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore. Let’s dive in. 

Cristina Amigoni: Let’s dive in.  

“Authenticity means freedom.” 

“Authenticity means going with your gut.” 

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.” 

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.” 

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.” 

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.” 

“It's transparency, relatability. No frills. No makeup. Just being.” 

[EPISODE] 

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. We are going to continue our series on the iPEC COR.E Dynamics. Today we are actually going to start getting into the disciplines that go into COR.E Dynamics. There are 10 practices that people are using to help just generally lift their own energy and awareness of their lives, and how they're showing up and how they'd like to show up. We've already gone through some of the influencers and what can happen to our energy levels. We've gone through the energy levels.  

One last piece of context to set before we jump into our first discipline, and that is performance versus mastery mindset. Let's talk a little bit about performance versus mastery. You don't mean to say that. I'll jump in.  

Cristina Amigoni: Keep going. 

Alex Cullimore: Cristina is also here. Performance versus mastery. There's a kind of the idea, we always kind of get to this. It's almost perfectionism sometimes where we feel like everything that we do has to be perfect. But in reality, of course, we know there are up days, there are down days. We've talked about all of the influencers that might change our energy levels and all the disciplines we can practice to kind of increase our performance. But one really key crucial foundational point to think about when we're going for improving our lives and generally trying to perform at the top of our game is playing towards a mastery mindset. And that's the idea that not everything is going to be your top performance, but everything can be a learning opportunity. Not everything has to be perfect for you to achieve your goals. But you have to be able to focus on what are you going to learn from this. What is your success going into something? And setting yourself up so that you're always succeeding and knowing what your goals are.  

I remember one of the examples they gave when we're going through COR.E Dynamics is being a leader that has to go give a board presentation. And your top-level success might be like, "Hey, I would love to go get in there. Deliver my message as clearly as possible and have everybody convinced this is the right way going forward." And that maybe your medium goal is, "Hey, I want to be able to show up and make sure that I'm really clear about my message. And then I know I have controlled what I can control."  

And then the base level is, "Hey, I'm going to learn something from this. Either I'm going to figure out –" the base level of success would be I'm going to learn how to do this better in the future and have one more notch in the belt, so to speak, for experience in giving a board presentation.  

And so setting yourself up where things like that can help you understand like what you're getting from every opportunity. Because everything can be a learning opportunity and can increase our performance and abilities over time. And that is the mastery mindset. As opposed to the performance mindset, which is more like I'm going to try and do my best at every single thing all the time and ignore all of the influencers that may be happening.  

You can walk into that board meeting fully prepared, but then you wake up that morning and you're sick. Now are you going to be able to show up how you wanted to? Probably not as well. And that's okay. It's just understanding. And that brings us actually right into our first discipline here. Being aware of what is going on and how that might be affecting.  

The first discipline is awareness.  

Cristina Amigoni: It is.  

Alex Cullimore: That was my monologue. 

Cristina Amigoni: I'm very aware that I'm mostly listening so far.  

Alex Cullimore: We're going to get tired of hearing my voice today. We think about awareness. Awareness – there are 10 disciplines. And they kind of build on each other, especially the first four that we go into. The rest of them, there is some interplay between all of them. But awareness is a really great foundation to start with. And there's kind of different aspects of awareness. There's self-awareness. Awareness of reality. Awareness of the presence of others. What influence that might be having on you? As well as how you might be able to change that awareness of your environment. And general awareness of your choices and options.  

This is a lot about getting into what is really happening. And the difference between true and truth. Something can feel true. But there is more of a Truth with the capital T that is actually happening. Awareness comes down a lot to understanding your own belief systems, values, thoughts and emotional responses as facts of a situation rather than realities, so to speak.  

They might be – yeah, we've talked a lot about the emotional influencer where I might be feeling angry. That doesn't mean that that situation is angering. It's just that is a fact that we are feeling that way. Being aware of this can bring us into a new realm of being able to interact and make better conscious choices about what we want to do and what we want to see happen. And it all begins with being really aware of reality. Aware of what the facts are rather than what our judgments, our interpretations of the facts are. 

Cristina Amigoni: Indeed. Okay. I may actually start speaking now.  

Alex Cullimore: Oh, okay. Cool. Had a couple sips of tea. Feeling revved-up.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. I'm aware of being a little more awake at this point. I love the awareness disciplines. It has so many applications beyond just coaching. I think it's a huge application. A huge application that we found that we've been using recently is going through changes, especially organizational changes, any changes in general and any learning as well, is we can't really understand how to move and transition to something else if we don't know where we're starting. And the awareness is absolutely key.  

First, we have to be aware of what's going on and how are we feeling. How are we doing? What experience are we having? And also, the awareness of what's happening with everybody else to be able to come together and transition to the new future and make that move.  

When it comes to learning, we use awareness quite a bit as kind of an open invitation. Because, again, in leadership, especially in leadership development, leadership is not mainly just about telling people what to do. Well, it's not all about telling people what to do. But it's not about everybody else. It's really about us too. If we have no awareness about how we show up, what happens when we enter the room? What happens when we speak? What happens – how do we handle our emotions? How do we handle our reactions? Then we can't really influence and Inspire others.  

And when we think about leadership as inspiring others to come together and to do things that they may not have been – they may have not known that they were possible to do on their own. There's no getting there if there's no self-awareness and awareness of others. It's a big theme that keeps coming back all the time.  

I really can't speak this morning. So I'll let you continue. 

Alex Cullimore: No. That's exactly it. Awareness is – and if feels like something that is almost internal, but because we can be focused internally and we can be aware internally, that allows us to interact with the external world much better. Because we now know our place and what we might be doing and what we might be influencing as well as what that influence is having on us. And the more aware we are about how we are feeding physically, what emotions we're experiencing, what thoughts we're having and what kind of energy level we might be experiencing, the more we can react with a different conscious choice. And that entirely changes our interactions with ourselves and with other people.  

This awareness is a really core discipline. Because you can't really make informed decisions if you're not even aware of all of the matters at hand. And that really is going down to the realities of a situation.  

And one of the examples I remember they gave in this section is about a major league baseball pitcher who when asked what he does, he says he gets the ball, he throws the ball and then he goes and takes a shower. And those are the facts of the situation. That's all that happens. And, of course, when we think about baseball, we might think about the excitement of a baseball game. Or the boredom. Depending on how you look at it.  

You might think of a totally different emotional reaction to it. But the real facts are somebody's out there throwing a ball. And then they go and they shower. And that's it. Those are the facts of the situation. We can start from that kind of basis. We can start to layer on our own experiences and decide what we really want to take and move forward with.  

Just a fun experiment in awareness, this is one anybody can do wherever you're listening, whatever you're doing. You might be on a walk. You might be in a room. Look around yourself and start to document and note. And remember all the things that are green. Just take a look around. Maybe take 20 seconds and really document everything that is green in the room. 

Cristina Amigoni: I'm looking around for anybody listening in. I'm looking around my office. Okay.  

Alex Cullimore: And now tell me all of the red things in the room. 

Cristina Amigoni: My mug. Because it's right next to me. 

Alex Cullimore: Aha. There are all kinds of really fun videos and stuff on YouTube about situational awareness and what we kind of pay attention to what we're primed to pay attention to. I told you to look for the green things. Then I asked you about the red things. And it shows that maybe we don't recognize the things we aren't looking for. Awareness becomes an incredibly important part of making decisions and knowing what's around us.  

There's a fair famous video that I remember of a basketball team and they're just passing the ball around and you're asked to count the number of passes. And you just get so concentrated on the ball, that when they go play the video back, they're like did you notice the dancing bear? And you're like, "There's no dancing bear. It's a bunch of people like throwing a basketball around."  

If you watch the video, there's a person in a bear costume that goes right through the middle of the play dancing. I entirely missed it. Most people entirely missed this the first time. They like watch this video. And it's really crucial to think about this in terms of how we engage with life. Because our awareness is inherently going to change our perceptions.  

And what we are told to and think about focusing on, we are ready to focus on. This is why doing things like gratitude journals can be helpful because then we're aware of the things we can be grateful for. They were there all along. But until we bring that awareness to them, they're not really part of our operating agreement with the world. Our ability to see the world and decide what we want to do with the information we have. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's so true. And I think the piece of awareness that comes up too is our awareness of others. And so, how much that's reflected? When you mentioned the gratitude journal, the things that we're grateful for, if we start writing them now, were there all along.  

But bringing them to light and actually making the conscious effort to think about them brings them into our reality, into more of our conscience rather than our subconscious. And the same thing I think works if you reverse it and you express gratitude to others. We make assumptions that others may be aware of our gratitude that we have towards them. But if we don't actually express it, how can that awareness exists.  

Alex Cullimore: Well, I really like that. Yeah, thinking it, we like to talk about communication when we talk about this in like our leadership development classes, is communication doesn't happen until it's received. It's not just sending out an email. It's when the person really reads that and digests that information. That's when communication has occurred.  

And so, this awareness is a huge portion of it. When you send out, you might be aware of feeling gratitude. But unless you're expressing that to people, maybe it's not there. Maybe they don't understand that it's there. They don't see it there. The stories going on in their head that's entirely different.  

I like some of the other examples they have of awareness of things that we've thought about in awareness. I mean, now I've forgotten all of them. There's awareness –  

Cristina Amigoni: Well, that's good. Should I get in to coach you? 

Alex Cullimore: Right off the back of my head. Yeah, we probably should jump right into some coaching around awareness and what our choices are.  

Cristina Amigoni: Our own self-awareness is that maybe Friday morning after a week's long retreat is not a good time to record a podcast. 

Alex Cullimore: This one may be a redo. We'll find out.  

Cristina Amigoni: It is the authenticity podcast. We probably won't redo this.  

Alex Cullimore: We are authentically partially aware of ourselves now. We are very aware of the fact that we are not fully here. There's awareness. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Indeed. What thoughts am I having? Not many. There's a lot of fog happening at the moment.  

Alex Cullimore: I'm going to ask you this time. Because when I give an answer, you're usually like, "Oh, shoot. That wasn't the one I was hoping for." Would you like to coach or coach first? Coach me first.  

Cristina Amigoni: Given that I'm still waking up, I'll be on the receiving end of the questions. 

Alex Cullimore: Okay. I'm not honestly sure which one's easier. Let's take some thoughts either way. But here we are. 

Cristina Amigoni: Neither of them are easy. 

Alex Cullimore: All right. Let's think about this one. Let's start with one that is going to be very pertinent to our current situation. What might be a sign that you've lost awareness? 

Cristina Amigoni: I would say a sign that I've lost awareness is when I'm listening and I'm retaining most of the information, but I'm not quite as quick at having thoughts around it. And so, it's – I wouldn't call it noise. Because that's not really fair. I am listening and I am present. I'm just not as present as I could be in the sense of having so many thoughts going on or responses in my head that I can't wait to say it. 

Alex Cullimore: Mm-hmm. I say a lot of that presence. A lot of that being able to respond effectively. Feeling like you have the full information and then kind of your own thoughts put together around whatever is happening and make sense some of that really conscious presence.  

What might be an area of your life where you feel like you don't have that presence or you'd like to have more presence?  

Cristina Amigoni: That's a good question. Now I'm actually going to have to think.  

Alex Cullimore: This is why I'm not sure which one's easier. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Maybe I should have gone with the coaching first. What areas in my life am I aware that I'm not quite as aware, which is quite the conundrum? Because if I'm not aware of them, how am I supposed to be aware that I'm not aware of them?  

I would say the areas that I shortcut more often are – I would say are family-related, kids-related. We had an incident this morning about wearing long pants and jackets. 

Alex Cullimore: Another pants on legs.  

Cristina Amigoni: Another pants on legs.  

Alex Cullimore: The pants on legs issue. 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. And if these episodes go out in the intended order, you will all know and be very aware of the pants-on-legs situation. The latest one is a jacket-on-shoulders situation, whereas winter in Colorado actually looks like it's showing up in the next few days –  

Alex Cullimore: Today. 

Cristina Amigoni: Today. It's now more important than ever to start wearing jackets in the morning when it's 13/14 degrees. And so, the awareness there again for me, it's just wanting to get the jacket on and move on without understanding what's actually going on that's preventing the desire to want to wear the jacket when it's 10 degrees outside.  

Alex Cullimore: That sounds like you're looking for some awareness of what others might be feeling. And you mentioned like the idea of shortcutting things with your family. When you think about shortcutting in a pants-on-legs, jackets-on-shoulders situation, what do you mean by that? 

Cristina Amigoni: I guess shortcutting in the sense of just wanting what's in my head to just happen. But also, I will admit, that because the jacket-on-shoulder situation is not a new thing, I will admit that I was definitely more aware and willing to work through it and find a resolution and find a way to get the situation resolved and not make it a big deal every single morning. And so, that was my intent.  

Now doing this in the morning when everybody's rushed to get out of the door. The right timing. Maybe not. But I was intent in not just making it as like just put your jacket on and then tomorrow morning we're going to have the same argument. And I even said that like I want to resolve this. I don't want to have the same conversation every single morning between now and March when the temperature starts going up. So how can we make this happen? How can it be that I either stop caring about a jacket when it's cold outside or my kids start caring about wearing one when it's cold outside? Or some sort of in-between. Co-creation. 

Alex Cullimore: Mm-hmm. It makes sense you talked about like the importance of things like connection and co-creation in a number of facets of life. And connection is obviously being a big core value as well. And so, how do you feel like – you mentioned that the morning might not be the place to do that. Where can you find chances for that co-creation and that co-solutioning for something like jackets on shoulders? 

Cristina Amigoni: It's a good question. Because it is one of those situational pieces where it's hard to talk about figuring out a solution with the jacket when it's 80° outside and it's the weekend and we all just want to do whatever we want to do on the weekend.  

And I don't know that it's also – I don't know. I don't think I have an answer. I think the answer is probably to ask. Because I don't think I have an answer into figuring out when is that right timing. It's not at the end of the day when – and especially not the end of the week. I mean, the awareness of like how physically, and mentally and emotionally prepared are we to have a conversation? That's fairly irrelevant. Because it's nighttime. And we're not talking about having to wear a jacket. Because we're all talking about going to bed. 

And so, that's where it's a little bit difficult to navigate. Because if it's not in the situation where the situation doesn't have enough time, then how do you handle this without making it a recurring conversation?  

The other piece of awareness that I had after the conversation, and I was getting ready for the day, was that maybe I do need to just let go of wanting to see the jacket worn.  

Alex Cullimore: What makes you say that?  

Cristina Amigoni: It would be the easy way, honestly. If the resistance is coming from my own desire for somebody else, if I let go of that desire, then there's no resistance anymore. It does feel a little bit level two. No. Level one. When we talk about the energy levels. Because it is more of a – I don't know if it's two, one or three actually. It's a little three. Little one. But it does feel a little bit more of I'll just let you win and I'll lose. It's going to be a loss. And I'm going to feel the loss every single morning while it's cold. And I'm just going to have to suck it up. I'm not sure how sustainable that is in the long term. 

Alex Cullimore: Okay. Well, there are a couple different things that come up with that. And it's understandable to want to. Especially something like jackets. Just to want to be – just put on the jacket. Why do we have to have a discussion about this? Right? It's a jacket. It seems like common sense. Just do it.  

I think any parent out there can probably relate to this exact struggle, especially in somewhere like Colorado where it might look great the night before and then be snowing the next morning. Or it might look great in the morning and be snowing midday. It's kind of an inherently unpredictable state. That does add some complexity to like even a general conversation. Because it can't be about the current moment. It has to be about some of the future planning. And that's harder to sometimes spark awareness for in others even if you feel it acutely in yourself.  

One thing that comes up, you talked about it feels like a loss over time out. Of curiosity, what would a letting them make the decision or letting go for yourself, but having a level five or six thought about that potentially look like? How could it be level five to do that? Level five, again, being the opportunity level. Just for the reminder. Seeing the possibilities, and opportunities and things so that our listeners remember. 

Cristina Amigoni: I guess a level five would be similar to the pants-on-legs situation, which is more of the collaboration. How can we collaborate in this? Which is really what I was trying to do this morning. Let's figure this out. Let's understand what it is about the jacket that's the problem. Why is wearing a jacket an issue? And then let's figure out what does it look like. What's a solution that makes everybody happy? I would say that's a level five.  

Again, I don't have that answer in this specific situation. But part of level five is the fact that I don't have to have the answer on my own. Because that's not the point. The point is to work together towards the answer. 

Alex Cullimore: How would it feel to experiment with that? What would that do for you?  

Cristina Amigoni: I think it would be good. It's what's necessary. I think it's more of a long-term success. It's more of a mastery success rather than a performance one, which is I think it's usually more towards somebody has to win and somebody has to lose in performance. And a mastery is like, well, what if we all grow from this?  

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Mastery is very similar to that growth mindset. Rather than the performance of like, "Did I get the box checked out of a jacket every day this week?" But is it, "Are we moving towards a general co-created jacket on shoulders solution?"  

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Well, also, because I'm not naive. I know that the jacket can make it outside the garage door and then straight into either the back of the car, or into the backpack, or be left at school, or all three at different days of the week. It's one of those things. If there's no buy-in, it means that a minute I'm not looking, the jacket is not happening, which doesn't help me. I don't want to see the jacket can be put on. It's not what I'm getting to. What I'm getting to is – and you mentioned it. To me it's common sense that when it's cold, you want to actually cover up a little bit more than when it's 90 degrees. And also, common sense, it's a perspective. It's my perspective of common sense.  

I also would like to avoid eternal sicknesses, which I'm sure there are all sorts of scientific debate out there that it's not the cold the cause of the sickness, which I would agree, it's not the cold. That itself the cause of the sickness, except for maybe frostbite and hypothermia. It's probably cold-related I would say. Unless there are conspiracy theories that humans can survive in cold weather with no coverings, whatsoever.  

But I think my interpretation is that it's the body trying to keep warm. Because that's what the body is going to continuously try to do, is keep itself war. And also trying to fight all the germs that are growing indoors. And the body is going to have to compromise where the fight goes. Am I fighting to stay warm? Or am I fighting the germs? And that's where sicknesses probably come from. Not the cold itself. 

Alex Cullimore: It sounds like the sickness portion may be a significant part of the awareness you'd like to have or at least that you're concerned with particularly. This is not just – it seems like common sense to be warm. But also, that's going to spiral into sicknesses, which, as any household will tell you, it becomes everybody's problem. Everybody comes home from school sick. It gets to go through everybody for a while. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Everybody gets to pay that token.  

Alex Cullimore: Your choice is now all of our attacks.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. That's what I'm trying to avoid. And nobody likes to be sick. It's not just about me not wanting to have a sick person in the household or wanting to be sick. It's also about the fact that like I've seen my kids when they're sick. They're miserable. I don't want that experience for them if it's preventable with a jack jacket. Or at least some of it. Not all sicknesses are preventable with a jacket. But a good portion maybe. If it's possible, why not try it?  

Alex Cullimore: Okay. Where would you say that everyone else is of that thought process?  

Cristina Amigoni: Well, I did get to talk to William, who he's the jacket mutiny person. And so, I did talk to William about it and explained to him, "This is why I think it's important. Now you take that information and figure that out.  

Alex Cullimore: How did that go? How'd that feel?  

Cristina Amigoni: Well, then it was time to go to school. That's where the timing of the conversation is also important to be aware of.  

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. You've got ideas of like what your impact is if it's not there. As well as the potential of maybe letting go as a co-creation opportunity. What's a distinct action you'd like to try out in the next week as it gets cold?  

Cristina Amigoni: I would say letting go on my part and just like maybe it's one of those experiences. Letting it happen. My son is super excited that he made varsity, basketball team, after jumping from developmental last year. It was a huge jump. And even his coach said that he's never seen that happen in one year.  

And one of the big things for him is that he wants to be able to practice and play basketball every single day. My fortune telling tells me, if you keep going out without a jacket and it's 20 degrees outside, guess what you're going to be missing? It's basketball.  

And so, do I tell him that that's what I'm predicting? Or do I let him have the experience and then have the double heartbreak of him being sick and missing basketball?  

Alex Cullimore: Does it have to be an either/or?  

Cristina Amigoni: No. No, it doesn't. I mean, I could communicate what I'm thinking and then let him make the decision. And if he's got to go through the experience of missing basketball because he gets sick, well, that's the way it is. Or maybe he won't get sick and then he can tell me for the rest of his life that I was wrong.  

Alex Cullimore: That's the kind of a thing that will come up at Thanksgiving 30 years from now. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Or on a podcast when he shares that when he starts his podcast.  

Alex Cullimore: How does that feel in terms of like relating to your own core values and the idea of like maybe some co-creation of solutions and connection with people and wanting them to – wanting to be able to let go as well as have them develop their own decision-making? 

Cristina Amigoni: It feels good. Because what – we talked about it a little bit when we were defining awareness. What I was missing that I had been doing after they went to school as a self-reflection and then a lot more now during this coaching session is the awareness. The awareness of why is it important for me that he wears a jacket? The awareness of what's happening in the situation? And what can be done differently?  

Rather than what we usually do and we especially expect others to do in any type of change, and particularly in a company's change, organizational changes, any business-related changes at work is to just jump from, "This is my idea. Now you go change." Just go make the choice to change. But we missed the first four steps, which is – well, three steps, which is the awareness, the acceptance, which we're going to talk about in the next discipline, and the conscious choice to change.  

The awareness is key. Without me being aware of why do I feel the way I do? What's happening? Why does he feel the way he does? What's happening in the situation? How is this situation impacting our relationship and our family dynamics? I can't move to the next.  

Alex Cullimore: That makes sense. Yeah, that's a good explanation of we do fall into that kind of awareness trap. As a final question, what if any support would you want to test this out and test out letting go and having those discussions?  

Cristina Amigoni: I guess just ask me how the continuation of the conversation goes. Or if there is one. 

Alex Cullimore: I'm going to send you a gift of Just Let It Go from Frozen. Because that feels appropriate on two levels. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. I know. Exactly. Maybe that's what I'm missing. The fact that he's Frozen-related and he doesn't need a jacket. The cold doesn't bother him anyway.  

Alex Cullimore: That's a real pro tip out there. If your coaching session doesn't end with a Disney quote, have you done it?  

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Measure of success. All right. Should we –  

Alex Cullimore: Well, thank you for letting us probe into that and get awareness on your part.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Should we switch it up very quickly?  

Alex Cullimore: Yep. Let's swap it.  

Cristina Amigoni: Okay. I will ask you the same question. What might be a sign that you have lost awareness?  

Alex Cullimore: I think similar to what you were describing, it's when I'm not as present. And one thing that really comes to mind is the idea of I fall into the reacting versus responding. When I've lost awareness, then I'm just starting to like lead with my emotions. I feel angry and then I'm just like kind of acting more angry. Or I feel tired and I'm acting more tired. Or I feel avoidant. And so, I'm more avoidant.  

When I'm not aware of those things and I'm not trying to consciously choose. And it's not about choosing differently. It's just being aware and deciding what to do about that. That's when I've really kind of noticed that awareness is gone, is when I'm much more in reaction mode and much less in responding mode. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's good awareness actually. 

Alex Cullimore: Appreciate it. 

Cristina Amigoni: You've checked the box of awareness. 

Alex Cullimore: All right. fastest coaching session ever. 

Cristina Amigoni: I know. When you do find yourself reacting rather than responding, what does that look like and feel like?  

Alex Cullimore: I like that question. Because the first thing that comes to mind is that there's really – it's when there's only one voice that I noticed at the table. If I think about like the voices in my head of like there's always kind of a cacophony of like influences and like, "Hey, I want to try this. I want to try that." Or, "Hey, I'm angry about this." Or, "Oh, I'm feeling hungry." Whatever these things are, right? Or if I get curious about it, I can be more like, "Oh, I noticed that I'm kind of getting upset about this." But then I'm noticing two voices at that point. I'm observing and feeling the emotion.  

And so, when that gets limited and the tunnel vision sets in and it's only really one voice and there's just – or not even really paying attention to the voices. I'm not even noticing that there are other potential thoughts and options going on in my head. That's I think the feeling that most aptly describes like when I've lost that and when it's now just down to that tunnel vision. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. That's understandable. That tunnel vision. Lack of awareness will definitely have the potential to put us in that tunnel vision. And when you know reaction mode is that, "Oh, something happens," and we react, there's no conscious choice, which is what slows it down and opens up the view and perspectives.  

Where do you feel it your body when you are in reactive mode?  

Alex Cullimore: I think it probably depends on what the reaction is. But mostly a lot of them come down to a feeling of mental buzz and mental fog, where there's not – it really does get kind of tunnel vision down to one voice because everything else is being drowned out. There's almost kind of a buzz and a mental fog. And so, I guess mostly, kind of in my forehead, I feel some amount of just distraction weight, heaviness. And I think it would go back to the term buzz. 

Cristina Amigoni: Hmm. Interesting. And where do you see the impact? What's the impact of you going into reactive mode and not respond – not taking the time to respond?  

Alex Cullimore: Lots of different things. I think, mostly – first of all, I'm not making necessarily the most constructive choices at that point. Because I'm not aware enough to figure out what the constructive choices are. I'm just reacting to things. If I'm going back to default reactions, I mean, there's a narrow set of situations in which the default reactions without conscious choice are super productive.  

There are only so many where I've gained enough comfort, confidence, experience, whatever else in a situation to where the defaults are I can kind of lean back on autopilot and still have that be productive. When it comes to like personal relationships, that can be – that can throw whole conversations off base. That can throw entire like understandings out the window. And it just really opens up a lot of chance for miscommunication, chance for misunderstanding, as well as things that later off I might have to like walk back and be like, "Sorry. I think I was overreacting on this." Or, "Hey, really, I was dialed in on this portion of it and I don't think that's what you were trying to get across." Or whatever it is.  

Really, it's a lot of relational. But it's also just an energy drain. Because I'm spun out on something that I have to go unwind later to both of those really, whether internally or external relationships. I guess it's a matter of having to readdress something because it wasn't productively done the first time. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Totally understandable. And the impact of the energy. The reaction may feel like the fastest way at the moment. But actually, double, triple, quadruple the energy and time that's needed because of the having to go unwind and then rebuild any broken and any gaps in relationships or in even just accomplishments that we expected.  

And so, knowing how your physical reaction is so that the brain – the buzz, and the brain fog and the impact of that does. If I could learn how to speak today, that would be good. How can you be more aware – to use a pun intended, more aware of what's happening in the moment and maybe pause it and take advantage of the awareness that you're getting to perform or master a situation better the next time?  

Alex Cullimore: I think there are two parts of it. There's the retroactive and there's the in-the-moment. In-the-moment, when I can catch that feeling. And I think I'll be a little bit more aware of it now. Because I don't think I really tied the buzzing and mental fog feeling with this. Just taking a breath is a huge one. Just stopping, pausing and being like, "Okay. I don't have to answer whatever is being asked to me right now. I can just take a breath and then come back back into this." That I think gives enough slow down to start to choose and hear the other voices and look.  

And then in retrospect, if that hasn't happened or if there was some situation that was, for lack of a better term, triggering enough to just not get to that awareness in real-time, then I think it's probably about unwinding that in some kind of like journaling. Just refocusing and having a moment to reflect on like, "Okay, here's the things. And here's what I really kind of meant. And what can I do better in the future? And what might have caused this?" So that I can be more aware in the future that this is chance, this is another opportunity where it might end up being in that mental fog. I think both of those would be decent strategies. 

Cristina Amigoni: How does it feel to adopt to strategies?  

Alex Cullimore: It feels a lot better. And I think, honestly, the awareness portion of just kind of reminding myself explicitly of what that feeling is. There have been some times where in the moment I'm like, "Okay. I'm too heated. But this is really great to kind of have this moment of reflection in general. Because I don't think I'd really in front of myself point to understood that as a pattern." I kind of seen it as one-off and then occasionally been able to catch that one-off. And then I haven't really spent the time to put that all in and like, "Hey, here's an ongoing pattern. And here's how it could be addressed both now and in the future." It feels a lot better. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. That's excellent self-reflection actually, to start indicate – looking at the patterns. Not just the moment. And seeing like maybe there is something. Maybe it's a word, a person, a situation, what I ate, when I sleep, how I slept that's causing the reaction and the lack of awareness or the decreasing awareness in the situation over and over and over. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. No. I appreciate it. Because that really does help identify the both how it happens as well as it gives me some kind of foothold, I feel like, for approaching this in the future. I'm kind of excited for that. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. And bringing it back to the influencers, what's influencing their reaction? The more aware we are of what's influencing the reaction, the more we could preemptively take that breath. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I think that breath sometimes provides enough space to at least slow things down. And I might not find all the influencers right in that moment. And that's where maybe even after a breath, the journaling exercise is good either way just to go back and look and like, "Okay, here's I think the influencers that were particularly at play." And just like this conversation, like it helps now to think about like, "Well, what are the real impacts of that specific one? And how can I know that one might come up in the future?" And that can usually be abstracted into some kind of larger pattern.  

Cristina Amigoni: Indeed. Last question. What kind of support and accountability would you need to start being aware of your awareness?  

Alex Cullimore: One thing that I started doing with – so when I was going through coaching the COR.E Dynamics piece, we did this as a small study group. And one fun thing was like, "I'm going to try and practice this for the week on this influencer that we were discussing." And one thing we would do is just like pick like an emoji or something that we would send to the group chat.  

I think I'm going to try and just do that. If I catch myself in some moment, maybe I'll just – I don't know what emoji it will be. But something. Maybe a breath, or something, or a pause, or something that looks like a stop. I don't know what it will be, but I'll just send you – if there's an emoji that doesn't make sense, that's the one I picked.  

Cristina Amigoni: That's good. Well, and what I like about that plan is that you can also look back at the accountability. You have a record. So, for future patterns. You could probably pick up on patterns to see when did I send the emoji and reflect in journal on that. And I could potentially do the same. If I start noticing that the emoji starts coming in certain situation or certain times, I could reflect back and I'm like, "Hey, this seems to be coming up in the middle of the day most of the times. What happens in the middle of the day typically?  

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I like that. It's like a time stamp record as well as just a kind of quantified. That's cool. Yeah, I like that. 

Cristina Amigoni: All right. Here's a very quick coaching on awareness.  

Alex Cullimore: Here's to being more aware. And next up, we'll have acceptance. but until then, go forth and be aware. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Channel your own awareness. And thanks for listening. 

[OUTRO] 

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo podcast.  

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Lara; and our score creator, Rachel Sherwood.  

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review, and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas, or questions. You can reach us at podcast@wearesiamo.com, or at our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. We Are Siamo is spelled W-E A-R-E S-I-A-M-O. 

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others, and always uncover the human. 

[END]