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Welcome to Episode 108 of The Non-Anxious Leader podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. Today's episode is on self-regulation. This is the ability to manage your own anxiety in tense and anxious situations.

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You may know that my day job is running a Christian camp and retreat ministry. I had such a day when I needed to self regulate on a Thursday back in November. It was Black Lives Matter at Camp Day. We had discussed as a staff that we were going to post something in support of Black Lives Matter at Camp. We know that Christian camping is a largely white endeavor and that we've been striving over the years to serve more diverse communities, as well as a more diverse staff.

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Our own camp has done well in the last 20 years that I've been there. We've gone from virtually no ethnic minority campers to about 20 percent of our camper population. But we are still working to get better and we're still working to get our summer staff and our year-round staff to reflect the culture that we serve. I didn't think too much about it. I approved what we put out there. We made aconfession about what we had not done in the past and also talked about the steps that we wanted to take towards making things better in the future.

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When the post went live on social media, all heck broke loose. I heard from multiple people, staff, board members, donors who were upset about it. I had to regulate my own anxiety in dealing with people who were very upset. It would have been nice to have had this article, "How to Keep Your Cool in High Stress Situations," which I am using as the basis for today's podcast. It is from the Harvard Business Review, and it has five steps that you can take to self-regulate in tough situations.

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These steps are based on a theory called Poly Vagal Theory, developed by one of the article's authors, Stephen Porges, from Indiana University. His theory is on how the nervous system regulates both defensive end collaborative behavior. Central to this is the vagus nerve, which is the major parasympathetic nerve in the autonomic nervous system. The vagus nerve runs all the way from the brain down to the gut. As we know, the parasympathetic nerves regulate the rest and digest response.

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Sympathetic nerves activate the fight or flight response. The author's note in this article that when we are in an anxious situation, when we are in a tense situation, when we feel threatened, there are three levels to the response.

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The first is what they call immobilization. This might be called the freeze response and reaches its extreme when we shut down completely. This is rare in humans, but it can happen.

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The second level response is mobilization, this would be the fight or flight response. The heart beats faster and the sympathetic nervous system activates. Cortisol and adrenaline are released into your system, enabling either a fight or flight response.

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In family systems term, the fight response would be considered reactivity. This would be getting defensive, getting argumentative and allowing your own anxiety to lash back at the person who is anxious or the person who is tense, the person who is giving you a hard time.

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The flight response would be considered adaptivity. This would be giving in without saying what you really feel. It would be giving in without making a healthy, non-anxious response. That would be flight. Of course, we could actually physically flee, but that is not typically what happens.

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Usually what happens is we are unable to respond in a healthy way and we either react, we fight. Or we give in, we flee emotionally.

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Level three is engagement and connection. When we feel safe again, the vagal pathway quiets our sympathetic nervous system. This is the connection that the vagus nerve has here. It is the part of our parasympathetic nervous system that takes over and can quiet our sympathetic nervous system.

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When this happens, when we feel safe again, oxytocin is released. Oxytocin is the neurochemical most connected to the emotion trust. At this point, we are open to others and we can experience a sense of connectedness. You've probably heard me say before that one of the most important parts of leading through self-differentiation is not only being able to say what you believe in a healthy way, but it's being able to stay connected to the people who make you most anxious, to the people who are the most resistant, to the people who themselves are most anxious. And staying connected to them in these difficult situations requires self-regulation.

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If we can do this, we can get to this level three, then we can have the kind of engagement and connection that can get us to a healthier place in the situation. As the title of this episode suggests, the authors of this article from the Harvard Business Review recommend a five step approach to self-regulation based on Porges' poly vagal theory.

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The first step is understanding. This is recognizing whether you are at level one, two or three in your response to the perceived threat when you are facing the anxiety of another person.

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The first thing you want to be aware of is how you are responding. Training yourself to assess how you're feeling will help you to pause any reactivity that might normally come. Remember that reactivity can either be fighting or getting defensive. That is, arguing content with the other. Or it can be adaptivity, it can be giving in without saying what you really believe. Taking a moment to ask yourself what's going on inside of you requires you to pause and not respond.

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This can feel awkward because we often feel like we need to respond right away to attacks and provocations. But that is something that's going on inside of us. People rarely push back when we pause and are thoughtful. Of course, when we are trying to assess where we are, stage one is a possibility, it's possible that we are freezing.

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This is going to be unlikely, especially if you're able to think about what is going on inside of you. More likely, you are in stage two, which is mobilization. That is the fight or flight response. It's highly unlikely that we are going to be in stage three, engagement and connection. It takes self-regulation to get us there. That's what this podcast is about. If you are able to get to engagement and connection right away, that's great. But in most of these cases, we are going to be in that anxious moment where our automatic response would either be to fight or to flee, to be reactive or to adapt.

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Step two, according to the authors, is being aware of what's going on with you by noticing physical and emotional cues. Is your heart racing? Are you short of breath? Does your stomach feel funny? In my own work, I call this self-awareness because I believe self-awareness and intentionality are the keys to self-regulation.

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The idea here is to take stock of your physical and emotional state. If your heart is racing, your breathing is rapid and shallow, then you are likely in a fight or flight response. And we know that these are signs of increased anxiety.

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We also want to be aware of what our tendency is when we respond quickly. Are we normally reactive? Are we normally adaptive? And by understanding what our tendency is and checking in with ourselves and saying what is it that I want to do automatically, we actually are then able to pause in the moment and think more clearly.

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Now, the authors don't say this, but I would also recommend focusing on your breathing. It's been well-established that your breathing is not only a symptom of your anxiety, but it can also regulate your anxiety. When you are at level two that fight or flight state, you are more likely to have fast, shallow breathing. Studies have shown that if you are not anxious and you breathe rapidly and shallowly, you will actually make yourself anxious.

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Conversely, deep breathing can calm you down both physically and emotionally. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest state, and will enable you to slow things down so that you can be more thoughtful in your response and more intentional and how you engage with the other. Further, it's been shown that if you exhale longer than you inhale, this activates that same vagus nerve and will help you to calm down.

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Now, this sounds like a lot in the moment. What I recommend is practicing deep breathing on a regular basis. I do it while I'm sitting in my chair working. I do it when I wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back to sleep. In particular, I focus on the motion of my stomach watching or even feeling it expand with my hand as I am breathing in, which is allowing my diaphragm to expand so my lungs can take in more breath. And then I focus on my stomach going down, going in as far as it can as I exhale.

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This may sound ridiculous, but I have found that by doing this, when things are not tense, I am better able to do it when things do get tense. Remember that step two is awareness of what is going on with you emotionally and physically. And by focusing on deep breathing, you can change your state. This will help you to get from level two, which is fight or flight, to level three, engagement and connection.

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Step three is to recall previous experiences where you have successfully handled an anxious situation. According to the authors, recalling this in the moment will give you hope that you can do it again.

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One way you can prepare for this is during non-anxious times to think about those times when you have been successful at handling an anxious situation, and write it down. That way you will be more likely to recall it in an anxious moment. One way to do this is to think about the people who make you anxious. Who is that person or who are those persons that when you see a voicemail, an email or a text message from them, your blood pressure shoots up and your heart starts racing?

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Then think about the times when you've had an anxious encounter with them and you've handled it well. There might not be many, but if you have handled them well, then that can give you hope. Write that down. Think about it. So when you are in an anxious moment, whether it's with that person or anyone else, you can recall how you've successfully handled an anxious situation and bring hope to you in that moment. We know that there will be times when you don't handle things well, but there should be times when you've been able to navigate things as a non-anxious presence. It's those times when you want to write down and then recall in those tense situations.

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This will remind you that you have the capacity to self-regulate and respond in a healthy way.

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Step four is intention or what I would call intentionality. The authors recommend that you let go of your ego and focus on your highest purpose. Another way to put this is to let go of your need to defend yourself or to argue that you're right. Or to let go of your need to show the other person that you care so much that you're going to give in without taking a non-anxious stand. When you focus on your higher purpose, your body will release oxytocin, that neurotransmitter that promotes trust. Ask yourself, what are you trying to do here that is consistent with your values or the mission of your family, church or organization?

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By focusing on your higher purpose and releasing oxytocin, you are more likely to come across as trusting to the other person. This, in turn, will foster their ability to trust you. In essence, doing this helps you to be a non-anxious presence which will enable you to reduce your own anxiety and the anxiety of the other.

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Step five is to trust the process. The authors say that you can practice learning to make others feel safe and engage them in mutually beneficial conversations. To me, this is all about emotional connection. This is being able to not argue and not agree while fostering emotional connection. This is the essence of being a non-anxious presence.

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I shared earlier in this episode that back in November on Black Lives Matter at Camp Day, I got a barrage of reactivity from people who were upset with what we had said. And these were people within our circle, staff, board members, donors. I had a couple of conversations with some very, very anxious and upset people. And one of the things I was able to do was to self-regulate my own anxiety. I was able to not be reactive. Mostly I listened, but I was able to say that I believed the post that we put out on social media did reflect what I believe is important for our camp to say.

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But I also listened to try to hear what was going on with them. And I think in doing that, we did create some emotional connection. I didn't change my mind about the post, but I was able to hear what their concerns were, what their fears were, what their anxieties were. And I think that was helpful because we put it behind us and we moved on.

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When you trust the process, regardless of the content, and are able to regulate your own anxiety so that you are not reactive and yet stay emotionally connected to the other person, you're the kind of leader that other people feel they can be themselves with. That can lead to healthier conversations.

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Even when someone is upset, by self-regulating, you create the emotional space that allows the situation to calm down so that you can work through it in a helpful way. This is what it means to be a non-anxious presence. This is what non-anxious leaders do.