E-communication and Our Social Brain

Well, the vision board was back in March and I forgot all about my ipad wish…funny that! Then my new son-in-law was selling his ipad and had heard that I might be interested and so suddenly I was face to face with my nemesis!To cut a long story short we got the ipad and with mixed feelings I am beginning to learn all about it. It’s been great to Facetime my daughter who moved to Switzerland and friends and family in South Africa but beyond that I am still slowly incorporating it into my life. 

And here is the underlying resistance: 
Brain research is telling us that our powerful social brain functions best when we are face to face where it can add powerful subtexts of voice cadence, micro expressions and emotional cues to the words. Yet much of social technology does not allow that, leaving our social brain starved of vital data and our bodies reacting to the lack of information, often in reactive ways. The social brain is not being allowed to do its' constant job just out of our awareness helping us move forwards smoothly.

When there is no channel for the social brain to attend to then the orbital frontal cortex, which hunts for that information and helps us inhibit reactivity, is flying blind.

Daniel Goleman wonders if this is not a big part of the problem of intense e-interactions called’ flaming’.

Technology and me

I am having an ongoing love-hate relationship with social technology. Recently I did another vision board at my talented friend and colleague, Shelley Whitehead’s Vision Board Day. We started with an exercise of moving through some questions about yourselves and capturing your responses in one-word descriptors. In response to one of those questions an  ipad popped onto my list. No one was more amazed than myself as I have been bringing myself into the 21^st Century with a startling lack of grace! My husband’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when I told him what had happened…

And so it went on my vision board, a lovely picture of a woman of around my age sitting looking very happy, relaxed and confident smiling at the camera.

And there in that picture lies my dilemma – because what creates huge resistance in me is watching people busy on their devices in social situations totally engrossed in the screen and life, connection and relationships are passing them by. It’s so sad… and alarming. And I was not sure that I could win the battle to keep the seductive screen in proportion to my life and my goals.

Could I keep metaphorically looking at people-could I bring my full presence if there was an ipad in my life?

The Growth Mindset - how does it look?

So now I’m more interested in the growth mindset! What does that look like?

Well, it turns out, a growth mindset will lead to;

• A desire to learn and therefore a tendency to
• Embrace challenges
• Persist in the face of setbacks
• See effort as the path to mastery
• Learn from criticism
• Find lessons and inspiration in the success of others
• As a result reach even higher levels of achievement

Some weeks ago I watched Andy Murray win Wimbledon and as I listened to him talk about his journey to that trophy I could clearly hear a growth mindset. I know which mindset I would like to inhabit!!

The Fixed Mindset - how does it look?

So what does the difference between a fixed mindset and growth mindset look like in somebody’s life?

Well, a fixed mindset will lead to:

• A desire to appear smart and therefore a tendency to
• Avoid challenges
• Get defensive or give up easily
• See effort as fruitless or worse
• Ignore useful negative feedback
• Feel threatened by the success of others

... and as a result plateau early and achieve less of their potential.

I found myself thinking about all sorts of situations where this had some resonance at times - I’m pleased to say less now then a decade ago – but still challenging to consider!

Mindsets

I have been reading an interesting book lately, ‘Mindset - how you can reach your potential’ by Dr Carole Dweck. It explores two basic mindsets that we as humans have and how they shape our lives. 

The one is a fixed mindset where we believe that basic things about ourselves can’t change, for example our intelligence. The other is a growth mindset where we stay curious and keep learning and exploring through every experience.

It’s an interesting book because it challenges some fundamental beliefs I did not even realise I had - such as the intelligence I was born with was in essence a fixed ‘quantity’ and therefore put a ceiling on how far intellectually I might go. Now with neuroplacticity we know that this is just not true and that new neural networks can form with attention to something particular and that we CAN learn to be more intelligent and skilled - we can indeed change. What a gift to know that!

Does it mean that I can be a world class mathematician...? Probably not!

Parenting and Presenting!

We had a Parenting Day last week and I had the experience of co-presenting with a lovely man who I admire a lot. But here’s the thing….we have never presented together before and in many ways it was a wonderful metaphor for two people plunging into the adventure of parenting with both people confident and anxious!

I found myself wondering at times if what I was saying might be different to what he believed or practised - especially given that he was, in my mind, by far the more ‘expert’ one.

To do this adventure together we had to come face to face with both our expertise – together we had 9 children, 8 grandchildren and some 45 years jointly as therapists in relationships of all sorts – and our sense of inadequacy both as parents and presenters.

Yet it is exactly this blend of expertise and inadequacy that makes both parenting AND presenting such an adventure!

Individual Paradigm vs Relational Paradigm - Where do you fall?

So back to the exploration of the difference between the Individual Paradigm and the Relational Paradigm.

Is the locus of control in the individual who pursues healing and growth through insights as they are relevant to his or her world? Or are those experiences of growth and healing more readily available in the interaction between two people – in the space between?

I like what Dr. Dan Siegel has to say about this:

‘And as a ‘we’ is woven into the neurons of our mirroring brains, even our sense of self is illuminated by the light of our connection.’