04 230719 The Power of Negative Feelings - Reprogramming Hegemony And Creating Healthy Work Environments

11:22PM Sep 20, 2023

Speakers:

Meredith Holley

Megan Goering Mellin

Keywords:

hegemony

feelings

people

plant

beliefs

theme

create

reprogramming

act

white

perpetuate

thoughts

model

belonging

hegemonic

incident

boundary

action

women

thought

You've heard about the power of positive feelings. Today we're going to talk about the power of negative feelings. Why do we have a hard time asking for what we want at work? Why is it hard to know what to say to a bully, or even to find the words? And what might we stand to gain from listening in or leaning closer to our negative feelings, rather than avoiding them or drawing away? Today's episode is going to pull on the second of our three pillars of empowered communication, which are boundaries, reprogramming, hegemony and accountability. Today we're focusing on reprogramming hegemony. So Meredith reprograming hegemony is a seven syllable term that contains so many keys to freedom. Tell us what it means. Please break down both what you mean by reprogramming and what you mean by hegemony.

Yeah, so hegemony, as we've talked about is a term that you might know from debate class in high school, or you might know it from feminism class you took in college, but hegemony is the idea that there is a dominant group that has power over non dominant groups, and then the system of power become self sustaining, because the people who are not dominant, start imposing it against each other and imposing it against ourselves. So it's the idea that we maintain our own oppression, unconsciously reprogramming that is the idea of shifting our thinking, essentially, so that we're not buying into systems that oppress us. It can sound like a little bit conceptual, but in my experience, there are actually just a few very practical steps people can take to change their minds.

Got it, so I feel like this is okay, first off, I think I also recounted the syllables, reprogramming Gemma and I think that's eight syllables. You know, kind of quickly, okay, eight syllables, so much liberation. So what I'm hearing you say is that hegemony refers to a situation where there is a dominant power, like there's like a supreme Oh type, this is how we want to be we want to be the Royals, not the serfs. But then the serfs learn Oh, we have to police each other to do what's right for the Royals, even though the Royals are non benevolent overlords. But then here we are serfs. We're so scared. We're walking on eggshells, we're convincing each other to stay safe by walking on eggshells. And none of it's serving us it is serving the non benevolent overlords. But we stop remembering that we are cowering in fear. And we are selling our own equality down the river. Because we have been so completely convinced that this is our proper order in the world. And you see this natural system,

right? Like some really easy examples of it are sort of like tone policing people. So like women telling other women, if you had just said that in a nicer way people could hear you. If you had been more assertive, you would have gotten the job. If you wore different clothing, then you would have a different experience when in reality, the other woman is having an experience based on structures of sexism that exist in the world, not based on her choice of clothes, or her tone, or anything bad that she is doing.

Right. So really teaching, GG try to be more palatable. Yeah, to whatever authority figure reference point has been established. It's not us. It's not authentic to us. But we're trying to act like the good class, so that we blend in with them and don't get harmed. But actually, when we're over there acting like them, and trying to blend in with the dominant party. We're actually not over here doing what's right for either us or for everybody. So, yeah, even as encroaches.

Right, even when we're criticizing each other, when two women are criticizing each other, instead of questioning the system that is not allowing them to proceed. That's energy used to perpetuate the hegemony when white women criticize black women for their tone. That is actions that we're taking to perpetuate the imbalance of power. Like, right? Yeah.

Or like instant isn't second wave feminism, the old kind of white lady feminism where we were like, oh, sorry, people of color, like, white ladies have to get free first, then we'll come for you. Otherwise, the movements too broad. Like that is an example of where we're like, Well, only the palatable ones can get saved first, sorry. So it's actually people turning against each other, rather than linking arms and now right lead left those matters like, Oh, we're not doing that anymore, right. That didn't actually happen. It didn't work. Also, it didn't actually free the white ladies look where we are right now. So we've seen movies already in this century. And we are not ready to do that anymore. And so that is why we are reprogramming. And when you say we, when you say reprogramming hegemony, you are insinuating here that it is possible to reprogram that we can do something about it. Tell us more about that.

So I actually think that it's a very simple system to question our thinking and how it and and what we see as normal, and how that buys into systems and structures that perpetuate oppression most people have, in terms of social power dynamics, most people have areas of privilege, and areas of marginalization. Some people pretty much only have areas of privilege. So we're talking about like a straight white man born into wealth,

and marriage with kids everything you would experimentally,

well think that

they're fitting primo type, they're what we're supposed to look like, if we're going to be on the front page

of Forbes. Yeah, so that person might have all privileged but a lot of people with marginalized characteristics also have some privileged characteristics. So for example, you and I are white women were women, which is non dominant, it is marginalized, but it's not as marginalized as non binary folks are trans folks. So we still have even in that dynamic, we have some privilege. And whiteness is like, a total privilege characteristic, we're able bodied, we're, like mentally well and engage in growth, like mental growth, also, like, so we have a lot of privilege. And we have a small set of marginalization, where we can kind of understand how that is. So when when you shift your thinking, you have to question what you see as normal. And a lot of times what you see as a normal, you know, because you get triggered. So this is why the negative feeling component of this is, is kind of the key because you know, when your body reacts, you have a you have a trigger, you have a fear response, you have an anger response, you have some kind of charge that is uncomfortable, right? And, and it's funny to call feelings, negative feelings, and positive feelings, I kind of dispute that I think there's feelings that are comfortable, there's feelings that are uncomfortable, sometimes even what we call positive feelings are kind of uncomfortable. So it's kind of a weird designation, but we'll just say like painful or uncomfortable feelings and like comfortable feelings. So you have a painful feeling. There's an event that happens in the world, you have a painful feeling, that is a signal that you think something's gone. Not normal.

Like a smoke detector, yeah. error detection, abnormality, alert, beep, beep, beep.

And that can be a signal that you're unsafe, that there is something that you actually need to remove yourself from that you need to set a boundary with, that you need to adjust or call 911 Do what you need to protect yourself. It also can be a signal, that you have some hegemony, that you are now going to act out to oppress somebody else, or to oppress yourself, right? So so those signals can be a radar, that we think something is not normal, then what you have to do is you have to write out or talk out all the thoughts that you have about that topic. If it's not a danger, an actual danger situation, right? If it is a dangerous situation, if you need to set a boundary, you don't need to like interrogate that and go into it. If it's not actually a threat to you or a danger. That's some space to say, Do I have some hegemonic programming in here, that is oppressing me, or that's going to weaponize me against somebody else? So I can I

want to Well, I want to like slow down because I think that was really thought provoking. So like, you say, there's a situation, the situation starts setting off negative feelings. Many of us were taught, well, where I grew up in the Midwest, I sometimes say like, it's almost like having feelings was a little bit like catching chickenpox. Like, if you have them in your house, everyone is really glad that you stayed home and are taking time for your to deal with that. Right? Bring them into a public space. People are like, What are you doing out of your house? Everyone's going to catch it. It's like a pandemic that people are hiding from. And you wouldn't want to do it outside because other people can catch the feelings. And also there's the idea that if you catch the feelings then if you've actually let yourself feel them, then it'll happen forever. Like, there's a lot of myths about how feelings are bad for the workplace bad for people. And I gotta say, at age almost 37, I'm cusping. I'm 37. Now, it's not true. Like someone said, someone, I think in yoga school said emotions, it's like an emotion, its energy in motion. And here, you're like, No, you have a feeling. It's like a smoke alarm. It's like Beep, beep, it's a signal. It's not you felt anger, and you let yourself so now you're gonna fly into a violent rage and just get stuck as an angry person forever. No, but it does mean your smoke alarm is going off, it's going off in the middle of the night, then you go and you, you know, stand on the chair, and you poke the button, and you find out if it's actually a fire, or if the thing is going off, then you're saying, if the thing is going off, and there's a signal, it could mean different things. It could mean some there is a fire, there's a fire smoke, you know, you need to take action. And if you catch that, the good part about not ignoring the alarm is you can catch it at smoke, your house is gonna burn down, you can find out oh, it's the curling iron my bad, and you can deal with it. However, you are also saying that sometimes that alarm starts going off, and it can make us into werewolf versions of ourselves. It can drive us to do stuff where we become the hegemonic, it's like, the moon is out and we turn into werewolf mode, either because we are moved by reactively. By that blaring we act out and perform or repeat hegemony or harm, either to other people or ourselves. And I want to give some examples. I think that is why people some of us can, or as people with a lot of privilege, I think some of us can relate to this even as kids, right? Like when kids don't get what they want. Sometimes that's valid, they're really hungry, they need food, right food fell on the ground, you're not actually went to let them eat the food of the mud. They're losing their minds. It makes perfect sense, right? But sometimes you'll watch a kid lose it because somebody else got the corndog that they wanted. Right? And they go I didn't get what I deserved. Everyone's gonna pay for this. And, and, and then the tirade, you know begins and for kids, we get it. But like, as adults, we do that too, right? That can license that we give ourselves as private license to just scorch the earth. punch down a lot. And that is us behaving regressively as a hedge fund to others misusing privilege that can be an abuse cycle. The second one you said is we can become hegemonic, or we can act out the hegemonic to ourselves, right? Or maybe that looks like the alarm goes off. I feel like how that could look at me as being like, Oh, my God, I shouldn't have said that. What's wrong with me? Who am I? Why can I get over this? How do I even work here? It's self antagonism. It's self attacking. But I don't even recognize it as somebody else's voice that I'm policing. And myself, you know, it's not my true self. She doesn't talk like that about people.

One subtle way. Yeah, one subtle way that I see it happen a lot is when we genuinely want to protect ourselves or somebody else. And so we're trying to get back to what seems normal. So, for example, I have a lot of older women attorneys, very kindly tell me, you know, things are unfair. So you're just gonna have to work twice as hard as the men around you. And that is kind of them to say, also me believing I need to work twice as hard as the men around me. It might be one way to encounter sexism. It also is part of hegemony, and when we say yes, I now will work twice as hard as men. That's just the way it is. We accept the reality and we perpetuate it.

And we forget to have compassion, we forget that we made those old agreements. And then we're like, Well, why can't Why am I now only accomplishing 70% of expectation? Well, turns out you bloated your expectation, we've lowered our expectations of ourselves to x. And so if we're still accomplishing 70%, it turns out that I don't know the math of more than what we would have done, but we forget it. I think also along this point. It just the the self. I just think this that self attack the way that it comes from the outside, and then we say it again and again to ourselves, is one of the biggest rubs. So here we are saying this is the hegemony and reprogramming involves, like you said, writing it down, diagramming, going, Hey, wait a minute. I'm not just gonna be like it's imposter syndrome. What do I do about impostor syndrome? We're like, No, we need to write it down. We need to get it on paper. We need to inventory the thoughts because you You have a really interesting point about how maybe their thoughts that we pulled in or agreements like this kind of women have, you're just gonna have to work twice as hard. That's the playbook. we internalize it. And then we forget, you have a really interesting thought about how thoughts become beliefs. So in that process of forgetting where where I came from,

right, so, Byron, Katie, has, this isn't exactly how she says it. But she basically she's like a wisdom, enlightened teacher. And she said that thoughts, like, our beliefs are just the thoughts that we think all the time. So she tells the story that she used to always tell the kids like that her belief system was, these damn kids need to pick up their socks, like, because she just thought that over and over and over again. And then when she interrogated that thought, this is kind of a simple exam example. But when she interrogated that thought, she realized I could actually pick up these socks, and then they would be picked up, and it's no problem. And she started joyfully picking up the socks, and then the kids, there wasn't all this energized. Like, just like, Karen has a dialogue. Yeah, yeah. About the socks. So the socks stopped being an issue and the kids started picking up their socks.

Because she was just doing it. It's like that culture just got created. So the gridlock and like the, the fight,

yeah, and some and you know, one of the this is what I was gonna say about another example about when our, our beliefs about what is normal, our hegemonic beliefs about what is normal can sort of weaponize us and create unsafe situations like one of the most common examples of this I see is on the internet on social media when a black woman says words, white women have to monitor it somehow correct it? Yeah, we have to go in and say your tone is wrong, your words are wrong, you're uneducated, you're unprofessional, like there's just this like compulsion to go fix something. And I think often I'm not trying to justify that behavior because it's obviously not okay behavior, but like I think often internally, the white women are trying to help the black woman be more safe.

White women we are trained now whether it's true or not, because the storylines of Gemini are like if only be earned, if only you earned your safety by complying wise, very straightforward rules. But surprise, it doesn't actually work like that. So I think as white women we get trained that we need to earn our safety by complying with the white sis hetero patriarchy machine like if only we optimized well enough, right? Comfort and palatability of, I'm gonna put white men in quotes here. It's not actual white met men who have its whiteness thin. Yeah. But it's like this Conte constructed idea of what what makes white men comfortable. And so as white women, here we are sometimes in good intentions, which is very confusing and gaslighting coaching black women to just be more palatable to white men, and then this patriarchy structure because there's no cookies. So the cookies only apply to white women who do that, and wondering,

do they even apply to us? Like, the cookies are not real? And

not show up as expected?

Where are the cookies? And to my house?

Because I'll tell you, I was trying I think one of the ways that shows up for me is and it's confusing, right? Because like, for example, some people will say, like, some people get really surprised that women end up with misogynistic or anti woman beliefs.

Like, we're the most religious experts at it, we open

this society and we learn it's going to hurt us. And so we end up with this. It's very confusing, because even as a white woman, I have ended up with internalized misogyny. And that one of the biggest examples for me, as I learned grew up in Kansas, I should be not bossy. Yes. Approachable. Yeah. All right. So I've moved that into my career in tech. And I'm approachable, and not bossy. And so everybody wants and gets my help. But then, as I ascend in my career, actually, it turns out, I'm not bossy enough, yet I'm too approachable. Yeah, but then that's really confusing because, and I don't regard myself as the source of the belief that I can't afford to be bossy or else I will threaten people like, I don't think it's me. No, I just think that's how the world is. And so in the end, I love this Byron, Katie, quote, our beliefs, our thoughts, we think all the time because the more I forget that thinking bossy, bad, approachable, good. The harder and more confusing it is to get feedback. You know, was to get feedback from my managerial structure and my sponsorship structure, I need you to do less tell people exactly what to do and stop doing. Stop doing what people want, right? And inside of myself, I'm like, that's gonna get me killed. Well, is it actually gonna get me killed? Or did I just learn that's gonna get me killed. So here I am in the this is the pickle. Because we comply with these standards that are hegemonic, that say we are second class, we hold ourselves small, we hold ourselves second class, it's harming us, it's robbing our environments of our true genius, right. And yet, we are locked in this invisible thinking and belief structure. And we forgot that actually, we could even if we didn't make up the belief, some people say you made up but you know, I made up story, I don't actually buy that. I think while the stories get fed to us, I think they get fed to us recurringly. But by the reprogramming fees, you are standing for us that we can inventory, the beliefs, we can identify the spooky ones, or the ones that aren't service serving us anymore. And we can triage them to change our behavior and take back the power.

And I think it's important to also say a lot in this area that this is, as everything that we've talked about, tools can be they can build a house, or they can, like kill you, right? Like when most of us are taught to second guess ourselves all the time, which can sound like reprogramming hegemony, and it is not that most of us have had some leader or teacher tell us well, if you have a problem, you are the problem. Like, if you talk about the problem, if you question things, then you are the problem. And that is not how these tools are meant to be used. But they can be used to re perpetuate hegemony, ironically. Right. So you have to be intentional about this. But, um, but the

model for it, right? I mean, we can do in community. And we can also do it sort of systematically. So you have a tool, right? Where people work with Meredith, or they can just use the tool, like learn about the tool, but you have made a tool so that it's not so confusing, right? How are we using this? And are we harming yourself or harming somebody else? You have a tool that helps people untangle this stuff, you call it impact, which I find very smart because it frees us up to make an impact that actually is in our best interests on our own behalf. Bell Hooks said that agency defined agency as the ability to act in our own best interests. I freaking love that collective agency would be the reclaiming the capacity to act in our own collective best interests. My favorite. Yeah. So what is the impact model? And how can people use it to start that practice of disentangling? What is the hegemonic what is us?

So the impact model is a thinking it's a model of managing our thinking, identifying where we are having thoughts that are creating feelings. So so like we talked about, the feeling is usually the alert. It's the alarm, the fire alarm, like you said, it's the thing that we notice, but our feelings are created by our thoughts. And so the impact model is a model that you can use to look at what you're thinking now. And then test out what other thinking would look like, and track your thinking towards how you want to feel how you deserve to feel, or the goals that you have and how you want to act towards those goals. So I'll walk through the steps of the impact model. It's basically an acrostic. acronym. So my real

drastic columns column, it's even better because it's a framework. But yeah, you talk to each it means each letter means something.

Yeah, each letter is its own. Its own sort of element of life. So in any moment, we say there's an incident that's the external neutralized reality outside of you and outside of your control. So when we do an incident line, that's the first step towards de escalating and questioning whether we have options. Some people talk about this area as, as they say that reality is inherently neutral. I actually don't necessarily agree that reality is inherently neutral, but I think that our external reality that's outside of our control is something that we can intentionally neutralize, so that we can see other options. The second line is the meaning line. This is the thought that we have about the external reality. And our thought is in one sentence or less one sentence, one phrase, it's not all of our thoughts, you just test out one thought. So that eyeline is the incident, the M line is the meaning. The P line is the physiology. So physiology, I say, I use that word because we feel it in our abdomen. So there's something occurs in the external reality, and it's outside of our control, we have a thought about it. And our thought creates a feeling,

usually example is like if I, if I look at you, I don't want to deal with you. If I look at the plants, the sitting in your office, and I'm like, This plant has things in it is coming to kill me. And it knows how to get through the computer screen, or the the podcast airways, it's going to come in through my ears, like if I think that thought enough times, this is why I can't watch scary movies like, I will get really whipped up, the meaning will be I'm not safe. Right here on this podcast, like because I'm gonna get all I'm gonna get myself all elevated. And then it's funny. If I think that far enough times, my palms are already starting to be like, Oh my God, is it true? Like the physiology means like, My palms are getting a little bit sweaty, I'm feeling like contraction in my heart. So we're tracing how the incident is like, I am looking at the plant with this thinking, right? I see the plant, but I'm thinking it has things in the scary ability. And then I'm tracing that all the way through.

I think and often the easiest way to think about this concept is that, like, if you walk into a room, and there's 20 people in the room, they're going to have 20 different thoughts about you and 20 different feelings about you, most of us have had that happen, or most of us have had an experience where someone has a wrong idea about us, we clear it up, and then they have a different feeling about us or we have a wrong idea about somebody else, we learned something new, we change our thought, we have a different feeling about that person. A lot of times the first hurdle and using the impact model is we are so trained that other people's actions create our feelings, and our actions create other people's feelings. And in some ways, it's fair to say that because we have these pre programmed, socially acceptable emotional responses to certain actions, but the problem with it is it's not ultimately true. Like even if you are having a reasonable feeling about somebody's actions, you have a thought about it that creates that reasonable feeling.

There's an another common example of this. It's like five people, unfortunately, see a car crash. Three of them say, oh my god, I'm glad it wasn't me. The fourth one says I'll never recover. And the fifth says, I'm so grateful for every future day of my life. Right? It's like, I think this is the difference of like, I felt angry because or I felt scared because I heard about the car crash. I felt scared when I heard about the car crash, like because people can react differently. Okay, so you said I MP incident, meaning physiology. How is it in the body?

Physiology you also what you want to do is you want to use one word to describe the feeling in your body. So what you said is exactly right. Like you sweaty palms, tenseness in your chest. Yeah, but we might call that fear. We might call it anxiety scared with Gary. Yeah, scared, right.

So we're feeling where but it's it's like to capture the impression of what's happening in the body.

Yeah, yeah. It is a feeling word. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in a, a. So incident meaning physiology action. So our feelings, our physiology motivates what we do or what we don't do. Related to the external event, right? Like, I'm

scared. So I'm probably going to run away or in this case, act like I'm fine. Yeah. And pretend I don't see it. Like, I'm actually going to fight you because you're one of my friend until you're on a screen flashing and podcasts. So like, what am I going to do? Yeah, but that kind of thing. Right, like, provokes us into some kind of action in relationship to the feeling. Yeah, and

baseline. This is when we do kind of talk about negative or positive feelings. So some feelings motivate us to act. So that would be more positive. But anger is one of the feelings that motivates us to act right. And we often call that a negative feeling. Fear honestly, often motivates us to act. And then there's feelings that motivate us to not act to withdraw. So like, when we feel depressed, it's harder to get out of bed because it's harder to do anything, right? Yeah, yeah. You may sleep more. Yeah. So that's it. A line. So incident meaning physiology, action, and then consequence because all of our actions have consequences in our external reality, or no consequence. Like if we do nothing, nothing changes. That's, that's sort of the consequence, right? If I'm afraid

of your plant, and then I either flee or pretend it's not happening, then I either feel stuck. If I pretend it's not happening, or if I flee, I kind of can't stop thinking about it. Because I was like, Oh, my God, this thing happened to me there was this plan today, and I ran away, but it's still there. And like, if I go back, it'll be there.

That could be I might put those in a line, actually. So what I would say as a consequence is the plant gets the room. Right?

Oh, no, yeah. And the podcast stops, right. Yeah. Yeah. Unless I tell you, and then you're like, Okay, I'll do it without a plan. Or we talk about how this is actually fall from the idea that the plant has things which in fact, it does not, or shall we

say? Or you say, so in this in this exam?

I think it's helpful sometimes use absurdity. Like these are hard issues, like no one wants to think about the real case. But that is why I'm sorry, to the plan. I know you don't have

through the dangerous plant. Impact model. Okay? The incident line, because you neutralize it would be there as a plant on a zoom. Right? And then your thought,

I literally am sweating right now. Because we're practicing that activity,

that plant is going to attack me or that plant is gonna kill me. And then you feel scared, then you run away. plant gets the podcast is the consequence. Yeah. So and but then one of the actions that you said is run away, but then think about the plant all the time.

Yeah. Because I'm not like, what if you come over and you bring it, but I haven't, you know, like, you're not, you're not safe. It's in the, it's still in existence. Like it's not a it's not complete,

right? So then we say in the consequence line, the plant also the plant gets the podcast, the plant gets my brain

also, like living rent free in your head. That's what I do

as a theme. Usually, that's usually what so the tea line is the theme line. So there's five, in any any life experience, there are these five elements, and it's the incident meaning physiology, action and consequence, right? There's the external reality that's outside of our control. That's the incident. There's what we make that mean, or what we've been programmed to make that mean, if we're not interrogating it, like the internal interpretation, right? Then there's the physiology, the the way the chemical release into our bodies have a feeling. And then there's the action that we take based on that feeling. And then there's the consequence. But then in all of this, when you're looking at it in terms of reprogramming hegemony, you want to look at the themes in your life, you want to look at how often do I let the like Monster plant have free rent in my brain. So sometimes I'll just put free rent as a theme for me, I used to have this pattern of overworking and then my brain would just go on this like tangent of everybody hates you, everything you're doing is terrible. Like this is the worst ever. You're failing at everything. Why are you so bad at this? And what I realized at some point where after doing a lot of like writing down my thoughts, running them through impact models, is that I was tired and needed a nap and my brain would melt down when I was tired and needed a nap. Because even in the moment, I could be like, this isn't really true. But this is so persistent, and like I feel so terrible. And so I would just call it the theme give up or take a nap. Like that would be the theme. But we all have these themes. It could be like, honestly, self abuse, self sexism, sexism in general, racism, it could be self empowerment. So usually when we're going through and reprogramming our communicate our thoughts and our community and how they create our communication in a more empowered way. We want our theme to be self empowerment, so that our thinking is consistently empowering ourselves. It could be love, like love is an empowering place. So it could be self love as a theme. The theme evaluates whatever the meaning line is creating for you. So what your thoughts are creating.

Hmm, so like, okay, and so there might be like, as I'm just diagramming what's actually happening in this situation. I will say there is a theme in my life where I zero in on people's capacity for violence. It's just a theme like I'm like, I can't write on the internet. Oh my God, why can't you write on the internet? Well, because I would want to like talk about company. You know, I want to talk about tech companies. I met Kara Swisher once who's a totally badass tech journalist, and like, she wears sunglasses and writes all the truth. And at the end, I like went up to her, I got all my courage, and I was like, What's the worst thing they've ever done to you? And she, like, put her sunglasses up. And she was like, in the kindest way, she was like, Honey, what do you mean? And I was like, like, did they come to your house? Like, do they like, you know, like Paul Pelosi, God forbid, get that guy broken and attached with a hammer. I'm like, like, in my mind, like, I'm not saying things online that were like critique industry, because I'm pretty sure they come to your house and like, kill you in the night. I don't know why I'm like, she was like, no, she was like, I'm not cool. I'm fair. But she was kind of like, actually really like when I talk about them. Like it's not personal. And I was just flabbergasted because I was like, How much does I have been saying? So when I even though I made up the plant example, it's actually is on theme that I would make right but everything in the room, like zeroing in on an entity's capacity for physical violence is the thing that scares the jeepers out of me the most. But so when when I diagram originally, I might say, Oh, here's what's going on to look at the theme and be like, Hmm, something fairly a nerd or commonplace in your environment secretly has things that is going to physically attack you causing great vulnerability. Is this familiar?

Like I recognize you frying?

Yeah, and all the and it but then you're saying that maybe once we go through that flow, we can say, hey, wait a minute. Is this this theme that's choosing me? Or is this the theme that I'm choosing, so like, right now I'm calling in GCC groundedness, centered, calm. This is where I want to be rippling from because that's the ripples, I want to like, bounce back off the pool edge and come and come and be back with me. That's what I want. That's how I'm gonna live my life. Right? Yeah, 37 it's gonna be a great year. But if I find the theme is like zeroing in on capacity for violence, that I can be like, no, no, no, no, thank you. I would like my theme to be grounded, centered and calm. And so then I could go back through the incident, the plant is in the room. And the theme as my anger are grounded, centered and calm. And I could be like, alright, what meaning am I going to make? Now I think you're saying, Well, I'm I'm gonna let you finish. But I think you're saying, I don't think you're saying that if that plant has things. I should refeed myself,

right, I was gonna say,

is not a problem. That's not what we're doing. Right? Right. You don't want to get on the facts versus the interpretation, external reality versus internal interpretation. We can examine the plants. Are there things? Does a third party agree that there are things or not? Is it in observable reality?

And does that feel neutral? That's where how you create the incident line. So if the things don't feel neutral to you, then you're not neutralizing it. But sometimes you want to say there is a plant with teeth or something like that.

It's a rose. Okay, fine. We're still not actually attacking me yet. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah. So um, but I mean, you do want to say, like most of our programming works, like just baseline, like, I would say, like 90% of most of our programming works. And we know that because we eat food every day, we care for ourselves. So alive, are still alive. We're functional. And our brains main purpose is to keep us alive. And it is doing it correctly, most of the time. And then it's just tweaking it. And so when you do impact model, you might decide, no, this is how I want this, I'm getting the results I want. I'm having the thinking I want to have I like this, but then you can test out intentional models. So what we're talking about as an unconscious model, we've just pulled out unconscious programming, and even for you, like the plant example is silly. The journalism and speaking out about tech, I think most of us would say, oh, it's reasonable to have fear around that. Right. Like, that's not like you don't you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then if you say, okay, so then if you're doing an intentional model, you kind of reverse it and this gets a little more complicated, so I'm not gonna like go into it. Like I it's typical when I'm coaching people that we go over this a lot like it's normal to not get it right away, but you want to say how do I want to feel and put that in the P line so grounded centered and what? Calm calm? So you put that in the P line in the physiology line? You say no, I want that. When I act out of a grounded centered, calm place. How do I act? You walk down the model. So yo P A, what are the results? What's the consequences of my actions. And then you say, in this space with this external reality, what is the thought that would help me feel grounded, centered and calm right now. And you just ask your brain it's going to be different for different people. So reprogramming reprogramming to be your unique self and listen to your unique body signals and know that you're working in your own authority for your own best interest is unique to different people. You can have sort of boiler plate shifts that you can make that and I can sort of share some of my shifts that I've made around that. But if you ask your brain what's a thought that would make me feel grounded center, your brain is going to come up with the answer because you're the one who

said I'm like, What can I say? I'm like, I want to be calm. And my action would be I will just share about it because before I was like, hi, in the hypothetical I'm like hiding it from you I'd be like playing it doesn't have creepy teeth and like a homicide tendency does it and then you would laugh and the consequence would be connection because we would have been real and that would be so sweet. And then I would like in this space with this external reality what is the thought that is going to help me it would be the self boundary that I have with media because my imagination like is I can I can do believing a lot already. I'm scared of a plant I really like that's merged with my the thought that would stop it for me is like I don't do horror stories. Actually just don't whether it see it in like an R rated movie like or it's just something that I have in my head. I just don't do it. If the plan is right, I will check the reality. And if the plan is trying to attack me, I will exit the space. And it is it's not that I'll be like I'm not catastrophizing, this I will react to what's real, but I just I can't indulge that part of my own brain. And then the reward like we talked about boundaries last time is that I feel immense peace. Yeah. And I'm like, great. I, I ration My Media thoughtfully. And I trust myself to protect my mindshare.

Yeah. And that's like, good internal boundaries with your dialogue with yourself. Graylog, right, like

I don't learn to do, especially when we learn from people that what we should be doing with our inner dialogue is antagonizing ourselves, for the benefit of the feudal lords, because we are the serfs and our destiny is to serve others, while not actually having what we need to survive. Yeah, so

I'm just gonna give one example from when I was having my sexual harassment experience. So the incident line in that situation was there's a hand on my shoulder. And my unconscious thinking at the time, after I wrote it out was maybe I don't deserve respect was one thought that I would put in the meeting line that made me feel humiliated. And then when I felt humiliated, I withdrew. And then I did my work less and I didn't respect myself was the consequence. And that theme was self abuse. So that was a common one. I also had the thought maybe I don't belong here that made me feel alienated kind of similar, it created similar results. When I rebuilt it out, reprogrammed redid different models out of it. The my, one of my favorite feelings of belonging, so I tested it out with a feeling of belonging, like I just love feeling in the right space, you know, like, and so when I so I decided I was going to practice belonging because at first when I was doing all this work, I was like, no, no, no belonging has to come from other people. Belonging happens when other people behave a certain way. And then I feel it. But what I realized was, I wasn't giving myself permission to feel belonging, when I hadn't. When I had my, when my pre programming had trained, trained me that I shouldn't, right. And that create made things really easy for people to oppress me, right. Because I was giving oppressors the power to tell me whether I felt belonging. Anyway, so when,

excuse it, but it served as a way where you were trained to play an enabling role, right? And someone else taken all your goodies. And that's the only way you knew,

right well, and purpose. And my thing is always like, yeah, it doesn't excuse their oppressive behavior. But I I at least want to make it tough for them. I don't want to make it easy for oppressors

to come back. So if we can, once we start to see it, we'll have our own back. Yeah. So

when I asked myself, How could I feel belonging right now, and you think about the hand on my shoulder. The thought that came to me was it's a good thing. I'm here because otherwise no one would represent this perspective. And that to me is so accessible in any space. It's a good thing. You're here. If you are the only voice that speaking truth.

Oh my God, and they feel like that that belief then like that's that thing. thinking that you have created like thinking as a practice, and it becomes beliefs like you said, like that thinking, I, I experienced like when I met you, I'm like this is one of the most independent, unique and authentically of service thinkers that I have ever met. And so when I hear the story, which I've never heard before, I feel like we all get to benefit from that outgrowth of that beautiful practice that you could have made in that thinking, because you go, thank goodness, I'm here, and boy, do I feel that way about you? Also. So it's like you have retrain your own thinking, to allow you to act courageously in ways where other people can discover your gifts, rather than our friends watching us sink and shrink away and these negative environments here that I want to ask you. So we have we have named the hegemony we have named hegemony, the intrusion, these dominance structures, the training and belief that we are lesser and so we should accept less, and we should police each other to stay safe, accepting less all that crap, we have boldly proposed that it is possible to reprogram us share the impact model. As we look too close, I kind of want to ask you, now that we know about hegemony, what are what are the bottom lines? What are the simplest steps that we can take? Or things we can try doing about it? Like what are your top two or three that we should take away? Yeah, I

just really think, listen to your painful feelings, listen to your negative feelings, listen to your body's discomfort to the extent that you can, a lot of us are taught to live from the head up. But our bodies have all these signals of what our programming is, if you're having an uncomfortable feeling, that doesn't necessarily mean anything has gone wrong. But it might mean it could mean something's gone wrong, it could mean that you're you need to care for yourself. But it might mean that you have some programming about what's normal, and what's not normal, that could be oppressive, that you could consider and embrace your own individuality, your own worthiness, and the individuality and the worthiness of the people around you.

So listen to the feelings like don't invest mo detector, but also look for their underlying logic, don't assume it's a fire or not a fire, right, we like go do the impact model. And then you're saying feel free to reprogram. Yeah, finding the logic for greater health alignment and well being, and then also get ready for that to make a positive impact in other areas of your life. Yeah, and

then when we were talking before the show, we're also talking about, it's not your fault. If you have oppressive belief systems, if you have self doubt, if you have reactions to other people acting in ways that you don't think are normal that you feel like you need to fix. Like that means that you are part of this community, you are part of this system. And the only thing from there is questioning whether it's serving you questioning whether that is ongoing how you want to be. So just because

just because you know, we didn't make it up on our own. And it is powerful to do the reprogramming work. Because just like you know, you create a new belief for yourself well, that that positive belief that you created can also spread you know the same way we learn to internalize the other ones we can learn to internalize really beautiful ones, right there is a lady who gave a TED Talk where she based the whole thing is about like writing on your mirror. You are enough. And she's like, I really thought it was hokey that my daughter wouldn't do you know, tell my daughter to do it. But I wrote it on my mirror. She wrote it on her mirror, then all her friends started writing it. It's like, even though we didn't create the original misogyny, racism and patriarchy

ableism Yeah, homophobia. Yeah.

Like we didn't create it, we internalized it. It's not our fault. But it can be our it can be our moment. And it can be within our wherewithal to change our practices or thinking about it, by detecting what has slipped in there by recognizing that it's not our weakness. It's just how humans are made. We like have this mimetic patterning and then we get to look at it, and we get to practice new thinking. And it's very powerful.

And in future episodes, we'll go through more examples of, of what that looks like to

Yeah, because that's the next pillar. I mean, this is number two. The third pillar is about accountability. So when we get into accountability, we are going to take this to the next extent. So accountability and merit of world is where we account for what is ours and what is not ours. Right. We say, You know what, this piece of perpetuating self policing perpetuating misogyny perpetuating, you know, internalized racism. This was on me, and it was The mind to make it up. It wasn't mine to sit by while it happened in the workplace that was other that was others. These are others choices and others responsibility. So it lightens the load, it clarifies the role. So if you feel like there's more that you need to learn about this than are you in luck, stay tuned because the pillars continue. And then meanwhile, please write in with your stories. We are curious today like where has the hegemonic affected your life or your confidence in your own voice? What has it been like to disentangle the you that you are choosing from all these other parts and breed renters and occupants who are all up in our spaces? Or if there's a time when you realize you could do something even if it wasn't really your job to do but you did it anyway and you are living a better life because of it. Tell us all about it. Meredith how can people write in,

they can go to Aris resolution.com/story So it's E ri s resolution.com/story.

an heiress is the god of discord and part of reprogramming hegemony is, is embracing the opportunity to diverge to select joyfully discord with these ties that bind us that were never our ties. The people who protected us into complying with them, probably didn't want this for us, at least in their healed levels. So this is a revolution and it's an evolution and it is very compatible with the workplace and setting us free.

I just want to tell one more story because this was a story that happened for me when when someone first told me your thoughts, create your feelings. I was just like, Absolutely not. My harasser creates my feelings. Like that's ridiculous. And then the person said, Okay, imagine someone that you love dies, and they live in another state. Imagine someone you love gets a amazing, they win the lottery, but they live in another state, you don't have a feeling about it until you learn about it and have a thought about it. And to me, I just couldn't get around that logic that my most painful feelings were happening because I had a thought about them. And that meant not that they were my fault. But that I had some control over what was happening that I hadn't realized I had, that I could communicate with myself in a more empowered way. I could communicate externally in a more empowered way if I questioned what I was thinking and stopped believing thoughts that didn't serve me so I just want to

visit ceilings or CO arise I mean, the Buddhists to me is like the I have lots of nice me guys. So it's not a specific loyalty to me for non Buddhists or something but Buddhists say the CO arising you're saying that feelings are co arising with experience I think the number one reason I revolt of the like your thoughts choose your feelings is that we've heard that a lot from people who are like stop being emotional, right? This is melodramatic feelings are bad. You're doing this to yourself. Right? So that is the other thing that we get to decline and reject as we do this work. Your thoughts? Creating Your feelings doesn't mean your feelings are your fault. It's just that your thoughts

are wrong. I mean, I had painful thoughts about being harassed. And I stand by him and that pain Yeah, it's a plan

was trying to kill me. Yeah, not thinking about that would give me peace, right. And then one day in cold blood hero would be I saw an Are You Afraid of the Dark episode when I was a kid? You guys watch TV with your child? I mean, watch the TV because it is creepy. Are you free? The dark episode? Were in there was a movie theater with a vampire movie. And then the vampires came out of the movie in the movie theater on my TV. Yeah. And got the kids all right. I'm like six or seven. And it's me right? You know? I mean, we all know Yeah, so here's me I'm like, know that this is like such a boundary violation if the if the vampires in the movie screen come into the movie theater, and I am watching that on my TV screen. What on earth is stopping that same lead from happening into my living room and they turn off the TV and I was like, after the movie was over the vampire still got out of there? There is no say it's like it's this whole so sometimes you need this is why okay, we started with three saying the value of negative feeling Yes. Is that if you don't look at them, and there is a fight if you don't if you just ignore them to train yourself to ignore the fire alarm, I guess thank God they're so loud except when they need a new battery. It makes you wish you were already dead. But think you know, thank goodness, right? You need to get out of your bed. You don't want to you need to go check that thing. Get the broom handle, click the button, sniff around the house. And if it's not a fire, no big deal but if you train yourself to ignore that thing, it will not be your fault. Right the fire then you know the somebody left the gas no one's fault. called and it matters and you're worth it to get safe enough, you know spend the time it's not always pleasant. That's why we can do this together. That's where you get amazing frameworks and structures. It's worth a try. Thank you for joining us today on power communication. We will see you next time.