Building awareness of the uncentered state gives you choice in the moment.

I snapped at my husband: "We're going to do it." (Subtext: whether you want to or not.) He snapped back, escalating conversation into confrontation--a common occurrence in uncentered conflict.

I don't snap that often, so I had to take a look at my reaction. To do that I centered myself. As Tracie Shroyer put it in her recent post that began this series on Centering and Mindfulness: "Something about intentionally taking a deep breath slows everything down. It brings perspective, quietness and calmness to a crazy situation."

• How do you get centered, become grounded, mindful and present in life's difficult moments?
• How do you know when you're centered?
• What makes you lose it?
• How can you catch yourself and re-center sooner?

Part 1 focused on mindfulness through meditation. Part 2 shared Doug Silsbee's "Core Body Practice" for making centering a part of your daily life. Today we look at the connection between centering and emotions.

What Makes You Lose It?

When emotions are high, it's like being in a car that's out of control.

A few years ago, I found myself in a skid on an icy bridge. I reacted, turning the wheel in one direction and then another. I forgot all I knew in that perilous moment about how to handle a car. High emotion can cause a similar kind of reactive state. As Daniel Goleman writes in Emotional Intelligence, something triggers our emotions and the brain's limbic system starts driving us into perilous emotional territory:

At those moments, evidence suggests, a center in the limbic brain proclaims an emergency, recruiting the rest of the brain to its urgent agenda. The hijacking occurs in an instant, triggering this reaction crucial moments before the neocortex, the thinking brain, has had a chance to glimpse fully what is happening, let alone decide if it is a good idea. 

Regaining Control

Centering lets you regain control by engaging your thinking brain. As you center, you strengthen your ability to make a wise choice. The path between the primitive limbic brain and your rational thinking brain is reinforced. And the oftener you make this connection, the faster you train your brain to center during emotional turmoil. “Plasticity” is the term neurologists use to describe this ability of the brain to change.

Choice of attention--to pay attention to this and ignore that--is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, we are choosing, and our choices make a difference.
- Paraphrase of W.H. Auden

Additionally, centering allows us to listen to ourselves. Emotions give us important information. Uncentered and reactive, we lose access to that information. When we center, we have the ability to reflect on what just happened. 

Wow! That was a pretty sharp response. Let me try that again.

Centering takes practice, a different kind of practice than we're used to. Emotions are dramatic. We're used to acting them out and feeling justified in doing so. The reason to center must be stronger than the drama.

What is your purpose for this relationship? What do you really want here? 

Catch Yourself and Stop

You can't center until you notice you're not. Building awareness of the uncentered state gives you choice in the moment. 

Catch yourself and stop. Stop talking. Stop thinking uncentered thoughts. Take a breath. Reflect. Be willing to change.

• Switch attention from external to internal. Bring mind and body together.
• Focus on your core, an internal point in the center of your body just below the navel. In Aikido, we call it One Point.
• Feel your feet on the floor or your back against the chair.
• Lengthen your spine and the back of your neck.
• Relax your face, jaw, shoulders.

Smile

Stop the judgment--it doesn't help. Emotions happen. What you do with them is where you have choice. When you stop and center, you're reinforcing the neural pathway to the thinking brain. Your emotions will still be there. The difference is you have access to them now. You're in the driver's seat.

Pause and Center

If you're caught off guard, pause and center. Even in the middle of a sentence. Be quiet for a moment. Say: "Please let me try that again." Or, as I did with my husband, "How about a do-over?"

It's never too late to center and put yourself back in the driver's seat.

Decide to center yourself 5 times today, whether you need to or not. And let me know what happens!