Aboodi Shabi

A few months ago, I was fortunate enough to spend another day of learning with Richard Strozzi-Heckler, the somatic coaching master, who was in the UK recently.

I found the whole experience of re-immersion in this learning very powerful, as ever—it’s always good to be reminded of how much of who we are lives in the body.

One of the exercises we did during the day was “the grab”—part of this is about how we “grab” someone else in order to make a request or get their attention to have a conversation with them. Of course, in this workshop, we did this physically, but in life we make all kinds of grabs in other ways; for example, by using our voice, through e-mails and gestures, etc. The key aspect of a grab is to make it powerful enough to get the other person’s attention, but not too strong that it overwhelms or alienates them.

The question we engaged with in this exercise was, “How little is too little and how much is too much?” Make the grab too little and the other person might not even notice that we are trying to communicate with them. Our requests go unnoticed; they don’t hear us; or, if they do hear us, they may not take us seriously. Make the grab too much, on the other hand, and we risk overwhelming or offending them or being dismissed as “too aggressive.”

We all have a default way of grabbing, if you will, and tend to use this in our approaches with others, but the thing is that this will only work in certain situations; there is no “one size fits all” about this. Each situation, each conversation, requires a different approach.

How, for example, do you get the attention of your colleague to ask for their help on a project, or of your teenage child who’s ignoring your requests for help in the house, or of your team to address a crisis at work, or of a woman you want to ask out on a date, or of a child who’s about to run in front of a car?

In each of those situations, it’s clear that there are different strengths of approaches needed. Not only that, but in any ongoing relationship, whether personal or professional, there is an ongoing need to calibrate, according to the situation, according to the context. What worked today with your boss might not work tomorrow, for example. You might greet a friend with enthusiasm, only to notice her crest-fallen face, and it’s time to re-calibrate.

A way to look at this is to see each step in each conversation as an opportunity to calibrate, to be present to the question, “How little is too little, and how much is too much?”—not in a mechanical way, but more in the sense of being so present to the conversation and to the other person that you are able to “dance” with them and “know” the right level of approach at an almost intuitive level. Like anything else, of course, at the beginning this may feel mechanical until we are more practiced in it.

One of the ways to support this practice is by centering. When I come from a centered place, it’s much easier for me to calibrate and know how little or how much is needed, rather than just operating from my default or my eagerness to get my point across or my concerns that I won’t be listened to.

You can also think of this in a sporting context. If you play squash or tennis, for instance, when you are centered, you are able to know just how hard to hit the ball and where to place it.

You can start by being curious in the following areas:

- are you successful in your communications?
- is the other person able to hear you?
- do you find people backing away from you when you try to grab their attention? Not hearing you? Responding?
- do you tend to lean in to the other person or hold yourself back?

There is nothing to “get right,” only consistent practice and learning about yourself and about how you show up in your business or personal relationships, consistently checking in whether you are being too little or too much in each interaction in the conversation.

Reflections

What conversations have you had recently where you might have been “too much” or “too little?” What was the cost to you or to the other person?

What conversations do you need to have this week? How can you make yourself more available for connection by centering and calibration?

What is your default tendency? Where does this work? Where is it too much or too little?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.