- Learnings
How to build resiliency when triggered in conversations
What does resiliency mean to you? How often have you been in situations that you had to explain yourself as an adoptee or person of color? How often did you feel dismissed, misunderstood, or invalidated?
How did you respond?
Last week I was challenged in two conversations that made me feel dismissed in my adoptee experience. The other person crossed a line of intrusive questions or reacted dismissively in a weak attempt to relate. My instant reaction was anger, hurt, and disbelief, and my previous self would not have known what to say and most certainly kept quiet in fear of conflict or rejection.
I took a deep breath—This was a powerful moment—a window of tolerance and choice. I chose to see an opportunity for connection and explained my concerns and the triggering danger of this behavior, and expressed calmly that sometimes we just want the other person to actively listen and hold space for sharing.
Change can only happen when we can SIT TOGETHER in DISCOMFORT, are willing to LEARN, and don’t blow up in reactivity, but consciously RESPOND with a higher purpose than claiming justice for my hurt adoptee self. I felt like I needed to speak up not only for myself but also my fellow adoptees out there.
Here are some tips that helped me in this challenging moment:
☛ Take a few deep breaths!
In a situation of perceived threat, your brain’s alarm system kicks in— taking deep breaths helps you regulate your autonomous nervous system and decreases how much of the stress hormone cortisol is released into your body. It will help you relax and respond from a calm place and gives you a moment to zoom out and not remain blocked in your reactivity. A regular breathwork and meditation practice are powerful in training this resiliency muscle.
☛ Don’t take it personally!
We all look at the world through our personal lens shaped by our individual experiences. Understanding that the other person is stuck in their own belief system and bias helps to remove the situation from yourself and calm your hurt inner child, which often shakes us up in stressful situations.
☛ Claim your choice and window of opportunity!
By reframing the situation, that this does not happen TO you, but FOR you, offers you AGENCY and CHOICE in how you want to respond to the situation, making you feel less of a victim. Furthermore, by expressing your opinion you show your true self, and you train your resiliency muscle!
☛ Know that you always have the choice to let it go if you don’t have the energy to explain yourself! You can instead set an emotional boundary and say: This situation is important to me, however it requires more energy that I have available right now. I would like us both to take a moment to reflect and come back to this topic another time.
When thinking of resiliency, these are the moments that allow us to grow and shift into a higher state of being seen!
Email me to sunmee@numaru.space about your experiences!
Warmly, Sun Mee.