“How’s your day going?” I kick myself for asking such a generic question to start our coaching call. But his answer then shapes the rest of our conversation.
“Well… My day got hijacked by my A/C unit.” He says, sounding defeated.
He had planned to spend the day working on his highest priorities. But when he walked into his office that morning, he noticed water dripping from the A/C. Hours later, he was still researching mold and planning how to replace sheet rock. The work he had intended to do never happened.
He sighed. “I’m not mad about trying to fix the A/C. It needed attention eventually. What bothers me is that it completely took over my day. It felt automatic. Like I didn’t consciously choose to do it.”
I nodded. I’m all to familiar. This morning, I checked my email while going to the bathroom. One message created a spike of anxiety in my body. Then I spent the morning trying to solve that problem while making oatmeal for my kids. Usually I sit with them while they eat breakfast, but today I spent the morning on my computer, shouting at my kids in the other room to get dressed and finish eating.
The sneaky thing is that we rarely notice being hijacked when it’s happening. We just call it productivity. Or responsibility. Or being proactive.
But it’s not really a choice - it’s a reaction.
He said it perfectly. “It felt like I was a slave to my reaction.”
What creates that feeling of being a “slave” or being hijacked is not the thing itself - the client email, the A/C dripping, the kid’s tantrum in the back of the car. The real problem is that we cannot tolerate the feelings those things create inside us.
We tend to think we’re reacting to events. Most of the time, we’re reacting to our feelings.
The leaking A/C created anxiety → the anxiety created urgency → the urgency created action.
And that action hijacked the day.
He said he noticed the same pattern in other areas of his life.
When a client emailed him with a problem, he immediately dropped everything to solve it.
When his wife brought him a struggle she was facing, he jumped straight into fixing mode.
When something created anxiety in him, he rushed toward to solve it. To get rid of the feeling.
The feelings that are running us are also running our businesses, our marriages, our parenting.
As we slowed the moment down, I asked him to remember the instant he saw the drip. “What happened inside you?”
He closed his eyes. “There was anxiety.”
“What is the anxiety trying to do for you?”
His answer came quickly. “It’s trying to keep me safe. It’s trying to make sure a small problem doesn’t become a big one. I grew up in a house with mold that created lots of health problems.”
The anxiety wasn’t the enemy. It was trying to help. The problem wasn’t that anxiety showed up. The problem was that it completely took over.
There’s a difference between listening to anxiety and obeying it. One creates wisdom. The other creates reactivity.
I asked: “What do you want to say to that anxiety?”
He paused. Then said, “I’ll take care of this. Probably on Friday afternoon.”
And there it was. The shift from unconscious slave to conscious leadership. The anxiety still existed, but now he was leading.
The moment he could be with the feeling of anxiety, he was no longer controlled by it.
What we can be with no longer controls us. The feeling we’re trying to get rid of is the doorway to freedom.
The next time you feel a signal in your body / mind / emotions - notice it. When you notice something, you immediately create a little space between you and the feeling. That space creates some freedom.
Then connect with it: What is this feeling trying to do for me? Genuinely listen. And then decide what actually needs your attention.
Not every feeling deserves obedience. But every feeling can be met with connection.
The goal is not to eliminate our feelings - actually the opposite! The goal is to become someone who can be with all the feelings in us, without becoming them. The relationship with those feelings is what creates freedom, clarity and wise decision making.
Because aligned leadership - in business, marriage, parenting, for yourself - begins there.
Benediction: May we have the awareness to notice what is arising within us. May we have the capacity to be with it. And may we discover the freedom and alignment that comes from that connection.
If you're a business owner or leader who wants to lead yourself with greater clarity and alignment, I'd love to talk! Schedule a free coaching call here.
“Brandon has an amazing talent and skill of listening, not only to what someone is saying, but what they are feeling and what they mean, who they are through it all.”
Elizabeth Hyman