The Exchanges

Q like tips and tricks that we can learn as a group? Um, because often groups are the, the, the body making decisions, whether it's a, preferably a person, but the group has to work together. And in order to get the best information, you need to be able to be honest about, um, about things. Are there, how do you form that in a group? How do you encourage it?

A I like this practice I, I use with teams a lot called fact and story. I'll say, let's say Shane, you and I are on a team, and I say, um, Shane, the facts are that, um, you led a podcast between the two of us, um, earlier today, and then I would say, here's a story I make up about that. In my, hopefully, I'm holding the story with curiosity, um, and so I, you know, I'll say, I'm, you know, I make up a story that, and then I tell the story, but I can, I, as a Team member, if I can put a fact and story, it kind of helps the person relax a little bit to go. It's just a story, and it gives them a little freedom to speak more candidly to one another, and so I've done this before where I just come into a team, and I say, we're just going to go around the circle. You have to pick a different person each time, and you're going to have a fact and story, and we'd maybe do three rounds of that, and each time you pick somebody new on the team, and reliably, I get Feedback that, that may have been one of the best practices they've done in a long time, that they learned things that had not been learned. Elephants came out. People got valuable feedback, and they realized, like, we don't give any time and attention to being able to reveal these stories in a way that lets us all evolve, and so they all said, like, the decisions they were making, they had a big decision to make about whether they…

AI assessment note: “I like this practice I, I use with teams a lot called fact and story.”

Q I think that's sort of like a good segue into the drama triangle and the role of being a victim and how we see ourselves. Can you talk to me a little bit about the drama triangle, how you came across it, what it is, and how it limits us?

A Okay. I'm, I just want you to know, I'm like a huge fan of the drama triangle. It's the tool I use every single day with myself and with my clients. So I learned this from Gay and Kathleen Hendricks, and, uh, it was originally created by a guy named Steven Cartman, a psychologist. And basically the theory is that we all have learned to do relationship, um, most in this role of victimhood, and that there are three unique flavors of victimhood. And so, um, the first one is the pure victim, and you know, Shane, it's so hard, and the hours, and my emails, and oh my gosh, and the kids, and COVID, and now, now the masks, and oh my gosh, you know, there's just all this I'm at the effect of. And, uh, and so victim has this sense of disempowerment. It's got this, it's taking less than a hundred percent responsibility. It often has a little bit of a whine to it. So then there's another role in the drama triangle, and that's the villain, and the villain's job is to blame. Whose fault is it? So a lot of us have an inner critic that blames ourselves. So gosh, I should have more health, I should be a more effective partner or parent, I should be more successful, or I shouldn't be, you know, blah, blah, blah. Or you, Shane, it's because of you that we're not having a good time, and I was fine until you showed up. So you should or shouldn't be a certain way, or them. I mean, we all know who th…

AI assessment note: “I learned this from Gay and Kathleen Hendricks, and, uh, it was originally created”

Q One of the things that, uh, strikes me with the drama triangle is that it's all happening at the subconscious level. It's all invisible to our sort of, um, conscious mind. How do we go about making the invisible visible?

A So I'm a huge fan of saying, Hey, look, I'm on the drama triangle and let me show you, let me show me. And so If you knew me, when I first learned these things, um, my husband and I, we were practicing together and we got sets of the drama triangle. We, we made cards, said the hero, villain, and victim. We laminated them and we put them in our kitchen. We put them in our living room and we put them in our master bedroom. And so whenever we'd start to have any kind of a discussion that had any sense of reactivity to it, we would literally get on the drama triangle. We would step on it and we would move our Our physical bodies around on the basis as we could feel ourselves, you know, like, you know, I can't believe you didn't get the kids to school on time, you know, I'm, now I'm on villain, you know, and then I always have to do it, and I can never count on you, and, and so I would just run around on those bases, so I could see, oh, as long as I'm gonna have the conversation from here, I'm not really going to be able to learn and grow and really understand how am I co-creating these scenes that I tell myself in the world I don't want, but yet unconsciously I'm creating them. And so if I'm on the drama triangle, those will never, those will never become aware. So I'll never be able to permanently ship those issues. So I think having drama triangle, uh, physically on the ground to…

AI assessment note: “we made cards, said the hero, villain, and victim. We laminated them”

Q I want to come back to the stories that we tell ourselves and the stories that other people have. And those are, those stories are our beliefs. We have facts about a situation and we create stories, which, you know, sort of, uh, weave together our beliefs about the situation. How do we go about lovingly challenging those stories, not only for ourselves, but for other people?

A Great. So it's easy for myself because for myself, I, like I have this little, I call it a sacred law. I have these sacred laws inside of myself and they're sacred just because I'm in devotion to presence. And so, um, a sacred law for me is anytime I catch myself wanting to be right, I immediately pause and just look to see how could it be opposite be true or how could the other perspective be at least as true. And even when I really want to bite down and like, no, I'm right, which I do a lot. I just go, uh, it's a, it's a sacred law here, Diana. You're gonna have to get curious here. And I force myself to stretch and open in those moments. And, um, and so That's my practice. And then when I'm around other people who I have a co-commitment to do this with, and this is important because I think that it's not friendly for me to point out when people are being, uh, righteous or closed minded. Um, if I don't have an agreement that we can, that we're going to commit to calling that out, then me calling that out to people isn't necessarily friendly. So when I'm co-committed with somebody else to Giving and receiving feedback when we think we're getting righteous. Um, then I might say something like, Hey, I really hear you. I hear you have that perspective. I'm just wondering on my own right now, how that might not also might be true the other direction. So I demonstrate my own curios…

AI assessment note: “demonstrate my own curiosity and that's one gentle, simple way to do that”

Q I think that's sort of like a good segue into the drama triangle and the role of being a victim and how we see ourselves. Can you talk to me a little bit about the drama triangle, how you came across it, what it is, and how it limits us?

A Okay. I'm, I just want you to know, I'm like a huge fan of the drama triangle. It's the tool I use every single day with myself and with my clients. So I learned this from Gay and Kathleen Hendricks, and, uh, it was originally created by a guy named Steven Cartman, a psychologist. And basically the theory is that we all have learned to do relationship, um, most in this role of victimhood and that there are three unique flavors of victimhood. And so, um, the first one is the pure victim, and you know, Shane, it's so hard, and the hours, and my emails, and oh my gosh, and the kids, and COVID, and now, now the masks, and oh my gosh, you know, there's just all this, I'm at the effect of. And, uh, and so victim has this sense of disempowerment. It's got this, it's taking less than a hundred percent responsibility. It often has a little bit of a whine to it. So then there's another role in the drama triangle, and that's the villain, and the villain's job is to blame. Whose fault is it? So a lot of us have an inner critic that blames ourselves. So gosh, I should have more health, I should be a more effective partner or parent, I should be more successful, or I shouldn't be, you know, blah, blah, blah. Or you, Shane, it's because of you that we're not having a good time, and I was fine until you showed up. So you should or shouldn't be a certain way, or them. I mean, we all know who th…

AI assessment note: “I learned this from Gay and Kathleen Hendricks, and, uh, it was originally created by”

Q And sometimes we get this when we, you know, when we're about to have a difficult conversation with somebody too, right? We have this pit in our stomach. How do you think about that?

A Yeah. So I was just working with a team the other day and they called me because they're really struggling with having candid conversations with one another and they're not giving each other the feedback and they're all going to HR and everybody's complaining. And so I came in there and said, okay, let's practice. And What I noticed was so many people were like, I'm not, I can't even say it because I can't be with myself in the physical experiences that are happening if I speak out loud. And I was shocked by multiple people in the circle who just didn't have the willingness to be that uncomfortable. And so what they do is they rob themselves and everybody else around them from feedback that could actually help us all learn and grow, which is what I started to point out to them. What I'm helping people do is can you just not label what's happening in the body as good or bad or pleasurable or uncomfortable? Could we just name it as just what's actually occurring as a sensation? So it's when our, I think our minds start to interpret and put up Label on these, on these experiences that we're having, that then causes us to start to contract around those experiences and try to shut them down.

AI assessment note: “can you just not label what's happening in the body as good or bad”

Q Walk me through what's next. Like, you do that. You have that session. You bitch moan. You complain. You get it out. You over-exaggerate. You feel really good, and then you feel open and a little bit safe, I would imagine. What's next?

A Well, what's next is, what's next is, can you just recognize you're in this drama time, well, you guys, because you're scared. There's, you're at threat. It feels like a threat to your security or control or approval, and People, most people will go, yeah, I am threatened. I do feel threatened. Now, a few people will say, I don't think I'm threatened, but then if you help them see a little more clearly, everybody eventually gets to see, okay, you're right. I'm in a state of threat. So the first thing I know is if you can't accept the fact that you're in a state of threat, you'll never shift anything. You know, I could feel it today. Like the one who felt a little threatened about coming on today, you know, like how old is she? She's nine or 10, and she got kind of bullied on the playground when she went to a new school and the kids didn't know her. And so that part of me is here, worried that this might happen again. And so I just go, oh, sweetheart, you're just scared. Yeah, come sit on my lap. So if you know me, I do that to myself. Like, oh, you're just, come on, have a seat. And I'm not trying to stop it or numb it. I'm well, like, you are welcome to be scared. Let's move that all the way through to completion. Take a breath with that. Welcome all those sensations. And then check and see, is there something that you need? And can we get that source from within so that then …

AI assessment note: “Well, what's next is, what's next is, can you just recognize you're in this”

Q Talk to me, you mentioned being at this crossroads, right? Your body's telling you, you're, you're, you lead with your BQ, and your body's telling you to go one way, and then you're trying to communicate to somebody who might lead with more emotion or intelligence. How do we learn to have conversations between these different leads?

A Yeah, it's a great question. So what we have to do is honor that that's one of the reasons why we like the diversity amongst us is maybe you have some data that will suggest why my idea is or is not a good idea. Um, or maybe you have some emotional intelligence that says, you know, as I'm hearing you speak, I notice I feel really scared. And, uh, the fear is very strong in me. And I'm not sure that, um, we know enough yet to make that decision. So we count on each other and each other's intelligences to bond together, to see what do we all, you know, do we all have our own Unique intelligences and agreed upon next step. Um, and maybe we do say, hey, in this case, like there are times when I say, hey, look, You have brilliant intellectual understanding of this topic. I'm going to, I'm going to bow to you in this case, because I think you're probably, you know, you, you demonstrate, uh, uh, a better track record in these areas. So I'm going to listen to yours. And whereas you might say, hey, Diana, in this area, you tend to always have good instincts. I'm going to go your way. And then all we can do is learn. You know, but it's just our job to keep listening over and over again to what do we notice? What do we notice here as we decide next steps?

AI assessment note: “we count on each other and each other's intelligences to bond together”

Q like tips and tricks that we can learn as a group? Um, because often groups are the, the, the body making decisions, whether it's a, preferably a person, but the group has to work together. And in order to get the best information, you need to be able to be honest about, um, about things. Are there, how do you form that in a group? How do you encourage it?

A I like this practice I, I use with teams a lot called fact and story. I'll say, let's say Shane, you and I are on a team and I say, um, Shane, the facts are that, um, you led a podcast between the two of us, um, earlier today. And then I would say, here's a story I make up about that in my, hopefully I'm holding the story with curiosity. Um, and so I, you know, I'll say I'm, you know, I make up a story that, and then I tell the story, but I can, I, as a team member, um, If I can put a fact and story, it kind of helps the person relax a little bit to go, I, it's just a story, and it gives them a little freedom to speak more candidly to one another, and so I've done this before where I just come into a team, and I say, we're just going to go around the circle. You have to pick a different person each time, and you're going to have a fact and story, and we'd maybe do three rounds of that, and each time you pick somebody new on the team, and reliably, I get Feedback that that may have been one of the best practices they've done in a long time, that they learned things that had not been learned. Elephants came out, people got valuable feedback, and they realized, like, we don't give any time and attention to being able to reveal these stories in a way that lets us all evolve, and so they all said, like, The decisions they were making, they had a big decision to make about whether th…

AI assessment note: “I like this practice I, I use with teams a lot called fact and story.”

Q Workplaces are inherently messy. And one of the things that came up in my research is you value that messiness in the workplace. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

A I do. You know, I feel like ultimately I think human beings, we're just here to learn and grow. You know, we're just here to learn and grow, and we're all a bunch of scared kids trying to figure it out, and so, so many of us get caught in, like, let's be, you know, appropriate. Let's do it right. Let's not offend anybody. Let's, and I, what I see is, is the, the neater we try to get, the less growth we actually get to experience most of the time. Now, that doesn't mean we can certainly create environments that are, you know, too edgy, where people are so anxious that they can't learn and grow, and that's not the kind of mess I'm talking about. But I'm talking about, can it be okay to have some tension sometimes? Honor polarities that are happening in the room. Use that as an intelligence that's allowing us all to evolve. Um, I think that the trying to suppress messiness is a ripoff to everybody.

AI assessment note: “the neater we try to get, the less growth we actually get to experience”

Q How do we break out of that loop?

A Then you got to just drop back down to underneath your story. Just what is the sensations? And I like to get back to sensations because maybe I don't even know what the feeling is. Just, can I come back to what's happening in the body and let that process itself all the way through in the body knows, you know, the body knows how to move itself, sound itself, uh, you know, express itself to let it go all the way through. And it's great to have, I think opportunities for, you know, Kids to be able to, and we're all kids at heart, but to be able to have, you know, an environment in which kids can go, yeah, buddy, you're, you're angry. I welcome your anger. How angry are you? Like if, if your anger could make a sound, what's it sound like? You know, instead of like, well, if you're going to be angry, honey, you have to go to your room, which only just validates the, you know, the child's belief that anger is not welcome here and I got to suppress it.

AI assessment note: “you got to just drop back down to underneath your story. Just what is the sensations?”

Q Let's explore the IQ, EQ, BQ. What's the relationship to sort of, um, each other and relationship to peak performance?

A This is my theory. Um, just a theory. I have no idea if I'm right. Um, but I believe that we have these three centers of intelligence. So this intellectual intelligence, this emotional intelligence, and this instinctual or body intelligence. And my belief is, is that different People lead with a different intelligence. I think we all have all three, but some of us lead with intellect. Some of us lead with emotional intelligence. Some of us lead with BQ. And so what I'm interested in is helping people honor their, their one they lead with. So I lead with BQ. That's my, I feel things. I don't have to, I don't intellectually know a lot. A lot of the things that I, that I, um, Can go toward, I feel them. It's like a mammal maybe who goes back to a watering hole hundreds of miles away. I just kind of know my way. And that's challenging when you say to a group of people, like, I think we should go this way. And people say, well, where's your data? And for those of us who have more BQ intelligence that leads, it's difficult because it's like, well, I don't necessarily have that data. Um, I just have this sense about things and my sense is pretty on a lot of the time. I got a nose. I got a good nose. And so, um, we didn't get trained most of us in schools to honor body intelligence. You know, we are, most of us didn't get trained for emotional intelligence either. We mostly have been v…

AI assessment note: “leaders who are able to access all three centers equally, uh, Knowing they have a lead”

Q One thing I like about it is it raises the bar, right? Like it raises the standard for what you agree to and you commit to.

A Well, I love the word exquisite. And it's something that I'm putting a lot of attention on is how could I have it be exquisite? And what I find for myself and others is I can make a lot of things good. I'm, you know, I give me some lemons. I'll make you lemonade. It's good. But I may never taste champagne if I'm just tolerating good. And so I'm really learning how to be discerning to say, but what if it's, what if you could have exquisite? I'm learning to say no to a lot of things, and it's very heartbreaking, honestly, because those things are good, and they're wonderful, and it doesn't mean I let go of all of them, but I've been letting go of a lot lately that's been wonderful, but I think there's even something More aligned, more on purpose, more, you know, that gets me humming because it's like uses me in the ways that give my gifts the most, you know, impact in the world, and I'm really in devotion to Whole Body Yes for that reason.

AI assessment note: “I'm really learning how to be discerning to say, but what if it's... exquisite?”

Q I love that. While we're on the topic of relationships, what's the hamburger versus steak life or steak sex life thing all about?

A Yeah, so I've been with my husband since I was 16, so you have to know that, that we were very young when we got together, and no one really told us much about sex, and I didn't have very much experience, but, you know, everything seemed to be going pretty well, but I started to realize, like, I was getting, it's starting to come a little ho-hum. Like, it's good. I mean, it's good. But it's, it's just, it felt like eating a great hamburger. And I realized, like, what would steak taste like? You know, what would it be like to have steak more often? And so, like all things, I'm always curious about, you know, how good could it be? And so I started to learn everything I could about human sexuality, and couple polarity, and all these different things, and started to discover, oh, there's a lot more possible. Now, I, you know, I really like to stand for, like, hey, hamburger's great, and I'm not opposed to having a hamburger once in a while, but I really like steak, and so what does, you know, how do we create the conditions in which we get to eat steak? I used to be a couples coach before I worked with leaders and organizational leaders, and so now I do work with a lot of their couplehoods because It's part of them being an effective leader. And my definition of leadership is anyone who wants to take responsibility for their influence in the world. And so in that way, everybody's a…

AI assessment note: “it felt like eating a great hamburger. And I realized, like, what would steak taste like?”