Have you ever caught yourself in the middle of a discussion and found yourself on top of the hill about to die?
I did recently. I was smack bang in the middle of a lengthy discussion on who was right and who was wrong. There was never going to be a winner – not in the old-fashioned sense of the word.
The comments were going backwards and forwards. I had my best stored responses ready. I had the evidence – I was right. It didn’t feel right though and in my heart I knew this hill wasn’t worth dying on.
To end the stand-off, all either one of us needed to do was say, “I was wrong”. Simple, right?
No!
I understood what my limbic brain was doing. My amygdala is designed to protect me from real, physical threat. But in that moment, I still couldn’t convince my brain that this was a threat to my ego, not my life.
I couldn’t get my neo-cortex to take charge and demand that I be rational and protect the relationship and preserve both our dignities. It was hard to say, “I did it”. It was hard to say, “I hurt you”.
In a relational, restorative environment we lean into the mindset that all behaviour has a function and purpose; that there’s a meaning and context behind the behaviours. Behaviour communicates something to us that needs to be acknowledged and addressed.
Next time you’re on the hill, stop and think, “What is this behaviour trying to tell me?”
Because sometimes you just need to say, “I broke the egg, let me clean it up.”
Check out other articles Candice has written here.