I Am Safe (I Hope)

In spite of its impressive circuitry to support higher-order thinking, the human brain retains wiring that links elemental emotional responses to everyday stimuli. Like Pavlov's dogs, we often react to people, objects, and events with raw emotion: fear and dread on the negative side, relaxation and delight on the positive. A key feature of Pavlov's theory—called classical conditioning—is that such connections are automatic, bypassing our faculties of logic altogether. If we feel good or bad about a person, place, or thing, we can't help it. It's the product of our experience, built up over time. Now consider: How do people react to you? What involuntary emotions do you provoke? An unfortunate response to a parent, boss, or police officer is dreadful anticipation of reprimand followed by negative feelings. It's the expected message, "You are doing something wrong—again." One challenge for every person in authority is to establish a track record with other people such that the sight of you implies emotional safety rather than threat. Too often, parent=reprimand and boss=stress. It's worth every effort to neutralize those knee jerk reactions, those unbidden negative feelings. I want my presence to imply, at least 99% of the time, safety.