On July 18th I, like other members of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, received an electronic mail message titled “Navigating Emotional Challenges as a Federal Law Enforcement Officer.” No author was credited, but it came from FLEOA’s Office of Mental Health and Peer Support Services. As I’ve done before, I decided to expand on the ideas in that e-mail. The e-mail presents five “Immediate” and five “Long-Term strategies” for emotional resilience.
These ten strategies are more properly called tactics, so before we get into those let’s define strategy versus tactics, agree on some strategy, and then flesh out the ten tactics.
Strategy Versus Tactics
The terms ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’ come from military terminology as far back as Sun Tzu’s Art of War. They’ve been adapted to fit different usages such as business strategy.
Have you ever gone to the grocery store without a list or plan? Then tried to fix meals for the next week with a random assortment of groceries? There were probably things you needed but forgot to get, and maybe things you didn’t need that went to waste later that week. Meal planning and a grocery list is a strategy; shopping is the tactic.
Strategy
A strategy is an action plan that you will take in the future to achieve an end. These help you define your long-term goals and how you will achieve a goal. Strategy is the big-picture thinking.
Tactics
Tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you where the strategy—the action plan or leader’s intent—wants you to go. Tactics zoom in on the nitty-gritty, dealing with the day-to-day operational and short-term objectives. They encompass concrete steps—the how-to steps to turn your overall plan into reality.
All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Sun Tzu illustrates that while tactics are more concrete and easier to see, an overarching strategy is equally important. The question should not be strategy versus tactics, but strategy and tactics. These are two sides of the same coin—both are necessary.
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before the defeat.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The Point Is?
Before we get deep into the tactical weeds, we should clarify our strategy. Why are we learning, training, and practicing these tactics? We need to make sure the tactics are suitable for the strategy. So, strategy first.
Fortunately, there’s some strategy in the email.
Being a federal law enforcement officer is a challenging and often thankless job. You can be hailed as a hero one moment and criticized harshly the next. Facing keyboard warriors, Monday morning quarterbacks, and those who have never walked in your shoes can take a significant emotional toll.
Navigating the emotional challenges of being a federal law enforcement officer requires resilience, support, and a strong sense of purpose.
FLEOA Office of Mental Health & Peer Support Services
If we want to be a federal law enforcement officer we should know it can be emotionally challenging. Facing these challenges requires “resilience, support, and a strong sense of purpose.” Part of our strategy then is to develop resilience, build support, and find a strong sense of purpose. Furthermore, we need career-length resilience, and the ability to tap into our resilience in the immediate face of stress and emotional adversity.
Stress
Emotional adversity, and challenge is ‘stress’. In 1936 Hans Selye defined stress as “non-specific responses from a variety of different kinds of stimuli.”
It is not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.
Hans Selye
Stress can be classified as acute, chronic, or episodic. Sources of law enforcement stress can be ‘operational,’ ‘organizational,’ or ‘critical incident.’ These are on top of the daily stress of living that everyone experiences.
Organizational stress is the stress generated by the organization—shifting priorities, changes in policy and procedure, audits, and inquiries—any time the employee perceives the agency is negatively affecting the attainment of basic needs.
Critical incident stress stems from being involved in a critical incident or ‘moral injury’. Moral injury refers to an injury to an individual’s moral conscience and values resulting from an act (of omission or commission) of perceived moral transgression. This produces profound emotional guilt and shame, and in some cases also a sense of betrayal, anger, and profound ‘moral disorientation.’
Operational stress is the idea of day-to-day stress of being in unknown dangerous or hazardous situations as a part of the “routine” of the job.
But stress is also information. From evolution theories and physical science laws, we know that adding or tolerating some noise in the system is how adaptation occurs. This is seen as annealing, catalysis, or genetic mutation. Perfect fidelity—a flat baseline—would disallow evolution or genetic shift. Noise, that is ‘information’ or ‘mutation,’ allows the organism to explore the full evolutionary spectrum or landscape.
Adopting the right attitude can change a negative stress into a positive one.
Hans Selye
Think of stress as a performance-enhancing drug. Eustress is good, has positive hormetic effects, and is performance enhancing. With proper dosing and recovery, your tolerance improves, your capacity increases, and you develop more resiliency. Distress is the wrong dose—too much at once or chronic use without recovery—and leads to psychological and physiological side effects.
Your vagus nerve extends from your brain stem through your neck into your chest and abdomen and connects your brain, heart, and gut. It helps to regulate your heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, digestion, and emotional state among other functions. If you are experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, fatigue, or any emotional health symptoms, it may mean that you have a poor vagal tone, and your vagus nerve needs some care.
Your body sends more information to your brain (afferent signals) than your brain does to your body (efferent signals). Your brain is constantly processing this information to determine responses—regulatory for homeostasis, and to fight, flee or collapse. A good vagal tone is important for:
- Lowering blood pressure and heart rate
- Managing stress and anxiety
- Regulating mood
- Decreasing inflammation or pain
- Delivering information between the brain and the gut
- Providing sensory information from the throat, lungs, and heart
- Regulating swallowing and speech
Symptoms of poor vagal tone may include:
- Anxiety/Depression/Poor emotional regulation
- High stress
- Being in constant flight-or-fight mode
- Lowered attention span
- Increased inflammation
- Pain
‘Heart Rate Variability’ is an indicator of vagal tone. HRV is where the amount of time between your heartbeats fluctuates slightly. These normal variations are small, adding or subtracting a fraction of a second between beats. It may seem counterintuitive, but more variability is a good sign, indicating parasympathetic dominance and good vagal tone.
Another strategy, therefore, is to improve our vagal tone and heart rate variability through parasympathetic dominance. A balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic is what we are seeking. Most of us, especially LEOs, spend too much time in sympathetic dominance. We need to learn to relax and recover. Those are parasympathetic states.
The mind must be given [rest]—it will rise improved and sharper after a good break. Just as rich fields must not be forced—for they will quickly lose their fertility if never given a break—so constant work on the anvil will fracture the force of the mind. But it regains its powers if it is set free and relaxed for a while. Constant work gives rise to a certain kind of dullness and feebleness in the rational soul.
Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind
Resilience
Resilience is the capacity to prepare for, adapt to, and recover from stress, trauma, adversity, or challenge. By building greater ‘surge capacity’ you can face greater allostatic load—better prepared with greater emotional flexibility, make smarter decisions, and keep a cool head in challenging situations.
Resilience is not the absence of stress. At the core of resilience is the belief that in the very nature of crisis lies an opportunity for growth. Law enforcement officers accumulate the effects of chronic stress. It’s important to reflect on current stressors and habits and consider new tactics to incorporate into daily living that counter the negative outcomes of living with stress.
We have a capacity for energy. We expend this energy at every step. We can and must renew this energy as often as possible. Strategic and tactical recovery is the key. Recovery and a sense of control or agency are the difference between post-traumatic stress disorder and post-traumatic growth.
Rather than a fixed characteristic, resilience is a capacity that we potentiate with life-long practice. Trusting we have both internal and external resources, resilience represents our ability to meet the challenges we encounter each day, with the least amount of negative consequences to our bodies, hearts, and minds.
We have to work to build our resilience. We have to work on it regularly. Our bodies innately hold the potential for resilience. We need only train and practice tapping into that innate potential by learning how to work respectfully and in partnership with our physiology.
Coherence
The trick here is to develop tactics that prepare us, help us to adapt by shifting and resetting energy, and allow us to sustain energy throughout the day. We need energy management techniques to prepare, adapt, recover, and sustain our physiology in a state of coherence.
A key to building resilience, coherence is not equivalent to relaxation. Coherence is a state of optimal functioning in which your physical systems are in sync and balanced, and your heart, mind, and emotions are working together in a coordinated manner. Coherence adds energy to the system. It conserves energy and is a state of self-regulation where you have greater control of your reactions.
Coherence is top-down and bottom-up balance. As Bassel van der Kolk wrote, it is being able to “hover calmly over your thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and then taking your time to respond allowing the executive brain to inhibit, organize, and modulate the hard-wired automatic reactions preprogrammed into the emotional brain.” Bottom-up we can apply the parasympathetic break and reduce hyper-arousal, fine-tuning the alarm system with just a few intentional and atentional breaths.
Strategies
To summarize, “Being a federal law enforcement officer is emotionally challenging. Navigating the emotional challenges … requires resilience, support, and a strong sense of purpose.” To that end, we will learn, train, and practice (1) developing resilience through improved vagal tone and heart rate variability, (2) energy management techniques toward synchronicity and balance—coherence—of our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, (3) building and maintaining support systems, and (4) connecting with our strong sense of purpose.
The Tactics
The original e-mail divides these into short- and long-term. I will follow suit with a caveat: by short-term I mean in the moment of the emotional dis-regulation. All of the tactics should be practiced, or set up, ‘long-term’ so they are accessible ‘short-term’. ‘In the long-term’ I mean tactics to deploy regularly. Often practicing the long-term tactics regularly—deep breathing techniques for example—allows access to the tactical benefits in the short term—quickly gaining coherence between the initial contact and the closure with just a few deep breaths. With that in mind, I will reverse the order of the e-mail and start with long-term tactics.
Long-Term Tactics
The email lists five “Long-Term [Tactics] for Sustained Resilience”:
- Build a Strong Support Network
- Develop a Healthy Outlet
- Practice Mindfulness and Meditation
- Reflect on Your Motivation and Purpose
- Seek Professional Help if Needed
Let’s take each of these in turn, reviewing what the email recommends, and build on that.
Build a Strong Support Network
Cultivate relationships with peers and mentors who can provide guidance, support, and a listening ear. Being part of a supportive community can help you navigate difficult times.
FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail
Notice this says “support,” not ‘social’ network. The depth of your relationships far outweighs the breadth of your ‘followers,’ ‘likes,’ or ‘friends’ on social media platforms.
Research indicates that social isolation increases the likelihood of mortality by about 30%, but strong relationships have a protective effect and increase survival by 50%. By providing a social forum for voluntarily expressing emotions, struggles, fears, and life challenges, peer support combats this loneliness, which is often associated with chronic physical and mental health conditions, leading to a downward spiral with each exacerbating the other.
While our core values emphasize serving others, we often don’t seek help when our health is at risk. While we may be able to endure hardships without complaints, we may not be aware of our early warning signs of distress. While we strive to perform perfectly in high-stakes environments, we can feel ashamed when we can’t do it all, make mistakes, or slow down to care for ourselves. Recognizing the signs of severe and persistent distress in oneself or a fellow officer and taking steps to lessen the severity is critically important. Practicing self-care or helping connect a fellow officer with a trusted source of support may help prevent stress reactions from progressing into clinical mental health conditions, physical health conditions, or significant life impairment.
Peer support can be identified as a form of help offered by a peer (or group of peers) who have gone through similar situations. This can be social, practical, or emotional. More importantly, this support is mutually provided and reciprocated, thus allowing, everyone to benefit. The type of assistance provided can be more of a friendship or more like mentoring or informal coaching. Regardless of the form of support provided, the lived experiences of the peer group supporter are the most essential part of the service.
Chris Cagle, US Forest Service Law Enforcement & Investigations Peer Support briefing paper
Peer support has been identified as an effective approach to enhance emotional well-being. By adopting a common language, increasing social connectedness, and providing both emotional and tactical support for day-to-day stressors, peer support is a low-cost, effective service that can promote awareness among law enforcement officers, and reduce stigma merely by providing a platform for discussion. Peer support also provides opportunities for peers to assist others who are going through difficult situations. Many studies have shown that helping others, regardless of receiving any support in return, has great psychological benefits. For adults, giving to others through activities such as volunteering or providing emotional support improves well-being and reduces mortality.
Peer support leads to greater empowerment by providing hope, a sense of personal responsibility, and advocacy of self and community. In addition, good peer support fosters trust, acceptance, understanding, and compassion. The sense of belonging and access to a support network for both emotional support and tactical resources can help address some of the most debilitating and costly chronic mental and physical health conditions today. Moreover, peer support directly contributes to the protective factors for mental well-being by enhancing control, increasing resilience and community assets, facilitating participation, and promoting inclusion.
Develop a Healthy Outlet
Engage in activities that help you de-stress and decompress. Exercise, hobbies, and creative pursuits can provide a necessary release for pent-up emotions.
FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail
There is no better place to start than daily physical activity, sufficient sleep, and healthy eating. Recovery from stress is tantamount to both short- and long-term resilience. Review your daily and weekly routines, and make sure you focus on each of these components. Recovery is the most overlooked part of daily schedules—it can be as simple as a walk, meditating, breathing exercises, or a quiet hobby.
Creative pursuits abound: writing, painting, sculpting, modeling, and DIY projects. The primary goal is to disengage your mind from work and the stresses thereof. Engage it in something else that requires focus and concentration. Reading—fiction and non-fiction (outside of your career)—works here too. I tend to dig into philosophy, poetry, and ‘big’ fiction (like Moby Dick, of course).
Various ‘spiritual practices’—both theological and philosophical—can help you mentally and emotionally restore. These could include attending formal religious institutions and ceremonies, or private prayer and ritual. It could also be like those described by Pierre Hadot in Philosophy as a Way of Life and The Inner Citadel. Speaking of ‘spiritual exercises’…
Practice Mindfulness and Meditation
Incorporate mindfulness practices into your routine to help manage stress and maintain emotional balance. Techniques such as meditation, deep breathing, and mindfulness exercises can enhance your resilience.
FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail
First a few distinctions. ‘Mindfulness’ comes in two flavors: formal and informal. Washing the dishes ‘mindfully’ is an informal practice. Meditation is a formal practice. ‘Deep breathing’ exercises can be done ‘mindfully,’ and in formal meditation practice, your breath can be the focal point. Breathing techniques independent of meditation can also be practiced for various benefits similar to mindfulness.
Mindfulness means moment-to-moment, non-judgemental awareness. It can be cultivated by refining our capacity to pay attention, intentionally in the present moment and sustaining that attention over time as best we can. In the process, we become more in touch with our life as it is unfolding.
John Kabat Zin
Mindfulness as an informal practice helps our moment-to-moment perception, John Boyd’s ‘observation’ phase of the OODA loop.
[Regarding mindful perception] you have mistaken a coiled rope for a snake; with practice your awareness is such that the ‘snake’ will more rapidly collapse into the reality of ‘just rope’.
Sam Harris, Waking Up app
Let’s modify Harris’s metaphor to better illustrate its usefulness to federal law enforcement officers You have mistaken a cell phone for a gun… I think you can figure out the rest. Of course the opposite is just as dangerous.
Research suggests that meditation, or mindfulness, may protect the brain from the negative effects of stress by decreasing ruminative thoughts and distractions. Reducing rumination may decrease distress and may even promote compassion and altruism.
One mechanism by which meditation protects the brain is through the production of gamma waves – a sign of neuroplasticity, which is linked to a capacity to learn new things and change synapses as a consequence of new behaviors. Neuroplasticity makes your brain more resilient and slows cognitive aging.
Meditation also increases the brain’s gray matter – the area of the brain associated with working memory and executive decision-making. Gray matter is also where the omega-3 fatty acid DHA is enriched. DHA protects the brain against cognitive decline. As we age, our brains atrophy and we lose some of that gray matter. However meditation may increase brain volume in areas of the brain related to learning, memory, neurotransmitter production, empathy, compassion, attention, and self-relevance, while decreasing the activity of the amygdala, the area of the brain involved in anxiety and fear.
Not only does meditation slow cognitive aging, but it also slows biological aging by slowing the shortening of telomeres, protecting your DNA. Studies by telomere experts Elizabeth Blackburn at UCSF and Elisa Epel show that meditation buffers the stress that shortens telomeres and activates the gene that encodes for the enzyme telomerase, which can extend the length of telomeres.
Let me connect the dots here. Meditation and the ability to maintain present-state awareness (aka ‘mindfulness’) that comes with the practice up-armors the brain, balances the mind both top-down and bottom-up, and—bonus force multiplier—is the ultimate situational-awareness performance-enhancing tool.
For me, the “breathing technologies” of HeartMath were a gateway to formal meditation. As a certified HeartMath coach and mentor, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention three of their strategies. “Prep” to set the tone and be more composed for the day or event; “Shift and Reset” as soon as possible after a stress reaction or challenging situation; “Sustain” your resilience throughout the day by establishing regular practices to refresh your composure between activities.
With these three strategies in hand, you will more effectively regulate your energy, replenish your surge capacity, and increase your resilience. A hallmark of the HeartMath self-regulation techniques is that you can use them rapidly on the go, which is the best time to plug energy leaks, recharge, and make more effective choices in challenging situations.
The value of “Prepping” cannot be overemphasized. The purpose is to ensure that before entering a challenging situation, you are in a more resilient and composed state. Then you can meet the challenge and respond optimally. Consider using one of the coherence tactics to practice the “Prep” strategy before the work shift starts or potentially stressful events such as ‘hot calls,’ tactical operations, entering dangerous environments, critical communications, traffic stops, or meetings.
“Shift and Reset” is for re-stabilizing your energy systems throughout the day. When we have stress reactions we are wasting energy. It benefits us greatly to shift and reset as quickly as possible. This saves a lot of energy and, in many situations, avoids prolonged stress and time loss. Do not underestimate how much of your resilience is affected by regularly occurring energy drain. When you find yourself challenged, use one of the tactics as soon as you can to shorten the time you are out of sync. By applying the parasympathetic break, you spend less time in the catabolic hyper-cortisolemic state. This helps reduce energy drains while restoring self-composure.
“Sustaining” coherence helps maintain your resilience throughout the day. Without a conscious effort to sustain coherence and reduce energy-draining emotions, we can automatically fall prey to feelings of irritation, anxiety, worry, frustration, judgement, and self-doubt. Our responses become automatic and mechanical and we act before the ‘watchtower’ (rational, prefrontal cortex) can intervene. Stay ahead of stress and the resulting depletion by recharging your inner batteries regularly throughout the day. Your capacity must exceed demand and since you can rarely predict demand, it’s a best practice to be as fully charged as possible.
Now the two techniques: “Heart-Focused Breathing” and “Quick Coherence Technique.”
“Heart-focused breathing” is an effective technique to take the charge out of a stress reaction and start shifting into a more coherent state. It’s a simple technique that helps turn down the volume of stress. Combining the simple act of focusing on the heart area, with a deeper and slower pace of breathing, helps draw energy away from your distressed thoughts and feelings. You interrupt your sympathetic nervous system and apply the acetylcholine break to become more parasympathetic dominant, which is reflected in more coherent heart rhythms (heart rate variability) and significantly improves your mental capacity.
The technique: Focus your attention on the area of the heart. Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area; breathe a little slower and deeper than usual – maybe a four-count inhalation and a five-count exhalation.
That’s it. Simple, right? But, you need to train with this technique and practice it in real situations, as often as possible, to make it second nature. Breathing is one of the few body functions that is under both conscious and autonomic control. Controlling breathing controls heart rate. Every exhale activates the parasympathetic break (top-down), slows the heart, and dials down the ‘smoke alarm’ (amygdala sensitivity). The longer the exhale, the more parasympathetic activation. Focussing attention on the heart may sound like ‘woo,’ but what you are doing is allowing the ‘watchtower’ to check in with the heart via the vagal nerve.
Let’s talk about the second technique: “Quick Coherence.” The next important step in replenishing your energy levels and resilience is to experience a higher ratio of regenerative feelings such as appreciation, compassion, courage, dignity, integrity, and other energy-renewing feelings.
Step one: Repeat the Heart-Focused Breathing technique. Step two: Make a sincere attempt to experience a regenerative feeling such as appreciation or care for someone or something in your life. As I breathe in I mentally repeat the words “Courage,” “Wisdom,” “Justice,” and “Moderation” because these are things I want to receive. As I breathe out I mentally repeat the words “Appreciation,” “Gratitude,” “Compassion,” and “Awareness,” because these are things I want to give or share.
With practice, you can do both steps in one breath cycle. Shift your focus to your heart as you inhale, and activate a positive feeling as you exhale. With more practice, you can reach a coherent state with three breath cycles. Use the Quick Coherence Technique whenever you recognize energy-draining moments, however subtle. Self-activating and renewing emotions leads to greater resilience.
Reflect on your Motivation and Purpose
Revisit the reason you chose this profession. Reflect on the impact you have made and the lives you have touched. This can reignite your sense of purpose and strengthen your resolve.
FLEOA OMH & PSS e-mail
To “reflect on your motivation and purpose” assumes you have a purpose and are aware of your motivations. Throughout my years of peer support and coaching, I have found that people have some vague ideas of their motivations and purpose, but don’t have them well articulated. This means, at the time of need, under some mental or emotional distress, your purpose is unavailable to help in decision-making. Without this foundation, we risk saying and doing things in violation of our deepest-held beliefs and values, and not in the direction of our ‘north star.’
People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
The scientific evidence indicates Eudaemonia, or ‘flourishing’, comes from a positive, self-determined, self-transcending purpose. We are teleological and purpose-driven. Our most potent, vigorous, and sustaining sense of purpose occurs when we transcend self-interest. We are nourished when the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ is intrinsic and other-centered.
Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life … Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s talk is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.
Viktor Frankl
For the purpose of, well, finding your purpose, the Human Performance Institute suggests you set aside time to ask yourself and answer the following questions:
- What legacy do you want to leave behind? Or, how do you want to be remembered?
- How do you want people to describe you?
- Who do you want to be?
- Who/what matters most to you?
- What are your deepest values?
- How would you define success in life?
- What makes your life worth living?
Here are a few more:
- How would you like to hear people eulogize you at your funeral?
- What is worth denying for?
- What one-sentence inscription would you like to see on your tombstone?
In answering these questions we can, as Viktor Frankl said, detect true rather than invent false missions.
That was the briefest of treatments; sorry. Any more than this is beyond the scope of this article. You could go here for more depth. What’s important is that you write this down. Then you can revisit it in daily or weekly journaling exercises. Over time this practice fortifies in the mind an ‘inner citadel’, protecting your core values and beliefs, allowing you access to your moral compass and guiding principles even in times of duress.
Seek Professional Help if Needed
Don’t hesitate to seek help from a mental health professional if the emotional toll becomes overwhelming. Therapy can provide valuable tools and strategies for managing stress and maintaining wellness.
FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail
I don’t have a lot to add here. I would offer, that you should not wait until “the emotional toll is overwhelming.” I know there are immediately available resources such as your agency EAP, but I believe it’s better to get established and comfortable with a therapist at any hint of need.
I can say this: I have been to several talk therapy sessions with a family therapist; I have participated in psychologist-led group therapy; I had eight Cognitive Behavioral Therapy sessions with another psychologist. I have also been through a battery of tests by a “neuro-psychologist” to determine if I have any signs of traumatic brain injury or neuro-degeneration like early onset Alzheimers. I’ve also been evaluated by a psychiatrist for post-traumatic stress disorder. None of these sessions were any more weird than the first time I got a full-body massage.
I will add, that when in doubt return to long-term tactic number one. Engage your support network. Call up a peer support team member. Peer support can be your first step, a bridge, to professional psychotherapy.
Long-term benefits of therapy include:
- Practical coping mechanisms to manage stress and problem-solving
- Development of self-support systems
- Improved mental health—increased mood and reduced anxiety
- Identification of and insight into negative thought patterns, allowing for the development of a more positive, realistic life outlook
- According to the American Psychological Association, up to 80% improvement in mental health symptoms
Short-Term Tactics
In case I didn’t make it clear before, long-term tactics should be practiced consistently.
That’s why the philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite, and hold opinions the opposite of what we should.
Epictetus, Discourses
But, in consistently practicing, you set yourself up to access and implement your “immediate” tactics “to maintain your mental wellness, stay motivated, and continue to serve with dedication and integrity.”
The email lists five “Immediate [Tactics] for Emotional Resilience:”
- Acknowledge Your Feelings
- Pause and Breathe
- Maintain Perspective
- Seek Support
- Focus on the Facts
As before we will look at each, one at a time, reviewing what the email suggests, and build on that. We will also connect these tactics to the long-term tactics as appropriate, to show how they support each other.
Acknowledge Your Feelings
Recognize and accept your emotions. It’s normal to feel hurt, frustrated, or angry when facing unwarranted criticism. Denying these feelings can lead to more significant issues down the line.
FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail
Even the most stoic of Stoics did not counsel students to suppress emotions. They taught that often emotions—first impressions, as Epictetus called them—are impossible to suppress. Recognizing this then we are challenged to decide which and to what degree we assent to the emotions.
Make it your practice to confront every strong impression with the words, “You are but an impression, and not the source of the impression.” Then test and assess it with your criteria; and first by this—the chief test of all—“Is this something that is or is not in my control?”
Epictetus, Discourses
Emotions color our thoughts. These thoughts though—tainted as they are by mood, nutrition and hydration, past experiences, media, and a host of other internal and external factors—are not facts. Thoughts and emotions are just mental events that come and go like clouds in the sky.
Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.
Viktor Frankl
Recognizing, acknowledging, and naming your emotions helps you to manage them better. By acknowledging that you have emotions, and not judging yourself harshly for it, you are better set to maintain perspective, rather than succumb to ruminating, negative thought patterns.
The long-term tactics of mindfulness meditation, and therapy (especially Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) are a force multiplier here. Mindfulness meditation cultivates an awareness of your thoughts and emotions, reducing biased thinking and promoting a balanced perception of reality. With practice, moment-to-moment mindfulness is more the norm, giving you the ability to step back from automatic reactions and check reality leading to improved mental clarity and better orientation—better OODA looping.
One of the most powerful tools I earned in my eight CBT sessions is the application of the “ABC model” for building self-awareness. ABC is an acronym for “Antecedents” (or activating event, aka ‘trigger’), “Behavior” (and/or beliefs), and “Consequences” (of the belief or behavior). You start by writing these down as they come up. I was told to either write them down when I thought of them or to make them part of my evening journal practice.
Next, you add the letters “D” and “E” which stand for “Disputing” and “Exchanging” (or effects). You ‘dispute’ the automatic emotions, beliefs, and thought patterns—as Epictetus says “test and assess with your criteria.” Then you ‘exchange’ the irrational, false, or unhelpful with new balanced thoughts and beliefs. Now answer, “What are the ‘effects’ of the exchange?”
This is a process you should practice daily. That said (and I know I sound like a broken record here), with consistent practice, it becomes a tactic you can access and apply quickly as your recognized and named activating events arise.
Pause and Breathe
Take a moment to breathe deeply and center yourself. This can help reduce the immediate emotional impact and prevent rash reactions.
FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail
Remember back in long-term tactic number three, where I mentioned HeartMath breathing techniques? Here’s where the practice of “Heart-Focused Breathing” and “Quick Coherence” comes in handy to “Shift and Reset.” As I previously wrote, with consistent practice you can shift and reset to a state of coherence in just a few breaths.
So what can we add? You can use the acronym “W.I.N.”—“What’s Important Now?” If you are feeling overwhelmed first, take a deep breath, hold it for a second, and try to inhale deeper. Now exhale slow and long—really long—until you bottom out. Now breathe normally and make a list of the things that are within your control right now. This is effectively what Jocko Willink calls “Detach”—by dumping all the CO2 out of your lungs with a long exhale, you are more parasympathetic dominate and can think clearer, rising above the “problem” to look around at the whole scene. Next, consciously commit to focusing and acting on those things, rather than the ones beyond your total control — which if it helps, you can also list. Extra points if you can recognize some things on that list you can influence, or some things outside of your control that you can perceive and thus make contingencies for.
Now, as Jocko would suggest, “Prioritize and Execute.” Complete the OODA Loop—decide and act. Take an action, however small. Just a five-minute action is all it takes to feel in control, to feel you have agency. A five-minute action is something very small; it’s an action—something you do; it’s something that feels easy and simple; it moves you in the direction you want to go.
Have more time? Wipe the slate clean with ‘Self-Compassion’ with a R.A.I.N. Meditation. “R.A.I.N.” is an acronym for Recognize what is happening right now—name it; Allow the experience without judgement—it is not good or bad it just is; Investigate with interest and care—how does the experience make you feel; Nurture yourself with self-compassion as to not identify with the emotions—I feel angry, rather than I am angry. With that, you can wipe the slate clean—each moment is fresh. Whatever happened yesterday or one hour ago is irrelevant to your ‘now’.
Maintain Perspective
Remind yourself that criticism often comes from those who lack a full understanding of your job and the complexities you face. Their judgements do not define your worth or competence.
FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail
I heard somewhere, a podcast perhaps, that someone else’s opinion of me is none of my business. As Marcuse Aurelius wrote, “The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” As the email says, the critiques are from “those who lack full understanding.”
When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside, and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Sticking with the lessons from Stoicism (and from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), I found this well-articulated example:
Consider a common example: someone insults you, possibly with intent to hurt you. There are several things you should contemplate on such occasions. First off, was the ‘insult’ actually a valid criticism? In that case, you should accept it gratefully and attempt to do better. Was the criticism false? Then the joke’s on the other guy, since he is uttering something demonstrably wrong.
“Second, are you positive that the intent was to hurt you? Maybe the other person said what he said in good faith, or without thinking carefully, or based on the premise that he had a right to say it. Unless you are sure about his motives, giving him the benefit of the doubt is going to go a long way toward defusing the situation.
“Finally, what if the fellow really wanted to hurt you? It follows from the dichotomy of control that the attempt is up to him, but the outcome is actually up to you. Only if you react in a way to show that you are, indeed, offended, will the barb have achieved its goal, the arrow hit its target. But as Epictetus tells his students: “Remember that it is we who torment, we who make difficulties for ourselves—that is, our opinions do. What for instance does it mean to be insulted? Stand by a rock and insult it, and what have you accomplished? If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?
Massimo Pigliucci, How to Live a Good Life, chapter 5: Stoicism
Seek Support
“Reach out to trusted colleagues, friends, or family members who understand your challenges. Sharing your experiences can provide relief and perspective.” —FLEOA OMH & PSS email
This tactic, of course, goes back to the long-term tactics of building a strong support network and seeking professional help if needed. Seeking support is easier to do if you have a strong support network already in place.
This tactic adds another level of support, recommending family members and friends. I strongly believe in the benefits of friends (and hobbies) outside of your agency, even outside the confines of your profession. This provides a double buffer from sources of stress and a more biased ear—that is, biased in your favor—but also untainted by coworkers, supervisors, etcetera.
Focus on the Facts
Stay grounded in the reality of your actions and decisions. Reflect on the facts of the situation rather than the emotional tone of the criticism.
FLEOA OMH&PSS e-mail
Here we can drop back to things we discussed in the “Acknowledge Your Feelings” tactic. Specifically the ABCDE model from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Also informal mindfulness and formal meditation help here. We can also consider adding prosoché—Stoic mindfulness—as another practice.
Mindfulness is intentional, non-judgemental attention in the present moment. Prosoché is an ancient Greek word for ‘focused attention’. The word was used by the Stoics to describe having a present moment, focused attention on virtue and what is under our control or ‘up to us’.
Instead of living focused on the past—regret—or on the unknown future—anxiety—we should focus on facts of the present moment, and determine what is within our control. What can you take action on right now? Jocko Willink would say now all you have to do is prioritize and execute the actions. Focus on the facts rather than the emotional tone, then proactively do what you can within your spheres of control and influence.
Is That All?
I know all that sounds like a lot to do or think about. Fortunately, you don’t have to do all of them to see benefits. Any small step you take towards emotional flexibility and balance will help you to feel better and more in control. You’ll be more resilient. Also, these tactics cross over and support one another. Learn one and the others come easier.
As the philosophers say, first learn. Then train for proficiency. Then consistently practice every day.
