“The time for contemplation is the spring that feeds our action, and the action will be as deep as the spring. We need time to allow the spirit to clear the obstacles–the clinging debris and mud–that keeps the spring from flowing freely from its clear, deep source. And we need time for the spring to overflow into insightful and compassionate action.”
Father Thomas Merton

The whole notion of practice is that by repetition (and making lots of mistakes) we learn to do things better. If you find yourself failing in your commitment (to not act when triggered), be mindful not to get triggered about your failure.

It’s just practice.
Pick yourself up (and any pieces you may have broken around you). and start again.

The Practice
Take note of each and every time you get triggered.
Commit to not acting when triggered.
Really!
Use the four-step process to recenter yourself in your place of power.

Managing Your Triggers Process
Step I: Name it.
Step II: Create space appropriately.
Step III Shift state
Step IV Respond to situation

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass.

Photo: Sakchai Lalit/AP

Anti-coup protesters clash with Bangkok police on Sunday during a demonstration outside the house of former prime minister Prem Tinsulanonda, whom they accuse of instigating last year’s coup against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

See you in the hood on Sunday

I live in the notorious Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver. The poorest postal code in Canada, the area is a microcosm of social problems present in every city in North America. Nowhere else, however, have those problems reached such a concentration as in the Downtown Eastside.

* Over 5,000 injection drug users live within the neighbourhood’s 10-block area, where overdose and suicide are leading causes of death. Most residents live well below the poverty line, many challenged by mental illness, disability, addiction, and homelessness.

* There is an accute shortage of low-income housing in Vancouver. The 2004 homelessness count in Greater Vancouver showed that the number of homeless doubled from 2002, to more than 2,000 people.

* Many residents in the Downtown Eastside live in sub-standard “hotels” or Single Room Occupancy (SRO) rooming houses. Rents keep parity with government allowances, though the standard of accommodation can be very low for the price paid.

* Women involved in sex-work are dramatically evident in the Downtown Eastside, where the majority live in extreme poverty. Many sex workers sell sex in order to meet subsistence needs such as food and shelter.

* The legal and social context of sex work in Canada makes it impossible for sex workers to create safe and empowering conditions without breaking the law. As a result, sex workers live in a society where their liberty, security and equality rights are being violated.

* The area has a large prevalence of First Nations people: 30 percent of the residents of the Downtown Eastside are indigenous, 10 times higher than the national average.

* The majority of the more than 65 sex workers allegedly murdered or missing from the Downtown Eastside are of Aboriginal ancestry.

* HIV is epidemic, affecting 30 percent of the local population - most of them women. Many people also suffer from Hepatitis C.
courtesy of Pivot Legal Society

Since moving to the neighbourhood in February, I am often asked why I choose to live here. Unlike many others in the hood, who end up here, I have a choice.

What attracted me is the people. The people that call the Downtown Eastside home have a very strong sense of loyalty to their community and the people that live in it, and we tend to look after each other. Many people living here have survived circumstances most folks could never imagine, they have lived through it and are just trying to carry on. I am humbled by their struggle and the resilience of the human spirit. Each day, as our eyes meet, as we nod in acknowledgment of one another, exchange greetings, I am reminded of our essential oneness, and I am honoured to be a member of this community.

This week was a low week on the common sense and compassion scale for the Vancouver Police. Sixty-three people are facing a total of 89 trafficking charges on Thursday after Vancouver police concluded a two-week undercover operation targeted at street-level drug dealers. These street-level drug dealers are the folks (often using themselves) who sell small quantities of crack cocaine and heroine to the many addicted folks here in the hood.

The drug deals and resulting drug use, regularly take place in plain sight. The police station is in the middle of the neighbourhood. We all know the deal. Cops walk by it day in and day out. Why the busts now? What are they hoping to accomplish? Here’s what they say…

“Residents and merchants of the Downtown Eastside deserve to feel safe in their neighbourhood,” Robinson said. “This means they should be able to walk their streets without having drug deals taking place under their noses, and having drug dealers and drug purchasers lurking in alcoves and in laneways.”

The situation here is so much more complex than that. Drug use can serve as a way of coping and blocking out the pain of the past and present… the hardships of homelessness, surviving the sex trade, battling mental illness, pain management, living (and dying) in poverty with HIV. Does temporarily interrupting the supply of drugs to an addicted population with no where to go and few resources to cope with the withdrawal symptoms make us safer? From my vantage point, it doesn’t. It creates chaos and causes a lot of pain and suffering.

Despite evidence that prevention, treatment, support and harm reduction are the most effective solutions, government still relies on law enforcement as its primary remedy.

THIS IS GETTING REALLY OLD. ENOUGH ALREADY!

5000 people living in a 10 block area without their basics needs being met is barbaric. We need more housing… we need more living rooms, kitchens and bathrooms. And the beds, need to be bed bug free. That would be a start. We need people with the courage to face the pain, to listen, and to provide compassionate care that meets people’s immediate and long term needs. That is our way through.

It’s time to invest in more innovative thinking and to create a strong societal commitment to effective and compassionate solutions. Decision makers and voters/tax payers need to better understand the reality and drop the dogma and judgment. Those who fall through the gaps of our safety nets land here. People are lurking in alcoves and laneways because they have no where else to go. We need to wake up and begin meeting the basic human needs of our most vulnerable. Not only is it the right thing to do, it also makes social and economic sense.

It is time to create a new way forward.

People of the DTES are worthy beings who deserve our support. Let’s rewrite this story. Another DTES is possible.

Photo: Wissam Al-Okali/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

An Iraqi boy peers through the shattered glass of a door at his house in Baghdad’s al-Kamaliyah neighbourhood.

All the steps in the Managing your Triggers Process are important…

But the last step is especially important:

Step IV. Respond to situation

Those of you who are chronic avoiders may have really enjoyed the prospect of Step II: Take Space Appropriately.

Sorry, but this was not an invitation to escape dealing with unpleasant realities.

But a great leader waits, when possible, to move with clarity, strength and precision to achieve desired results (rather than blindly lashing out at the world).

When we are in our place of power, we can access all our resources and experience, so that the actions we take have a far greater likelihood of success.

When you have state-shifted into your place of power, you can sanely consider:

Does this situation require an action?

Perhaps surprisingly, it turns out that some of the things that trigger us don’t actually warrant any response.

If an action is needed, we can now consider the purpose of our response, the outcome we seek, and make sure that our strategy and actions are well-targeted. We can choose responses that not only address the immediate situation, but further as well as our longer-range interests.

The Practice
Take note of each and every time you get triggered.
Commit to not acting when triggered.
Really!

Use the four-step process to recenter yourself in your place of power.

Managing Your Triggers Process
Step I: Name it.
Step II: Create space appropriately.
Step III Shift state
Step IV Respond to situation

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass.

Photo: Stuart Price/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A Sudanese mother and her baby look at the camera at Graida Internally Displaced People’s camp in southern Darfur.

When triggered, our heart rate raises to 10 beats per minute, and there is little activity in the neo-cortex.

We literally can’t think.

If we remove ourselves from the triggering stimulus, it typically takes a minimum of one-half hour to re-stabilize — longer if we’ve gone down the elevator shaft.

Step III — shifting our state, invites us to consciously shift our energy to more quickly bring us back to centre.

We have discussed a series of state-shifting tools:
* breathing
* breathing with tightening and relaxing
* move your energy (dancing, running, working out, anything that gets the oxygen pumping)
* feel your deeper feelings
* trigger work (explore the “elevator shaft”)
* connect to purpose
* self-humor, exaggerate, get playful
* anchoring (using the leadership mantra, visualization and/or body posture to “pull” yourself into your place of power)
* Drop it!
You will find some tools work better for you than others. And certain tools, needless to say, don’t lend themselves to being in public places. Make up your own. Experiment!

Shifting your state may be the last thing you feel like doing when you’re triggered. But learning to manage your own state of being, in whatever the circumstances, in one of the most profound investments you can make as a leader.

“The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inner freedom to which we may have grown at any given moment. Our chief energy, therefore, must be concentrated upon achieving change from within.”
Gandhi

The Practice
Take note of each and every time you get triggered.
Commit to not acting when triggered.
Really!
Use the four-step process to recenter yourself in your place of power.

Managing Your Triggers Process
Step I: Name it.
Step II: Create space appropriately.
Step III Shift state
Step IV Respond to situation

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass.

Photo: REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

“Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict and inspire hope where there is despair.” Former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela announced the formation of The Elders, a group of world statesmen that seeks to fulfill the traditional role of elders in a village.

“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving until the right action shows itself?”
Lao Tsu

The Practice - Part 2
Take note of each and every time you get triggered.
Commit to not acting when triggered.
Really!

This practice takes great mindfulness and restraint.
We are quite habituated to acting when triggered.
It may feel like trying to rein in a team of runaway horses, so great is our desire to act when triggered.

The key is Step II: taking space appropriately.

You must remove yourself from the triggering situation. Otherwise you will continually get re-triggered, or react and inflame the situation, triggering yourself further.

A very important word: “appropriately”
Here’s an example of taking space inappropriately:

(loud voice) “I’m out of here!” (walk out and slam the door)

An example of taking space appropriately:

“I’m listening to the sound of my own voice; I don’t like what I’m hearing. I seem emotionally reactive. I think I would do a better of job of resolving this if I could take a little space and try to collect myself. How about if we get together after lunch and try to resolve this?”

This a direct approach you can use with friends, or people who understand the notion of triggering. You’re communicating respect for the process and taking self-responsibility.

Or you might suggest:

“It seems like we’re not getting anywhere. How about we take a break, and come back later and take a fresh look.”

“Cooling off” periods are often used in conflict resolution and mediation work when emotions run high.

Don’t say: “Let’s take a break because you’re triggered.”

In a pinch, bathroom breaks are a recognized opportunity to take space.

You can also suggest a break to gather more information, check with your colleagues, etc.

Sometime silence or psychic space is sufficient. Especially in a group setting, you can simply stop talking, pull back into yourself, and create the needed space that way.

Key point: If you understand how important this space really is, you can almost always find a way to create it.

Thomas Jefferson, when delegates were writing the constitution in the intense summer heat in Philadelphia, and tempers were rising, said:

“When angry, count to 10.
When very angry, count to 100.”

“When angry, you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”
Ambrose Bierce

Managing Your Triggers Process

Step I: Name it.
Step II: Create space appropriately.
Step III Shift state
Step IV Respond to situation

Adapted from the practices of Robert Gass.