1 Minute Exercise to Dissolve Negotiation Anxiety
✨ Do this 1 minute exercise to dissolve 🫠 your anxiety
Ahead of a negotiation, board presentation, or a difficult conversation…
(Or to stop 🛑 rumination when things are slow)
Here are the steps:
Look straight ahead and pick a spot as your focal point.
It can be a spot on the wall or anything that's ahead of you.
(Hint: It helps to not look at a screen or a person when you do this)
Without moving your eyes, simply soften or diffuse your focus.
Now shift your awareness to the periphery of your vision.
(For me, when I do this, I become aware of the bookcase to my left and wall to my right.)
What do you become aware of?
Continue to extend your awareness. Imagine what's beyond the bookcase or wall or whatever is in your peripheral vision...
Almost as if you can feel the energy of the space behind you.
What else do you become aware of?
My clients tell me that when they do this, they notice the chatter in their mind quiets down as they feel more grounded and calm here and now.
Here’s WHY this works:
1️⃣ As neuroscientists inform us, the optic nerves in your eyes are the brain’s most external outposts.
👉🏼 When you shift your eyes’ focus, you shift your brain’s focus.
2️⃣ As humans, we have a tendency to get lost in our stories, which by default are stressful, anxiety-producing.
👉🏼 Shifting out of narrow, foveal vision is shifting out of a narrow, limiting perspective.
3️⃣ You can, in a matter of seconds, disengage from fight or flight stress response (panic, anger, can’t think straight) to rest and digest response (when you are relaxed, open and creative).
While you can’t control other people (or “hell” according to Sartre)…
You have agency over your emotions, your responses, your brilliant and fascinating brain 🧠.
So test out peripheral vision on your walk or during your commute today. Practice it to stop anxiety in its tracks.
