Our dog, Lucy, is terrified of thunderstorms. She’s a Great Pyrenees/Boxer mix, and weighs about 70 pounds. When a storm is happening, she paces the house, whining and shaking. She can’t be left alone on days it might storm, as we (and a wall and door frame) once learned–she attempted to bite and claw her way out of the house during a particularly bad storm that happened while we were out.
Our theory has been that the sound of thunder spooks her deeply, and sends her spiraling. But a few months ago, on a calm winter day, I took her picture with my iPhone in an unlit room, and the flash went off. This sent her into a thunderstorm-like panic, and made me wonder if we were misdiagnosing something.
Last night at 1:15am, I woke up with her familiar panicked breaths–and drool–hitting my face. As I slowly came to, I could hear rain and wind hitting the windows. Given her state, I was not surprised when a bright flash of lightning and a loud clap of thunder pulled me fully from my sleep. She jumped onto the floor and started pacing erratically.
My partners were away, so it was up to me to handle.
Normally, handling it would involve petting her, telling her it's ok, and turning on some music or the TV to drown out the thunder. This time, however, I remembered that winter day and the flash, so I quickly closed the bedroom door, as well as the windows and blinds, and turned on a lamp. In a minute, we heard another clap of thunder, but we could no longer see the lightning in the bright room. She didn’t react to the noise.
I coaxed Lucy back on the bed, and held her close to me (not easy to do with a 70 pound dog who is having a panic attack!). In about 10 minutes her panting was replaced by soft snores. The thunder continued but she didn’t care. The lightning was her trigger.
And although she was calm, I couldn’t sleep. After what just happened with Lucy, I was suddenly thinking about how often we might mistake or misdiagnose what is upsetting us or holding us back. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we know what the problem is and to develop a narrative that feels factual. And it’s just as easy to keep trying to solve the problem with the same kinds of solutions or thinking.
But after the other night, I started thinking how important a step-back is if we’re dealing with a persistent issue, thought, or challenge:
Are we afraid of talking in front of groups because we think we lack public speaking skills, or do we have a deep-seated fear of failure and worry that if we screw up a speech we’ve failed?
Do we convince ourselves that a career change is impossible–maybe that it will take too much time and planning–or do we have an unconscious fear of being destitute (sometimes known as a scarcity mindset), and passively decide to stay with our current job (major flaws and all) and income?
Are we holding back feedback for a colleague because we don’t want to hurt their feelings, or do we worry they won’t like us if we speak our minds?
Personally, I’ve faced all of the above scenarios throughout my career, and have worked with colleagues and coaching clients who have as well. In the second example, I’ve stayed in jobs for too long, fueled by a scarcity mindset and fears about money. It took me several years before I put that puzzle together and learned how to make different–and better–career choices grounded in facts (and feelings that were not fear-based).
Of course, our fears are sometimes confusing, with complicated tentacles that make it hard to tease out what’s cause and what’s effect. And fear can be a helpful emotion, because it can prompt us to escape actual danger or to slow down and really contemplate a big decision.
Those are good, helpful things about fear that need to be acknowledged and understood.
But the bigger point here stands: The importance of doing the work needed to know what’s really causing you to make decisions you’re not happy with or that otherwise make you feel stuck, unfulfilled, or inauthentic. Sometimes that work is therapy and sometimes it’s coaching–and other times it’s both. A good coach or a good therapist can help you figure out which you might need (this is a topic I plan to write about more soon).
For Lucy, our narrative was that she was afraid of thunderstorms. We thought the loud and obvious part of a storm–the thunder–had to be the trigger for her. It was what we could most easily sense and identify. But we were wrong, which means we spent years trying to cover up the sound of thunder–not easy to do, short of blasting music so loudly that we upset the neighbors and drive ourselves mad in the process. Drawing the curtains and shutting out the lightning is much easier to do, which I happily discovered last night. It just wasn’t as obvious, nor did it fit the narrative we had created.
A lot of what I do as a coach is helping people better understand why they think, behave, and feel like they do, all in an effort to change habits and make progress on their goals. When I coach, I’m structuring a conversation to help someone figure out not just what they want but how to achieve it, including by assessing what might be holding them back.
My motto this week is “more lightning, less thunder,” and Lucy is my muse.
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