Calming Conversation-Series I #1
Matina Jewell
Hi, I’m Matina Jewell. And today I’m joined by the amazing Allan Parker. Welcome.
Allan Parker
Good morning. Good morning.
Matina Jewell
Allan’s a micro behavioural neuroscientist and when Allan I had met back in January, we did a similar a webinar when the bush fires that were happening in Australia and talking about just having better conversations about how we might be able to help people who are faced with that uncertainty that was in Australia back over the December/January period. I guess on the success of that webinar, a number of people have asked could we possibly get together to have similar conversations that are now affecting the entire world with a coronavirus. So, welcome Allan. Thanks for joining me today.
Allan Parker
Thank you. And a friend sent me a message the other day and he said, ‘Interesting dogleg that we’ve just encountered’. And I thought what a good statement who’d have ever thought that we find ourselves where we are now but the other part I think it’s worth exploring, is how do we work out what we need to do now? How do we communicate with each other now? How do we support each other being calm and making better decisions when we’ve never been here before? We haven’t got a clue. It’s a whole new world for everyone.
Matina Jewell
I don’t think there’s anyone in my circle who isn’t impacted in some way. I think this is a global situation even if coronavirus isn’t currently in their country. They’re being impacted. Another way is through the economic adversity. There’s a flow-on effect. That’s I think every person on the planet is touched by this particular incident that’s unfolding and continuing to change.
Allan Parker
And Matti I suspect there’s a strange relativity. I had two people contact me yesterday one is extremely wealthy, a successful business woman and the other is a lady who has lived on the streets in Sydney for the last 25 years and both of them talk to me about how they are breaking their normal routine. Yeah, and I thought how extreme, two people worlds apart. And in their own way, they’re still trying to make sense of how do I maintain the things that are normal and stable for me? Yes, and how do I manage the people around me? It’s that chaos and confusion that we need to kind of find a way through. To find calmness on the other side and it’s almost, you know using your analogies your sayings of you know, that was then this is now. We need to transition. We can’t keep holding on to what was then because it’s a very different circumstance to what we’re facing right now. Yeah, I think it hits to the heart.
Matina Jewell
What’s going on for a lot of us is we’ve been leading our normal lives up to now. No one came into 2020 saying this is where I planned to be, you know, stay at home. And I think for a lot of people that’s created that uncertainty. You know, we like to plan, we like to feel like we’ve got some control and I guess this situation we find ourselves in now, you know, really does bring us back to what are the things we have control of yes, which isn’t much. Yeah, and we’re having to shift.
Allan Parker
There’s no point fighting a lack of control. That’s only going to make me more anxious.
Matina Jewell
We’re doing this recording today with thanks to Lindisfarne school who own The Boat House here in the beautiful Tweed region. We’ll send out the link so that you can jump in for that live Q&A Monday the 30th. We look forward to seeing you then. Take care.
Calming Conversation-Series I #2
Allan Parker:
My brain’s triggered something, I know, Matina, that we’ve spoken about before, is the uniqueness of some of the circumstances you were in, in your UN work, and how one minute you were expecting something to be happening and the next minute, it’s gone.
Matina Jewell:
That’s right.
Allan Parker:
It’s not, “That’s something I can hold on to.” It’s disappeared.
Matina Jewell:
It’s not like the scenario tweaked, or using that terminology you started out at the start of this conversation, that dog leg. If I can maybe explain a little bit about the 2006 Lebanon War. I was serving as a peacekeeper with the United Nations in Lebanon at the time, right at the junction of the three countries of Israel, Lebanon and Syria. We were unarmed peacekeepers with that particular UN mission, all military, but not permitted to carry weapons. Our mission was to monitor the peace agreements between these countries, and so that was our daily job. I had been in Syria for seven months previous to the six months in Lebanon, so I’d been in that area for 13 months.
Matina Jewell:
And then on the 12th of July, suddenly, out of nowhere, the Hezbollah ambush an Israeli Humvee patrol down on the border. And in an instant, we went from our normal routine of patrolling the regions around us to suddenly a Mayday call coming across the radio, and literally minutes later bombs exploding around us. So it was a, this is what our job is, our mission, and our routine is observing the border, reporting, providing that thin blue line, as we call it, with the UN between these countries, and having no control over those countries of what they do with their military and that militia force with the Hezbollah, to midstream, literally within a minute, we went from monitoring a peace agreement to being on the receiving end of World War III, of literally bombs from fighter jets coming in and impacting around us.
Matina Jewell:
I guess there’s a similarity between that scenario to what we’re now facing globally of this was what we were used to, this was what we were structured to operate in, this was the environment we were expecting, and in a split second, we’re now faced with this scenario, which is extremely different.
Allan Parker:
Yes. For me, before we started, I was just messaging a friend who has four little girls. Four little girls? Yeah, it is four little girls. They’re aged eight to 14. And she was in a routine with those girls and doing what she was doing, and then one night there was a news report, and she was a mom being the teacher the next morning.
Matina Jewell:
That’s right. There’s no time to prepare for these things. It’s sort of like …
Allan Parker:
And the average mom’s going to go, “Hey, hang on. Schoolteachers had a university degree and they were trained in how to do stuff and they knew the curriculum, and here I am. I’m starting tomorrow.” It’s a big deep end thrust, isn’t it?
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
I’m just wondering, if we stop for a minute and dissect the moment that you got that message, the Mayday call, and went… What did you do in that moment that I, as the mom or dad can take into what used to be our living room, which we’ve now set up as a classroom? What can I do or bring to that first walk in to be the teacher in a classroom with my own children? At one level, it probably is daunting.
Matina Jewell:
It is.
Allan Parker:
Relatively, it is daunting.
Matina Jewell:
I’m sure there will be a lot of parents that look back on this period and go, “This was the hardest job I ever had.” Because respect for teachers. My father’s a school teacher and I’ve always had great respect for teachers. But even me this week, my respect levels have skyrocketed again, just after… For me personally, I have two small little girls, five and seven years of age, and just wrangling two students, not a whole classroom… Day one was a disaster. I’m like, “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this job.”
Allan Parker:
It’s not actually a disaster. It’s called a rapid learning curve.
Matina Jewell:
That’s right.
Calming Conversation-Series I #3
Allan Parker:
Essentially what can you and I, and what does our team do that equips everybody who gets to see this with an absolute simple workable tool? And we came up with… This is new.
Matina Jewell:
Yes.
Allan Parker:
That was then, and this is now.
Matina Jewell:
And it’s something that wasn’t expected and it’s new.
Allan Parker:
Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
And I think you were talking, Allan, about trying to remove the word “crisis” out of that, just saying it’s “new” rather than “crisis.”
Allan Parker:
Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
Because that “crisis” word kind of puts us into more likely a state of panic or at least heightened anxiety around a fear factor or something that is just new.
Allan Parker:
And many, I think it’s legitimate to call it a crisis if we’re not doing the things that the experts are asking us to do.
Matina Jewell:
Yes.
Allan Parker:
But, if, you know, look at my own world. I left my office in Sydney 10 days ago, and none of us had been back. And I flew home here to Tweed, and I’ve only been out of the house, exclude the fact that I’ve been going downstairs to swim on a regular basis because the chlorine water. Not much will live in chlorine water. So it’s a good, safe place to be.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
But I’ve largely been inside the apartment that whole time, which is extremely different to what I’d normally do. And if I can’t go those things that I was expecting to be able to do normally that I can’t do now.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah. But how do you, how do you shift your mindset then to be able to let go? I guess for the viewers, anyone watching, this is to be able…
Allan Parker:
Yeah, it’s a great question.
Matina Jewell:
…to take something tangible away.
Allan Parker:
It’s a good question.
Matina Jewell:
How do we help people with that letting go process?
Allan Parker:
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Maybe this is probably where the people who’ve worked with us before will be fine, but the people who are new to us, I need to warn them how eccentric I am and how peculiar I am and that I’m an experimental behavioral scientist, and I’m always looking at what things can we do that we don’t normally do. So what is new that’s out of my normal routine that I could do right now that would completely change my internal experience, how I feel?
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
What I sense, what I’m thinking, or just the speed of the chatter inside my head.
Matina Jewell:
Hmm, and I think we can all do with quietening down.
Allan Parker:
Yep. The minute I take what I’m thinking about or feeling or experiencing and I pay more attention further out wider, which is part of why this beautiful view is so useful. You can’t watch you in me without being calmed by the background.
Matina Jewell:
And just the birds, the sounds.
Allan Parker:
And the birds and this peripheral sound. Now when we can enclose ourselves in a house, our peripheral brain function reduces.
Matina Jewell:
Right. Yep.
Allan Parker:
Here’s an experiment for everybody to do. Be inside. Notice your mind chatter. Notice how fast it is. Notice how loud it is. Notice whether it’s positive or negative, notice if there’s questions or just statements. Walk outside the door, stand on a balcony or doorway and look out so that you can see more and take a breath in. And notice if you’re looking out wide and breathing, you go solid inside.
Matina Jewell:
Okay.
Allan Parker:
The different parts of the brain, the part that chatters will switch off the moment I’m outside, and I attend wider.
Matina Jewell:
Okay.
Allan Parker:
So if I was an educator, a teacher, a trainer of a long time, for parents who are now got two or three or four kids that they’re homeschooling, and the inexperienced parent is going to go and attend to one child, then the other than the other. The parents who can track all four of them and interact with one whilst overseeing or hearing or notice in their peripheral vision what the other child is doing so that they know when to move, I think you just practice that.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
Their entire brain function changes.
Matina Jewell:
Right.
Allan Parker:
Because this drives the sympathetic nervous system. It’s the part of me that causes me to get tense and stressed. This, particularly with breath, move back, have a look, yeah, every one of us maybe at some point has gone, “Hang on, I’ve got to step back and have a look at what’s going on here.” And that’s just that wiser part of our brain recognizing that we’re building stress and we need reduce the tension.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
Hmm.
Allan Parker:
And so if I had something, like right now I’ve got an office that needs things done in it, and yet there’s a request not to fly.
Matina Jewell:
Yes.
Allan Parker:
So at the moment I’m going, I have an office, and the office is over there and I got to leave it over there until I can responsibly go to it. So actually pick stuff up and put it over in the waiting bay, what I call the waiting bay.
Matina Jewell:
Almost like disassociating that part?
Allan Parker:
Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
Like segregating it and saying…
Allan Parker:
Yep.
Matina Jewell:
I think for me, what I take out of that is being able to go, that is something that I can’t…
Allan Parker:
I can’t.
Matina Jewell:
…control.
Allan Parker:
I can’t do anything with that right now.
Matina Jewell:
I can’t do anything positively with that. So I’m going to have to just park that.
Allan Parker:
Yep.
Matina Jewell:
Put it in the parking lot as something to come back to when we can.
Allan Parker:
Yes. Yep.
Matina Jewell:
What are the things I can do something positive about right now-
Allan Parker:
Yep, yep, can I just get you to freeze there for a minute while I point out to our watchers…
Matina Jewell:
Too many distance [crosstalk 00:07:08].
Allan Parker:
But Mati’s…
Matina Jewell:
Social isolating.
Allan Parker:
Mati’s gone and she’s put what she can’t do over here and the things she’s got choice about, that. She can make a difference, too. She put…
Matina Jewell:
Right here in front of me.
Allan Parker:
Yeah, and it’s-
Matina Jewell:
And it’s a natural choice.
Allan Parker:
It’s not in your body. It’s out of your body, but it’s in front of you. So the visual part of your brain can actually see it. If I bring it too close to me, I’ll feel it.
Matina Jewell:
Right, okay.
Allan Parker:
Now that’s an experiment everybody at home can do. You just take something that you’re concerned about, bring it there and then bring it there, and your feeling system in your nervous system in your brain will actually have you emote it.
Matina Jewell:
Right, yep.
Allan Parker:
But if I put it out there and I’m thinking about the office, I’ve got a picture of the office there, and I’m now seeing it in the visual part of my brain that doesn’t do emotion is doing the processing.
Matina Jewell:
Mm.
Allan Parker:
So I can go, will the office be the same office in a week? And the answer’s yes. Yep.
Matina Jewell:
Yep.
Allan Parker:
Yep. There are one or two things in the fridge that I think will probably not be at their best, yeah, but it’s not… I’ve just got to drop the expectation of getting to that and how quickly we can just take the lovely [inaudible 00:08:37] jewel caption of if that was the then, and this is now.
Matina Jewell:
This is now.
Allan Parker:
This is new, and if it’s new, I’ve got to experiment to see what works. Not have a belief there’s a way it should be done. At present, we’re listening to all of the experts around the world who are trying to work out how can we be safest.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah. So is that about removing that expectation and that pressure of how we want it to be?
Allan Parker:
Yes, absolutely.
Matina Jewell:
Accepting this as new?
Allan Parker:
Yep.
Matina Jewell:
Now?
Allan Parker:
Yep.
Matina Jewell:
Experimenting, find new ways of operating through it.
Allan Parker:
Yep, yep.
Matina Jewell:
And finding what we really need to do.
Allan Parker:
Yeah. Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
And to do that, I think you’ve got to remain calm so that you can make the right decisions and choices and have that ability to identify what you can deal with and what you can pack up. Is that-
Allan Parker:
Yeah, it’s that-
Matina Jewell:
Is that a good summary of that?
Allan Parker:
St. Francis of Assisi prayer, it’s change the things I can and accept the things I can’t.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
And just put it right here.
Matina Jewell:
And wisdom to know the difference. [crosstalk 00:09:52].
Allan Parker:
I can’t do that yet. And just put the word “yet” on it.
Matina Jewell:
Hmm. Yeah.
Allan Parker:
So the minute I go, “I can’t do that,” is a part of me that gets disappointed because I’m going to do what I want to do.
Matina Jewell:
Yes.
Allan Parker:
If I go, I can’t do that right now, or I can’t do that yet… or I can’t do all of that now.
Matina Jewell:
Mm.
Allan Parker:
so I just had a thought I could ring the concierge in the building and ask him to shoot upstairs and check the refrigerator. So I’m just following bits that I can influence.
Matina Jewell:
Yes.
Allan Parker:
Yeah?
Matina Jewell:
And when that becomes a priority to action.
Allan Parker:
Yeah.
Calming Conversation-Series I #4
Allan Parker:
We’re actually talking about redesigning our nervous system because we’re in a situation that we’ve not been in before. And I think your moment of, I want to come back to the mayday-
Matina Jewell:
There’s a couple of things I’d to come-
Allan Parker:
… and see if you can pull out for us because I have a feeling that for a lot of people what’s going on is their mayday call.
Matina Jewell:
I was going to say it’s been a global mayday call.
Allan Parker:
Yes. And can we just unpack a little bit of what happened to you that very moment? Because I suspect in that moment, Mattie, you can go into complete panic or anxiety or stress or you can go into a beautiful state of composure or you can go thinking about others and who you need to care for and look after or inform or communicate with.
Allan Parker:
Can you just talk that through a bit? What actually happened in that very moment?
Matina Jewell:
So, right at that moment, the mayday call went across the UN radio network in Lebanon I was actually driving a UN vehicle. We were out on a patrol. One of our normal regular patrols. I had other personnel in the car. I had a Lebanese interpreter, a civilian, other teammates in the vehicle. And I guess it happens very quickly that you suddenly go into, “What do I need to do right now?”
Allan Parker:
Can I just stop for a minute? I’m going to say it straight to the camera. One of the best things we can do for our nervous system to keep ourselves healthy, physically and psychologically and mentally is just simply take a breath and go, “What’s my best choice right now?” I don’t think we can …
Matina Jewell:
I think it’s natural. I would’ve had that automatic response of an adrenaline rush of, “Wow. Something big has happened right now.” But it’s that big breath in-
Allan Parker:
And that backward movement?
Matina Jewell:
Yes.
Allan Parker:
Because each time you do that-
Matina Jewell:
I instinctively do that, don’t I?
Allan Parker:
Come back. Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
That breath in of … and almost making that space, I guess, of if this is the situation, giving that little bit of space of, “What do I need to do about this right now?”
Allan Parker:
Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
Breath. And it was just about safety. And I just remember at the time was analyzing, I had a number of different road options to get me from where I was back to my UN patrol base. Which was patrol base Khiam. And very quickly my actions on assessing pros and cons of the options. There was ones that were more through the center of town. There was ones that were around the outskirts. There were ones that were quite exposed. And I guess in the military training-
Allan Parker:
Can I pull that one up for the people watching? One of the ways of reducing stress in the nervous system as a human being, and I suspect it could be other vertebrate, but for human beings is if I’m at a choice point and I stepped back and I look at multiple options, it requires my right hemisphere of my brain and my parasympathetic nervous system which causes my relaxation responses and will allow tension to pass and it does increase the likelihood of dopamine.
Allan Parker:
Dopamine’s the chemical in the brain that gives us our best thinking. And it needs oxygen. And it needs multiple choice. Because if I just go, “Oh, the solution is …” I’ve converged in my sympathetic system, which pumps adrenaline, will kick in. But if I can do as you’ve just demonstrated and I sit back and just take a breath in and out and then go, “It could be A, it could be B, it could be C, it could be D. Let me evaluate that.” That could be a helpful tool for every one of us.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah. In this scenario right now.
Allan Parker:
Yeah. Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
What are the options? And for some of us that might be very restricted options. And for many of us, options we don’t necessarily want to choose. They’re not favorable options for what we’re facing, but it might be the only option we have right now.
Matina Jewell:
My military training kicked in as well. In that very quickly, I mean this all happened in a matter of seconds, of assessing the options I had in front of me. Assessing the threat levels or the literal threats but also making sure I had backup plans for each of those options. Because one might’ve been the best, the quickest option to get to it, but it might’ve been if something blocks that road, I have no other choices.
Matina Jewell:
So, it was having those contingencies in place of saying, “Okay, here are my options, ABCD,” wherever it might end. “These are the contingencies for each of those.” Trying to assess very quickly, which gave the most flexibility of choice in those moments should the scenario change and unfold during that drive back to the base.
Allan Parker:
Can I say that another way? If you’re considering that there might be four or five different ways and if I take it to the parent in the classroom with the children, there’s something here. I’m not exactly sure I know what it is, but I’m going to have a go at teaching it anyway. And is my best chance to talk it through? To have a question and answer with the, I’m going to say, pupil?
Allan Parker:
One of the important things is when I’m home teaching, I’ve got to learn that I’ve got a parent hat and a teaching hat and making sure I know which hat I’ve got on is pretty important. But it also might be that I say to them, “Let me have a go at it and see if I can do it.” So, I demonstrate experimenting, is okay. And my experiment is to them a demonstration.
Matina Jewell:
Yes. Beautiful.
Allan Parker:
Now that might then, the student might know that what the parent’s doing isn’t quite right and then they get to be the coach. Now, when I hear something, see something, watch something, experiment with something, see a demonstration, and then give feedback about the demonstration. I’ve just used eight parts of the brain.
Matina Jewell:
Yes. And learning and embedding that.
Allan Parker:
Powerful.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
It’s very powerful.
Calming Conversation-Series I #5
Matina Jewell:
My thoughts on this at the moment is the kids are going to remember how they felt during this time. They’re not necessarily going to remember how they learnt that particular activity. It’s going to be how they felt in that home environment.
Allan Parker:
Yes.
Matina Jewell:
Was it fun? Was it surrounded by love, calmness?
Allan Parker:
Absolutely.
Matina Jewell:
Or was it a stressful environment that that created fear for them? And I think, as parent teachers, the best thing we can do is to take the pressure off ourselves.
Allan Parker:
Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
Because at the moment, I think there’s a lot of people that are stressed about making sure their child’s education … I think schools will pick it up. We’ve just got to do our best and accept that’s the best we can do right now.
Allan Parker:
Yeah. I think that raises for me a whole another set of questions, and it’s around the spreading of stress with the spreading of calm. A part of our brain, referred to sometimes is the mammalian brain, and parts of the mammalian brain and parts of this frontal part of the brain have what’s called mirror neurons. And it simply means that when we’re not stressed, so if I’m calm and I’m interacting with you, there will be parts of me and you that will copy each other. And nothing, you’ll never see it more than a parent with a child in a shopping centre. I love watching, the parent will something with their hair and the toddler does exactly the same thing. And that’s because this part of our brain, it’s the affiliation part of our brain, the part of our brain that wants to be in relationship. We copy each other.
Allan Parker:
Now, if I can bring calmness, composure, if I can bring stillness … I asked my partner this morning what was his advice on what we should talk about? And he said, “Oh, get people to do acts of kindness and be gentle with each other.”
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
And I went, “Oh.” See, if we can be gentle with each other, and that will permeate out. You’ve just had an interaction with [Kaia 00:02:33] and Kaia is now texting or messaging a friend of hers, and the ripple effect or the flow on effect of how you and her interacted is going to be alive in her brain and turning up in the next message she sends.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
And it’s just so important that we pause, as you’ve demonstrated beautifully pause, breathe, think, consider not only the variables, but if I did that one, what’s the flow on effect?
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Allan Parker:
What impact am I having?
Matina Jewell:
Yeah. We call that, “actions on” in the military.
Allan Parker:
Actions on?
Matina Jewell:
So, a take up for the audience.
Allan Parker:
Actions on.
Matina Jewell:
If we plan for these scenarios, and if we encounter scenario Z that our actions on that scenario unfolding, is then to go into the next mode of operating-
Allan Parker:
Wonderful.
Matina Jewell:
… and keeping that flexibility though in our decision-making.
Allan Parker:
Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
I guess that was another point I would sort of would pull out of that scenario of you’ve got those options, you’ve got these backup plans.
Allan Parker:
Yeah.
Matina Jewell:
We need to remain in a decision-making capacity because we can’t allow fear to-
Allan Parker:
Yep. And fear would-
Matina Jewell:
And I think that’s currently what’s happening where people are-
Allan Parker:
Fear will make the decisions.
Matina Jewell:
Fear driver decisions.
Allan Parker:
Yep.
Matina Jewell:
It’s about overriding that. And that comes back to breathe again, of actually just trying to remain calm, because the only way we can make logical, rational, effective decisions is when we’re in a calm state, assessing those options. And at the end, of the day it’s then about just trusting and doing the best we can with the scenario and the knowledge we have at that moment of … and backing ourselves, going, “This is the best I can do with the knowledge and the assets that I have right now.”
Matina Jewell:
But take a step forward. Keep that momentum of doing, of decision-making rather than becoming stagnant. So, I find that environment where the mayday call has come across, have frozen, have they gone into a fear mindset that I may not have made the right choices in those environments?
Allan Parker:
If you do the reactive fear.
Matina Jewell:
That sort of … yeah.
Allan Parker:
This part of the brain straight away shuts down, and it pumps cortisol and adrenaline. And the danger with cortisol and adrenaline, it will go to the first thing that it sees that make some sense.
Matina Jewell:
Okay. Yep. Yep.
Allan Parker:
So, you haven’t consciously made a decision.
Matina Jewell:
No, you haven’t explored the essence.
Allan Parker:
Here, this is the bit that does the rationale and the thinking and the-
Matina Jewell:
Assessments.
Allan Parker:
… working things out in your head. And it hasn’t worked. You’ve just reacted in your automatic reactive fear mode, and the problem knees, cortisol and adrenaline make us feel really clear.
Matina Jewell:
Yes.
Allan Parker:
So, at that point in time, I’m going to be certain I’m doing the right thing, when I may not have considered what would be the ripple effect or the flow on effect.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah.
Calming Conversation-Series I #6
Allan Parker:
You know, as I say to people, I’m eccentric, I’m a bit of a weirdo, but I get joy and pleasure out of lots of things. And I’ve never heard… I don’t watch much television, but I’ve been watching it out of discipline, to hear the messages and to find out how the world’s responding. And I am loving how frequently I’m hearing the word, “We’re in this together.” Because I can’t remember a time in my life when I could look every person that I could encounter in the eye and go, “We’re in this one together.”
Matina Jewell:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Allan Parker:
And everything every one of us do… E.g., you and me making sure we’re facing away from each other, that we’re-
Matina Jewell:
Yes. We’re about this distant.
Allan Parker:
We got distance between us.
Matina Jewell:
It feels unnatural. I’m still coming to terms with not being able to-
Allan Parker:
The thing is, of course, for people who are watching outside: in the world of television, we would be so close together that we’re almost touching, so that it looks to you like we’re a normal distance apart, because the distance apart in front of a camera grows. So, we will look… We’ll be like the bookends. We’ll be like the bookends.
Matina Jewell:
Other end of the table.
Allan Parker:
But just, you know… I couldn’t have come this morning and shot this video without bringing a really high-quality protection mask for Dan, who’s shooting. Who’s significantly further from us.
Matina Jewell:
How come Dan got it, not me?
Allan Parker:
Well, look-
Matina Jewell:
That’s okay.
Allan Parker:
I’ve got a spare one here.
Matina Jewell:
No, it’s a bit hard to talk through a mask.
Allan Parker:
I’ve got a spare one here!
Matina Jewell:
I know we have favourites. It’s okay.
Allan Parker:
Yeah, well. I guess that’s how it is. But can we just… Those little random acts of kindness-
Matina Jewell:
And that comes back to being that consideration for others. And I think it’s one of the… If we look at gifts out of any situation, I think out of crisis and adversity can come opportunities, so long as we’re looking for them. And often we don’t like change. It’s just a natural human response, that we don’t… We get comfortable, complacent. We like the way we operate, we feel like we’re in control, and often we don’t find those new initiatives and new ways of operating until we’re forced to, until we’re pushed into a scenario where we have to change.
Matina Jewell:
And I think that’s what’s happening around the globe right now, as you know. And that obviously creates that uncomfortable situation, that uncertainty for us, but if we can keep that focus on the positive things, and “Where are the gifts in this moment? Where are the positive things that we can find?” And if we can move fast enough and be in that positive mind frame, then we might actually look back on this scenario and go, wow, out of my particular business, my family, my friends, whatever it was, that connection, that kindness, that empathy, and the positivity we found… Hopefully we’ll take those pieces forward with us too.
Allan Parker:
I’ve just transported back in time to yesterday, when we were discussing this. And your little girl, Kaya’s not quite five yet?
Matina Jewell:
Just turned five in December.
Allan Parker:
Just five. Just five. And when I arrived, I got chased by two little girls, trying to keep my social distance. And we made a little bit-
Matina Jewell:
Social isolation is pretty hard when you’re five. That concept.
Allan Parker:
And the idea of, in that moment of excitement… Because Kaya didn’t have adrenaline and cortisol, running she had a chemical called noradrenaline, and noradrenaline is the transmission that gives us a lot of energy, but as long as we’re breathing, it gives us excitement and enthusiasm and playfulness.
Matina Jewell:
And joy.
Allan Parker:
And joy! And she was doing so much movement, the endorphins kicked in. So, it was… It was a magical moment. And then we’re trying to be adults, getting some explanation in, that we’ve got to keep a distance-
Matina Jewell:
And you’re running from a five- and a seven-year-old.
Allan Parker:
And all of a sudden, Kaya stops and looks at you and goes, “Mummy, what about in the bathroom?” And I thought to myself, there’s always inquiry in things that are new. But it was so beautiful, that here’s this beautiful child living out the evidence of… And you know, at five, she’s in the greatest change of her life. So, she’s more comfortable with change than any of us, because she’s got this explosion of neurons going on in her brain, of willingness to learn and discover. So, she will find social space, because the need to connect and discover is so high.
Allan Parker:
But for her to be able to stop… Now, once she stops, the endorphins reduce, and the noradrenaline winds back a bit, and she takes a big breath, and then her frontal lobe came on. And out comes this question that’s purely logical, that says, “Mummy, we’ve got this social space, but in the bathroom, we don’t do this.” And the wisdom, the beautiful wisdom of somebody that age wanting to challenge… But it’s not challenging what’s going on, it’s, “How can I make better sense of it?” And how beautiful to experience that and just watch it. And as much as they were a total joy, I was so pleased that they didn’t join us this morning. I thought the social distancing might’ve been more difficult today.
Matina Jewell:
Absolutely.
Calming Conversation-Series I #7
Allan Parker:
As an educator I’m fascinated with the challenge, and from my eyes, a beautiful opportunity for me to take on a new role and become more involved in my child’s learning than I ever have before. So, I think there’s a beautiful silk lining to this one. But as a mum who’s in day two.
Matina Jewell:
Mrs. Mum.
Allan Parker:
Mrs. Mum. In day two of home-schooling, what’s your primary lesson that you’d share with all those moms and dads out there who are… And grand moms and grand dads, and uncles and aunts who are going to be playing that role, what’s your…?
Matina Jewell:
I think if I had to narrow it down to one, there’s been a lot of lessons just in a 24-48 hours that we’ve been in this new environment, new situation. I think the one lesson is to take the pressure off, and that’s more for the adults, not the children. My two are just in primary school. So, they’re young, five and seven. And even for kids that are in high school and facing the HSC. It’s about just doing your best at this point in time. I think just removing that stress so that you can actually do a better job of what you’re doing.
Matina Jewell:
We’ve already found with our school, unfortunately the internet went down, they had problems with the online rollout programs. I’m sure there were a lot of people who were disappointed, frustrated with that situation, working really hard behind the scenes to try and get that up and running, and it’s just about saying, it’s okay, it’s not a [inaudible 00:01:57] we’ll get that back on the line. Parents could have their kids doing something else right now. The importance is to try and just make it a fun, happy situation so they do look back on this period of time favourably. I think we’ll get into the details.
Allan Parker:
I’d like to pick the Hezbollah blue line again. If you’re going, there are five different ways, what’s the effect? And if I do one and we hit a blockage, we go with one of the others.
Matina Jewell:
Have the plan B.
Allan Parker:
That’s perfect.
Matina Jewell:
And whatever your plan B is, it’s okay for right now. We had a point, we had a bit of a binge on one of the Netflix, My Little Pony episodes, while we are trying to get things back up and running, so they continued the lesson. That’s okay, out in the swings for a bit, do something around that, go to those plans. have those backup plans. It’s good to have that. And I think also just have that routine, have something in place. So, this morning, 8:40, we were dressed ready to be able to start the lesson as we would at school. Have that routine even if the routine changes. But I think there’s almost that warmth and comfort in having some structure in place rather than nothing.
Allan Parker:
Yeah. Again, in my crazy scientific world that’s either referred as contextual markers or contextual anchors. And a contextual marker or a contextual anchor is me making sure that when I get out of bed and I’m working from home, that I get out of bed and I do everything I normally do in preparation for going to work.
Matina Jewell:
Yes.
Allan Parker:
So, don’t blur the lines. And I get up and do what I do. E.g. because I was working from home yesterday, I fudged and I didn’t shave, and yet I had a video conference call to London last night, and at six o’clock I went, “Oops, I’ve got to shave.” And because I hadn’t done the discipline in the morning, it blurred the lines.
Matina Jewell:
It is about putting those boundaries too for our minds. I’m interested in your knowledge of that separation of time. I think for families at home, particularly for parents, grandparents, whoever might be doing the home-schooling for the children to segregate that this is school time, this is their now time, and to be able to move that changing hats so that you’re not teaching 24/7 in the home environment. Is there something that happens for the brain?
Allan Parker:
Contextual marking is one thing, and a part of contextual marking is locating where I do my work. So, I work at home. Nothing ever gets done outside my office, nothing. I never take a piece of paper; I never text a business call from my home environment. If I want to do a text to somebody work-wise, I go into the office to do it, and I do personal outside. Now I’m just thinking if I were a dad home educating, or as I am the boss of a business and I get dressed and ready as if I’m going to work, before I contact Joanna or Ann.
Allan Parker:
And it’s applying that discipline so that my work doesn’t spill out into the house. And similarly, if I was home parenting children, I’d have a space where we were going to do it, and where we doing high concentration work and I’d have it in a corner, and I’d have another location where we’re doing blue sky thinking and imagination and creativity and we’d be in the corner looking out. And because the more, if I turn to the camera and I look there, a whole different part of my brain opens up to when I’m looking here.
Matina Jewell:
It’s that broad view again.
Allan Parker:
Yeah. It’s going back to the broad view. And I would have two locations and I’d have an outdoor location and make sure that we move between the three locations often. And the other thing I would suggest is that because you and me and the two children or three children are doing this for the first time, let’s have a rule that every 10 minutes we’re going to stop and do some breathing and some relaxing, and then we’re going to thank each other for what we did in the last 10 minutes, because being appreciated is going to be one of the really big factors, because there are not many parents who are going to do home parenting for the first time, who are going to feel adequate, confident or well equipped.
Allan Parker:
I think about Sierra and Kaia useful for them to know that mommy’s in new territory more so than they are, and for them to let her know that they’re grateful for what’s just happening. It’s really a good time that we don’t focus on what’s wrong.
Matina Jewell:
Yeah, keep that positivity.
Allan Parker:
It’s a really good time. And if I’m going to tell you what’s wrong, I’m going to tell you five things that worked that I appreciated and valued before I go and say, what’s not in place.
Matina Jewell:
It’s almost keeping that positive bank account, where we talk about five compliments or positive things, one negative thing out, counteracts those five. So, you need to be putting more than the five in, in order to keep that positive spin in the bag.
Calming Conversation-Series I #8
Allan Parker –
You know the bit that I think useful in terms of that, and it’s to do with spatial intelligence, really. But it’s useful to recognize that if three or four of us are at home and there are times when we want to come together. Probably more importantly now than normally.
Matina Jewell -:
Yes.
Allan Parker –
However, it’s important for us to recognize it because we’re in a confined space, it’s really important that every now and again I go off to my favourite place in the house, my favorited couch, and I curl up with my favourite book, and everybody knows that when I go to that couch, I don’t get interrupted.
Matina Jewell –
Actually, setting up that isolation space to keep your own solo time rather than-
Allan Parker –
Yep. And even when I’ve come back from my little private time, I might come back and share with you some of the things, but I’m not going to share all of it because my private time is going to be more precious.
Matina Jewell –
Oh, absolutely. Particularly people that are living in apartment buildings, and those who don’t have a lot of space in the cities that are really confined. But to try and find that area. I think, even if looking at sort of military scenarios, we were chatting before about, I spent two years on a Navy ship, even though it was army, I’d specialized in amphibious warfare. We deployed on three back to back missions during that two years. So, we pretty much spent, I think we only had about 10 weeks out of two years at home in Australia. So, the rest was at sea. And for me in a foreign environment, army, very different culture to Navy, and being in that confined space at sea and, and even another step from that severity is submariners who are actually below the water, not even getting vitamin D from sunlight and being in these even more confined spaces.
Allan Parker –
Can I just get you to pause there? I just want to say to the people out there, did you just hear that we’re all concerned about isolation?
Matina Jewell –
In our comfortable homes.
Allan Parker –
And how would it be being in a tin can, below the water. No light.
Matina Jewell –
No light.
Allan Parker –
No natural light.
Matina Jewell –
Except for-
Allan Parker -:
No natural light.
Matina Jewell -:
Except for artificial light.
Allan Parker –
No natural light.
Matina Jewell –
Yep.
Allan Parker –
No peripheral vision.
Matina Jewell –
And the similarity from what we’re currently facing to what militaries do around the world, is there’s often this unknown period of time, particularly when you’re deployed on missions, the Lebanon war, the peacekeeping role that I was in. When that war started, it wasn’t like we got the mayday call to say, “This is going to go on for 30 plus days,” or, “This is three days,” or it’s this and it’s exactly what we’re all facing right now as well. We’ve had this change in circumstances very suddenly and a huge impact on our normal day to day functioning of our lives, and no one knows and can tell us how long we’re going to have to modify and sustain that for. I think that’s part of the uncertain that we naturally feel.
Matina Jewell –
But our military personnel, we operate in those environments all the time.
Allan Parker –
How do they condition you? What advice would they give you to handle that dynamic?
Matina Jewell –
Well, we’d actually train for it, we’d exercise for it. So, I remember a particular exercise I did as a cadet at the Royal Military College at Duntroon. We’d been out field for a couple of weeks. They actually put us on the trucks and there was a particular exercise we did called Exercise Timor, that everyone always had this fear about, because it was a food and sleep deprivation exercise. And they would never tell you. It was never listed in the program. It was the one thing that was sort of unknown and-
Allan Parker –
It turned up when it turned up.
Matina Jewell –
That’s right. So, there was always this surprise element to it. So, training you for that unexpected situation that’s going to completely inconvenience your life.
Matina Jewell –
Anyway. We were out field, we’d done a couple of weeks and living in the fields, so no showers, you’re eating ration packs, you’re patrolling, you’re in these hot environments. We were actually on the trucks coming home and of course we’re all planning, we’re going to the pub that night, already planned exactly what you’re going to eat that dinner.
Allan Parker –
My 30-minute shower
Matina Jewell –
That shower to get the cam cream, the dirt that’s entrenched into you. Hours. You’re doing all of this sort of planning and great things that you’re looking forward to. We drove through the gun gates of Duntroon, out the other side and as we’re driving out, people are going-
Allan Parker -:
What’s happening?
Matina Jewell –
“Hang about,” and they’re like, “Welcome to Exercise Timor.” And so, it was this, not even repack your gear. No shower, you’re back into it again. And I think it’s that sort of training that then… and handling that disappointment, handling that expectation, going back to expectation, you had this expectation that we’re going to be having that shower and going home, and now it’s another scenario, and you, for the sake of the team around you, have to find that strength to push through to the next day, to cope with that situation. And as a leader in those environments, you have to encourage the morale of the entire team and find those lighter moments, find the humour in it, find some way of actually getting everyone focused now on the new purpose and the new task.
Matina Jewell –
So that’s how the military train and then I think, in those war environments where you’ve got such a clear purpose as to why you’re doing it, that people then… We get people to do extraordinary things in circumstances that are life-threatening, challenging and we don’t have all the comforts of our home that we’re living in. You know, knee deep in mud, lack of food, water.
Allan Parker –
What do you do in that moment? As you’re saying, I’m trying to put myself in that circumstance and being the nutter that I am and done a lot of endurance work and I’m well practiced to keeping going, and I’ve always been an advocate for don’t be motivated, develop momentum. So, the momentum, and its why acknowledgement and appreciation are so important, because if I do push through something and somebody says, “Yes, well done. We did it,” that just gives me a boost of energy and builds the momentum.
Allan Parker –
But that said, Maddie, if I’m deeply honest at the moment of that decision, I’m going to sit down and burst into tears.
Matina Jewell –
The decision that you’ve got to push on.
Allan Parker –
Yeah. And whilst that might not be appropriate in the military, [crosstalk 00:06:59] I think it’s probably one for us to recognize for each other at this point in time. Sometimes I just want to burst into tears, and sometimes I might just want somebody to bring me a cup of tea.
Matina Jewell –
Yeah. Acts of kindness.
Allan Parker –
Or I might need that right person at the right time in a soft voice to go, “Maddie, get over it.” We’ve just got to do it. And a piece of advice to everybody. If you want to tell somebody what to do, you do it like I just did. Maddie, get over it. We’ve just got to do this now. Make sense? With me?
Matina Jewell –
Yeah. Particularly if you can say that with me piece.
Allan Parker –
With me.
Matina Jewell –
That we can do this together.
Allan Parker –
We can do this.
Matina Jewell –
Yep.
Allan Parker –
Yep. And because I negotiate in dealing in crises and hostile disputes a lot of the time, there’s six elements of nonverbal communication that need to be considered all the time now, because our nonverbal communication either elicits stress or reduces it. And what did I just do with Maddie is I had my body facing way away from her, my shoulders mid between us, my gesture, my eyes and my hand toward her. So, I’ve got indirect angle. Never that.
Matina Jewell –
Too confronting.
Allan Parker –
I’m not even going to show… I’m going to show it to the camera. I mustn’t do that, and you can feel how awkward that is. If I do that and that and my eyes indirectly look at you as they are down the camera now, that’s the angle. You’ll notice I’ve lowered my body which reduces the tension. So, it’s angle, height, tension, pace and volume. And I’d say, “No, you can’t do that. Understand? We’ve got to work on this together. With me?”
Matina Jewell –
Beautiful.
Allan Parker –
And it’s the angle, the height, the distance also. We’ve got enforced distance at the moment. The further apart we are, the less tension there is. The greater the angle between us, the less tension there is. When I did that at somebody, hips, shoulders, head, eyes, hands, moving towards somebody, it triggers their amygdala in their brain and cortisol and adrenaline pump and tension rises. So, if we can just remember to-
Matina Jewell –
To have that angle.
Allan Parker –
Angle away, soften the body.
Matina Jewell –
I think that’s a really important point, I think a lot of people now are operating virtually, and often we are straight down the camera as you were, and that can be seen as confronting across where you’re just straight talking, which we don’t often do a lot in in person. So maybe something to keep in mind for our meetings, our Zoom calls, all those things we’re doing more of now.
Allan Parker –
I watched two of the Premiers this morning outlining the new regulations, and one of the medical officers, and all three of them started really beautifully. And the more they said you could watch them getting more jerky, more agitated, their hands were not moving at the beginning, but before long the hands were… And they were beating toward the camera. And one commentator said, “We’ll leave that there. We’ll come back to it a little bit later.” And I’m sure it was because the person was getting agitated in themselves, and then they were starting to tell people what they had to do and almost reprimanding. And I was thinking, “Oh, that that tension will spread.” And in the world of television, the good television, the Dans of camera world and the directors will cut off that sort of thing when that’s happening.
Matina Jewell -:
Yeah.
Allan Parker –
Yeah. Important.
Matina Jewell -:
And it’s important. There are things that need to be said. There are those directions that need to be given right now for people to adhere for everyone’s safety but done in the right way so that it is received and not deflected.
Allan Parker –
Yep. Soft with pauses. No, can’t do that. Understand? Just soft, short, pauses. And if you’ll notice my head was just slightly nodding the whole time. And as mine nods, yours nods with me.
Matina Jewell –
Yeah, it does.
Allan Parker –
The mammalian brain connects.
Matina Jewell –
Yeah.
Allan Parker –
Yeah.
Calming Conversation-Series I #9
Allan Parker –
Mattie, if you were only allowed one piece of advice to the population of Australia right now…
Matina Jewell –
One piece.
Allan Parker –
What would your one piece be?
Matina Jewell –
Probably would be breathe and try and just calm everything.
Allan Parker –
Yeah.
Matina Jewell –
Calm so that we can make decisions. Be aware of our ripple effect on people around us, and make that a calming, compassionate, caring, so we can get through this together.
Allan Parker –
Yeah. Yeah.
Matina Jewell –
What about for you, Allan? What’s the…
Allan Parker –
Can I have two?
Matina Jewell –
Oh, I didn’t know that was part of the… I wanted to do three, but yeah, sure.
Allan Parker –
You can do three.
Matina Jewell –
You can have two.
Allan Parker –
I want to get back to the three N’s that we did earlier. This is new. That’s then, this is now. And then go to the four… Take your calm, composed, and add two more C’s. Go calm, composed, which is settling me. Compassion, which means I’m putting my attention out, and contingency.
Matina Jewell –
Yeah.
Allan Parker –
You’re commenting about the importance of contingency and considering the flow on effect.
Matina Jewell –
That’s right.
Allan Parker –
I just think that’s vitally important.
Matina Jewell –
Well it’s vital, and I think it’s also about not having that… So we don’t have that expectation management and depleting of that, you know, where we come deflated from that moment of where we feel that emotion of like, “Oh, I feel let down because my expectation was this.” It’s almost that no finish line. I guess that’s another thing the military do of like, yes-
Allan Parker –
Yes, I love that. I love that concept that you talked about.
Matina Jewell –
We need to keep operating for as long as we need to keep operating like this.
Allan Parker –
Yep. Yep.
Matina Jewell –
There is no deadline to the war. We will work towards an end state, but every single day we need to have that capacity to actually ramp it up, pull it back, and to have that flexibility in our contingencies so that we can keep going indefinitely.
Allan Parker –
Yeah. So, can I summarize it? It’s B-N-C.
Matina Jewell
Yep.
Allan Parker –
It’s breathe, it’s new, then and now… It’s breathe, calm, consider, compassion, and contingency. Together.
Matina Jewell –
Together.
Allan Parker –
B-N-C-T.
Calming Conversation-Series I #10
Allan Parker
What’s been your personal primary realization out of this last two months?
Matina Jewell -:
Capacity. I have more capacity than I probably gave myself credit for. In that sort of capacity for other people, being able to care for others, bringing the community with us, and just maintaining that capacity for all of us. We’ve just had a handbrake pulled on our lives. Trying to find a way through this situation into, I guess to flow on from our new acronym, is what’s next? Being ready, and coming through that as best we possibly can, for next, whenever that will be.
Matina Jewell –
I think that’s living in the moment. There’s been so many gifts for me personally, just the fact that I’m not on [inaudible 00:01:13] speaking at events, I’m finding different ways to operate my business, and having more time to connect with my children in a really beautiful age, really important age for them. It’s important how we function through that. I think that the gift has been connection with so many different people around the world. Hopefully, that’s the one positive we take as humanity, is that from this event that no one forseed was going to happen to us this year, the gift is that we hopefully become closer and look after each other more than we have previously. What about for you, Alan? What’s the one?
Allan Parker –
The glaring thing that I’ve realized is how much composure, energy and clarity I’m experiencing, which is surprising. I feel a bit like I’m floating above it all, and I didn’t try and do that, but it feels like I’m up here looking down a lot of the time. The realization that in my normal day to day life up until a month ago, I thought I was pretty good at not getting caught up in noise. Irrelevancy, negativity stuff that was unimportant, the catastrophization that the news reports. If there’s anybody to do with the news reporting program, would you please take out the catastrophization? Would you please take out the rumbling dramatic music for news reporting? We must not activate people’s nervous systems the way they’re being activated. I’m happy to have that conversation with anybody who directs television or is involved in television. That one is concerning at this point in time.
Matina Jewell –
Could I ask you to flip roles here? Could I ask you to unpack how you stay out of the cyclone of what’s happening around us, this event? How do you stay in that observer mode? Is there a technique that we can all learn from, of how to keep that emotional distance when we’re being bombarded with a lot of that catastrophe, which is opposite to the calmness that we all need to see?
Allan Parker –
I want to reply to that, for the audience, in a variety of different ways. Number one, I’ve worked and studied with two brothers, and one is one of the world’s leading linguist, and the other is probably the world’s leading para linguist, Michael and John Grinder, and another wonderful woman by the name of Dr. Stephanie Burns.
Allan Parker –
Burns, as you’re aware, and some of the people watching, is, I didn’t read until I was 30, three zero. A guy by the name of Dr. Paul Dennison did some work with me, with my eyes and doubled my reading speed within a week. Then I met Dr. Stephanie Burns a couple of years later, and Stephanie Burns probably understands how human beings learn better than anybody I know. Burns took me from 120 words a minute to just over 2000 words a minute with a hundred percent comprehension. It was miracle stuff. It really, truly was miracle stuff.
Allan Parker –
They’re three very different people, but the key message was breathe, move your centre of gravity back, and I can hear Burns saying it, if you move your centre of gravity back, you see more printing focus. I sort of think, it’s so obvious. It’s ridiculous, because if I’m here, my intense reading style here, and I breathe and move back, I can now see twice as much, in focus. Now twice as much in focus means three times faster reading. I had that message coming from those three people who I’ve studied with for over 30 years. I’ve practiced breathing and staying out, and consciously deciding when I go in and when I don’t. Then, around a similar time in 1983-84, I did a graduate degree in social communication and that was where I started my studies on forensic linguistics.
Allan Parker –
In that program, we did a course on what’s called co-counselling. It’s a counselling model where you and I sit together for one hour, and for the first half hour I sit silently and hold the space for you. Say nothing, acknowledge nothing, give no responses back. I just sit here and afford you the honour and the privilege of saying whatever you want to say. You just speak and fill the half hour. When you’re never interrupted, amazing, the stuff that comes out. At the end of the half hour, we shake off, go for a walk, commit to each other we’ll never discuss it ever again. And then we reverse, and you hold the space for me, and stay out of my experience. It doesn’t matter what I’m experiencing, you don’t share it, you observe it, not empathize it.
Allan Parker –
Now those four things profoundly impacted me, and I’ve been practicing that. I’m an obsessive-compulsive person, obviously beyond what most people can imagine, which means I’m a serious practicer. I just constantly go; do I enter this, or do I stay out? I stay out 90% of the time, 95% of the time, and allow people to have their experience or their opinion. People often say to me, you never interrupt me. I go, no, I just.
Matina Jewell –
Yeah, just don’t do that.
Allan Parker –
No. In this interview, you say stuff that sparks me, and I go, oh wow, I want to explore that. But I wait until you’ve finished, and I watch carefully until you take your beautiful big breath that you take in between thoughts. I come in and check at that time and said I can’t. And that’s me just practicing staying out.
Calming Conversation-Series I #11
Matina Jewell –
How can someone who’s watching this, not wanting to get sucked into the cyclone of panic around this because there’s massive shifts of what have happened to people’s lives. So, there is that natural response to want to feel anxious and panic. How can we help them? What’s the one thing you can help them in that technique of actually staying out?
Allan Parker –
It goes back to your, when I first met you and started asking if I could talk to you about what your experiences were because part of me, I’m not a therapist anymore, but I have been trained as a therapist, part of me was very careful not to enter into your past with you and ask you to re-describe that until I was certain that you could re-describe it without reliving it. Because I think we live in a world where we get people to retell the story, but they don’t retell it, they relive it.
Matina Jewell –
And so, they relive the trauma.
Allan Parker –
And I remember my first bit of certainty that I was going to actually be able to ask you about those things, mindful that many, many people who’ve been through what you have been through experience and still work with PTSD. And I was certainly, I wasn’t going to intrude in that part of your world, but every time you’d start to talk about it, and I’d watch you, you’d go… And your body would rise, and you take this big breath and you never move forward. And I went, “Oh wow. She knows how to stay out of it and talk about it as if it was going back to as if it was then.” And you didn’t bring the unpleasant experience forward.
Allan Parker –
Now, as you and I have demonstrated to the people watching, both of us, you innately, me by practice, and I’m sure it’s to do with your training. You never put anything unpleasant in front of you. You always put unpleasant to the side.
Matina Jewell –
At a distance. As far away as possible.
Allan Parker –
That’s what it was. Now, if all of us, everyone in the country can go, “Hey, this damn thing that arrived, it’s a bit of an unknown. It’s damn new and we can put it over there and talk about it, not talk through it.” Yeah?
Matina Jewell –
Yeah. Okay.
Allan Parker –
So, if we could talk about it and that, rather than the crisis, the new thing. If we go, “The new thing.” Whenever I’m working as a professional negotiator and you come along to me and you go, “Allan, I’ve got a problem.” The moment you go, “Allan, I’ve got a problem,” I go, “Matty tell me about it.” And I pick the problem up and I move it over there. And now it doesn’t feel like it’s between you and me. And from brain science point of view, I can now point to that and once your eyes follow it, you’ve actually got a picture of what it was you were talking about and it’s here. So, you’re now the narrator describing it, not the performer reliving it.
Matina Jewell –
And the great thing is you’re holding it, not me.
Allan Parker –
Yeah. It is. It’s me. A lot of people who are real strong helpers, they’ll take the problem and go, “I understand.”
Matina Jewell –
Bring it to themselves.
Allan Parker –
And I go, “No, don’t.” Particularly the people in the world at the moment who are in the front line, who are in the crisis delivery services, who are in the caring professions. It’s really important that they don’t talk about adverse and bring it toward them. Because the minute I put it into my visceral, my touch system, it’s more likely to become part of me. If I go out, “Today, I had these circumstances,” and get into the habit of talking, to be Kath and Kim, “talk to the hand.” Talk to the hand about it and what happened and talk about it in the past. And don’t do, “He said, she said.” Do, “I think I heard them say.”
Allan Parker –
So, you put self perspective, the moment we use hard, definitive language and hard, definitive gestures, we increase our own stress and we increase the likelihood of the stress of others.
Matina Jewell –
People get defensive in those moments too. Then it’s like…
Allan Parker -:
Yeah, and it’s not a moment for gender conversation, but the most common male gesture, I think its times 10-fold in the Australian male, is that gesture or that gesture. Straight at, firm, tense, bounce. And under pressure people will do that more often. And in fact, watching the two Premiers this morning, both of them, they started off with no hands, they were then rolling hands, and it wasn’t long before their hands started to bounce. Now, if I’d have been the cameraman at that time, I’d have zoomed in and taken the hand gestures out.
Allan Parker –
Now, the director can’t direct them at that point in time. You can’t give them that sort of feedback. But if you watch most people being interviewed, they weren’t being interviewed, they were actually delivering a message. And Trump’s a good one because when Trump reads a script, he’s okay, but you can watch him go off script, his head stays up and he starts talking and it gets definitive and intense and it’s hard for people not to respond to that instead of going, “Oh, Trump just went definitive and notice what happened in my nervous system.” Yeah. If we can just be more aware, our nervous system’s marvellous at telling us what we don’t want. But we often get caught in it and then go toward it and I go, “No, stay away. Stay away.”
Calming Conversation-Series I #12
Allan Parker –
It’s an important time for us to practice letting people have their own experience, particularly if it’s stressful. And the best thing I can do is be available to you, and calm, and composed when you come out of your stress. But not useful me going in, “Oh, no, Matti, you don’t need to worry about that.”
Matina Jewell –
That’s a worry.
Allan Parker –
That’s right.
Matina Jewell –
It’s going to make me worry more.
Allan Parker –
Yes.
Matina Jewell –
When you start. Do go on.
Allan Parker –
Those shaky hands. Those hands.
Matina Jewell –
Yeah, well, it is a period of time people will be concerned.
Allan Parker –
Yeah.
Matina Jewell –
Concerned of all sorts of things.
Allan Parker –
Yeah.
Matina Jewell –
Let’s find the calm in the-
Allan Parker –
Yeah.
Matina Jewell –
And not getting, escalating into the panic
Allan Parker –
Yeah, people watching, my number one tip is to make sure I stay out and honour other people’s experience. Let them have whatever they’re having. I’m going to do that better if, when they say something, I’m going to acknowledge what they say, and every time I acknowledge I’m going to do what you do naturally, and stick it out in the wings. Yeah?
Matina Jewell -:
Yeah.
Allan Parker –
And keep here for what do you need and what are the options. Yeah, would be. But that-
Matina Jewell –
Beautiful.
Allan Parker –
Rise with breath, and when you rise with breath, imagine you’re in a helicopter up above looking down. Yeah, that would be my comment.
Matina Jewell –
We’re doing this recording today all thanks to Lindisfarne School who own the boat house here on the beautiful Tweed, or Cajon Creek, here, in the Tweed Region. So, thank you, Lindisfarne, for providing this to us for today’s location.
Allan Parker –
Yeah.
Matina Jewell –
Well, thanks again, Allan, for your time and joining us today.
Allan Parker –
Matti, what a joy.
Matina Jewell –
It’s been a gift.
Allan Parker –
What a joy.
Matina Jewell –
Really beautiful. And thank you, everyone, for all of your questions.
Allan Parker –
Yeah.
Matina Jewell –
Keep sending the questions into us because on Monday the 30th of March, as part of the EL program with Allan, we will take a live Q&A for this segment. So, please send any questions that you have in between now and then. In some format, Allan and I will continue to answer those questions.
Allan Parker –
Yeah, or even if you’ve got some form of an idea or a topic that you think we could deal with, that we haven’t handled. Any areas that you’d like us to venture into, that would be very appreciative. We’d like to turn this into a conversation with you.
Matina Jewell –
Perfect, we’ll send out the link so that you can jump in for that live Q&A, Monday the 30th. We look forward to seeing you then.
