Perhaps you need to practice various ways to calm down your amygdala — the part of your brain that gets your body rev’d up to fight or flee. I’ve found that there’s no point arguing with myself when I’m deeply embarrassed and caught in the moment. A lower and more powerful part of my brain (the amygdala) is in control. But if I focus on calming that part of my mind down — deep breathing, meditation techniques, yoga, singing particular songs — then I can distance myself somewhat from that very judgmental internal voice.

According to the neuroscientist Richard Davidson, people who have more connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala tend to be more resilient — and even better, it is possible to increase the number of those connections with intentional activity such as meditation. So practicing ahead of time is prudent. Here’s a summary of a presentation he made — and a link to a 16-min film of it:

http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/kathryn-britton/20080607790

Here’s a related article about building resilience capacity:
http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/kathryn-britton/200812071283

Kathryn

I do this regularly with physical objects (material tasks).

However, I find it psychologically impossible to recover from the harshness of a ‘faux pas’ I become so self-conscious and so embarassed of it that it’s hard for me to try, try, try again.

Do you have any suggestions or insights as to why it’s easy for you to bounce back and keep trying despite your embarrassing put down and I don’t know how to muster the strength to try it again?

I would appreciate any useful input.

BTW, I’m a student. I’m getting an online Masters of Professional Studies in Executive Management and I came into this blog as a result of digging deeper into some of the concepts introduced in our Organizational Behavior class.

John Gottman and I independently discovered that successful marriages (John) and successful teams (myself) have a PNR of at leat 3 to 1 (2.9013 to be precise). I also found out that there is a ceiling to PNR; when we reach about 12 (11.6345 to be precise) we lose the the rich dynamics that are created when we stay in the so-called Losada Zone; i.e. a PNR above 2.9 and below 11.7. This is important to understand, because too much positivity can be detrimental to our functioning in a world that requires a healthy dose of negative feedback. Unfortunately, many marriages and teams in organizations have PNRs below 2.9 and end up in destructive dynamics that lead to divorce and inefficiency in organizations. Though the numbers are easy to remember, to live up to those numbers is not so easy. We are born with a negativity bias that had the useful function to protect us from the many dangers a more primitive world presented to us. Though the world we live in today has overcome many of these primitive dangers, we still need to be cautious, hence the place for a dose of negative feedback. Positive psychology focuses on the strengths and what is good in us and rightly so. But our research says, keep the PNR within the Losada Zone if you want to be safe and happy.

All the best, Doug