Latest / The Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast / 329. Why Their Bad Mood Becomes Your Problem | Reality Transurfing

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329. Why Their Bad Mood Becomes Your Problem | Reality Transurfing · The Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast

• 0:00
  Kathie (2): Have you ever spent an entire morning trying to make someone else okay?
• 0:05
  Kathie (2): You arrived ready to work.
• 0:07
  Kathie (2): You had a plan.
• 0:08
  Kathie (2): You were feeling pretty good.
• 0:09
  Kathie (2): Then someone walked in distracted, short with people, barely listening, and suddenly your plan disappeared.
• 0:19
  Kathie (2): You were fixing things, reassuring them, watching their face to see if the thing you just did helped.
• 0:26
  Kathie (2): Or maybe you were that person.
• 0:29
  Kathie (2): You had a rough morning.
• 0:30
  Kathie (2): You walked into the room carrying it, and before you realized what was happening, everybody was tiptoeing around you.
• 0:37
  Kathie (2): Nobody said,"Today we're all gonna manage one person's mood." But look around.
• 0:44
  Kathie (2): Is that what happened?
• 0:46
  Kathie (2): Whose nervous system is running the room?
• 0:49
  Kathie (2): And how much of your day are you giving away before you notice?
• 0:57
  Kathie (2): Welcome to the Kathie Owen Perspective podcast.
• 0:59
  Kathie (2): My name is Kathie Owen.
• 1:01
  Kathie (2): I'm a private consultant, speaker, and author of Human Patterns Under Pressure and The Truth Bubbles Up My work draws on more than 25 years of experience across fitness, wellness, leadership, and organizational dynamics.
• 1:18
  Kathie (2): I pay attention to the human patterns that shape how people work, lead, and make decisions under pressure.
• 1:27
  Kathie (2): Today, we're talking about a pattern you may recognize at work, at home, or in the middle of planning a big event.
• 1:35
  Kathie (2): We're going to bring in research on emotional contagion, a simple thinking skill, and a lesson from Reality Transurfing, and we're gonna do it with no shame, no condemnation.
• 1:49
  Kathie (2): Every one of us can get pulled into this.
• 1:52
  Kathie (2): Every one of us can also bring pressure into a room.
• 1:58
  Kathie (2): Picture a team getting ready for a big event.
• 2:02
  Kathie (2): There are tables to set up, food to arrange.
• 2:05
  Kathie (2): People have jobs to do.
• 2:06
  Kathie (2): The person in charge arrives distracted.
• 2:09
  Kathie (2): You don't know why.
• 2:10
  Kathie (2): Maybe something happened at home.
• 2:12
  Kathie (2): Maybe they're worried about the event.
• 2:14
  Kathie (2): Maybe they're carrying something you know nothing about.
• 2:18
  Kathie (2): You ask a simple question.
• 2:20
  Kathie (2): They barely hear you.
• 2:21
  Kathie (2): They point out something across the room that needs fixing.
• 2:24
  Kathie (2): You fix it.
• 2:25
  Kathie (2): Then there's another thing, and another.
• 2:27
  Kathie (2): Now, watch everybody else.
• 2:31
  Kathie (2): One person says,"It's gonna be fine.
• 2:33
  Kathie (2): Everything looks great." Another starts rushing,"What do you need?
• 2:37
  Kathie (2): What can I do?
• 2:38
  Kathie (2): I'll take care of it." Someone gets frustrated.
• 2:41
  Kathie (2): Someone gets quiet.
• 2:42
  Kathie (2): Someone starts giving orders to the people around them.
• 2:45
  Kathie (2): Before long, one person's distraction has become everyone else's assignment.
• 2:53
  Kathie (2): I've watched versions of this happen.
• 2:55
  Kathie (2): What fascinates me is how many different responses show up around the same person.
• 3:02
  Kathie (2): Some people try to smooth things over.
• 3:04
  Kathie (2): Some get caught up in the anxiety.
• 3:07
  Kathie (2): Some disappear into the background, and some become very busy trying to help.
• 3:13
  Kathie (2): Helping can be useful.
• 3:15
  Kathie (2): The question is, what are we helping with?
• 3:19
  Kathie (2): Are we getting the event ready, or are we trying to reach the moment when this person finally seems satisfied?
• 3:26
  Kathie (2): That can become very different assignments.
• 3:30
  Kathie (2): There's research behind the broader idea that emotions can spread through a group.
• 3:35
  Kathie (2): Researchers call it emotional contagion.
• 3:39
  Kathie (2): In a 2005 study, Thomas Tsai, Stephanie Cottier, and Richard Savard examined how a leader's mood affect group members and the way groups work together.
• 3:52
  Kathie (2): Groups with leaders in a positive mood had a more positive group mood and better coordination than groups with leaders in a negative mood.
• 4:01
  Kathie (2): That is one study in a controlled setting.
• 4:04
  Kathie (2): It doesn't tell us what any particular person is feeling or why they're behaving a certain way, but it does support something worth paying attention to.
• 4:14
  Kathie (2): A leader's mood can influence the group and its work.
• 4:20
  Kathie (2): So when I ask whose nervous system is running the room, I'm asking you to observe how people are responding to one another.
• 4:27
  Kathie (2): We can't look across the table and measure someone's nervous system.
• 4:31
  Kathie (2): We can notice interruptions, rushed decisions, changing instructions, and whether people feel able to speak, and we can notice what starts happening inside of us.
• 4:45
  Kathie (2): Are you suddenly tense?
• 4:47
  Kathie (2): Are you talking faster?
• 4:48
  Kathie (2): Are you volunteering before you've even understood the request?
• 4:53
  Kathie (2): What changed between the moment you arrived and the moment you started scrambling?
• 4:59
  Kathie (2): This week I heard the old expression,"The universe abhors a vacuum." It got me thinking about the word vacuum in a different way.
• 5:08
  Kathie (2): Imagine the suction of a vacuum cleaner.
• 5:10
  Kathie (2): Everything nearby gets drawn toward it.
• 5:13
  Kathie (2): That's the picture I'm using here, an emotional vacuum.
• 5:19
  Kathie (2): One concern starts pulling in attention, effort, reassurance, frustration, and more concern.
• 5:24
  Kathie (2): Soon it feels as if there is no room for anything else.
• 5:29
  Kathie (2): You can't think about your own work.
• 5:31
  Kathie (2): You can't hear the quiet person with the useful suggestion.
• 5:34
  Kathie (2): Your attention keeps coming back to the same question: Are they okay yet?
• 5:40
  Kathie (2): I've noticed in my own life that the loudest moment often passes.
• 5:45
  Kathie (2): Something that feels all-consuming today may lose its grip tomorrow.
• 5:50
  Kathie (2): People turn their attention towards something else.
• 5:53
  Kathie (2): That observation helps me pause.
• 5:56
  Kathie (2): You know I like the pause.
• 5:58
  Kathie (2): I don't have to treat the intensity of this moment as proof that it will last forever.
• 6:04
  Kathie (2): Sometimes action is needed.
• 6:06
  Kathie (2): Sometimes a repeated pattern needs a direct conversation or a boundary, but I can take a moment to see what is actually happening before I join the rush, and that pause matters.
• 6:21
  Kathie (2): If you're recognizing a situation already, keep it in mind as we go along today.
• 6:25
  Kathie (2): You can leave a comment about the pattern you've noticed without naming anyone.
• 6:30
  Kathie (2): I'm interested in what this helps you see differently.
• 6:35
  Kathie (2): If you're new to Reality Transurfing, it's a personal development framework created by author Vadim Zeland.
• 6:42
  Kathie (2): It explores attention, intention, non-attachment, and the importance we place on outcomes.
• 6:49
  Kathie (2): One of its central ideas is the pendulum.
• 6:53
  Kathie (2): Within that framework, a pendulum is a collective pattern sustained by people's attention and emotional involvement.
• 7:00
  Kathie (2): I use that teaching as a lens for noticing the pull of a group reaction.
• 7:06
  Kathie (2): It is a different kind of framework from the emotional contagion research we just discussed.
• 7:12
  Kathie (2): Think about a tense group chat.
• 7:14
  Kathie (2): Someone posts something upsetting.
• 7:16
  Kathie (2): Someone argues.
• 7:17
  Kathie (2): Someone defends.
• 7:18
  Kathie (2): Someone adds another story.
• 7:20
  Kathie (2): Soon, people who had no intention of spending their afternoon on this are deeply involved.
• 7:27
  Kathie (2): You may be arguing against the situation and still spending your whole afternoon inside of it.
• 7:34
  Kathie (2): That's the pull I want you to notice.
• 7:39
  Kathie (2): At work, it might be the demand to fix everything immediately.
• 7:42
  Kathie (2): At home, it might be the urge to defend yourself against every comment.
• 7:46
  Kathie (2): In an event committee, it might be the feeling that one small detail has become a test of everyone's loyalty.
• 7:56
  Kathie (2): The invitation can sound like,"Prove you care.
• 7:59
  Kathie (2): Explain yourself.
• 8:00
  Kathie (2): Fix this.
• 8:01
  Kathie (2): Take a side." Sometimes it comes from another person.
• 8:05
  Kathie (2): Sometimes it comes from your own thoughts.
• 8:08
  Kathie (2): The pause gives you a chance to ask,"What am I about to participate in?
• 8:15
  Kathie (2): Where's my attention going?
• 8:17
  Kathie (2): What response would actually help?" Another transurfing lesson is reducing excess potential or importance.
• 8:27
  Kathie (2): My practical application is to notice when a meaningful outcome becomes something that must happen exactly my way for me to feel okay.
• 8:38
  Kathie (2): Think about a wedding, a new baby, a company celebration, a major business transition.
• 8:44
  Kathie (2): These things have meaning.
• 8:46
  Kathie (2): People care deeply about them.
• 8:48
  Kathie (2): Then the pressure grows.
• 8:50
  Kathie (2): The seating arrangement becomes a statement about who matters.
• 8:53
  Kathie (2): A delayed reply becomes evidence that someone doesn't care.
• 8:57
  Kathie (2): One detail is carrying the weight of the entire relationship.
• 9:02
  Kathie (2): Now, we're asking an event to do a very big job.
• 9:08
  Kathie (2): Can I let this be meaningful while allowing some things to remain imperfect?
• 9:12
  Kathie (2): Can I care about the outcome and still listen to another option?
• 9:17
  Kathie (2): Can I enjoy the occasion without making every detail a test?
• 9:22
  Kathie (2): Those questions give us room to think.
• 9:27
  Kathie (2): This brings us to dialectical thinking.
• 9:30
  Kathie (2): That's a big term for a useful practice, making room for two truths that seem to pull in different directions.
• 9:38
  Kathie (2): This person may be struggling, and their behavior is affecting other people.
• 9:42
  Kathie (2): This event matters to me, and every detail does not need to be perfect.
• 9:47
  Kathie (2): I feel upset, and I can choose what I do next.
• 9:51
  Kathie (2): I noticed a pattern, and I may not know the whole story.
• 9:55
  Kathie (2): Hmm, that sounds like me.
• 9:57
  Kathie (2): That last one is especially useful for those of us who notice patterns very quickly.
• 10:04
  Kathie (2): I can see a leader interrupting people.
• 10:06
  Kathie (2): I can see the room getting quieter.
• 10:08
  Kathie (2): I can see people changing what they're doing.
• 10:11
  Kathie (2): Those are observations.
• 10:14
  Kathie (2): Why the leader is doing it is another question.
• 10:18
  Kathie (2): Curiosity helps me leave that question open long enough to learn something.
• 10:23
  Kathie (2): Dialectical thinking also helps you when you feel caught between two choices.
• 10:30
  Kathie (2): So maybe you think,"Either I help with everything or I'm selfish." Try making room for another response.
• 10:39
  Kathie (2): I can be helpful, or I can ask which task matters most.
• 10:44
  Kathie (2): Or either I say nothing, or I have to confront this person right now.
• 10:49
  Kathie (2): Try,"I can notice what happened and choose a useful time to address it." You don't have to force two ideas to fit if one is not true.
• 11:01
  Kathie (2): The practice is to look for the part of the picture you may be leaving out.
• 11:08
  Kathie (2): Let's turn the lens toward ourselves.
• 11:10
  Kathie (2): If you're the person in charge, what happens around you when you're distracted?
• 11:16
  Kathie (2): Do people stop asking questions?
• 11:18
  Kathie (2): Do they agree quickly?
• 11:19
  Kathie (2): Do they start offering to fix things before you've explained the problem?
• 11:23
  Kathie (2): Because that is worth noticing.
• 11:27
  Kathie (2): You can have a hard morning and still lead with care.
• 11:30
  Kathie (2): You can feel frustrated and still give people clear priorities.
• 11:35
  Kathie (2): Before you walk into the next meeting, ask yourself,"What am I carrying in?
• 11:40
  Kathie (2): What does this group need from me?" Maybe you need a few quiet minutes.
• 11:45
  Kathie (2): Maybe you need to write down the decision that actually needs to be made.
• 11:50
  Kathie (2): And if you've already brought the rush into the room, you can reset it.
• 11:55
  Kathie (2): You might say,"I'm distracted today.
• 11:57
  Kathie (2): Let me slow down," and make the priorities clear.
• 12:01
  Kathie (2): Or,"I gave you three different directions.
• 12:04
  Kathie (2): Here's one we need to focus on." That is radical responsibility in practice.
• 12:12
  Kathie (2): You can recognize your part and make a useful adjustment.
• 12:16
  Kathie (2): For founders, executives, and people involved in mergers and acquisitions, these are valuable patterns to examine.
• 12:23
  Kathie (2): When a leader is under pressure, can the team still ask questions?
• 12:28
  Kathie (2): Can people still disagree?
• 12:30
  Kathie (2): Can they tell which priorities are real?
• 12:34
  Kathie (2): If people repeatedly divert their work to respond to changing moods or instructions, what happens to time, trust, and decision-making?
• 12:44
  Kathie (2): Those are human diligence questions.
• 12:47
  Kathie (2): They help us investigate how a company functions under pressure.
• 12:51
  Kathie (2): A single distracted afternoon does not tell the whole story.
• 12:55
  Kathie (2): A recurring pattern gives you something worth exploring.
• 12:59
  Kathie (2): What happens?
• 13:00
  Kathie (2): How often?
• 13:01
  Kathie (2): What does the team do next?
• 13:03
  Kathie (2): What happens to the work?
• 13:05
  Kathie (2): This happens in families too.
• 13:07
  Kathie (2): So don't think human diligence just applies to mergers and acquisitions.
• 13:11
  Kathie (2): It applies to relationships.
• 13:13
  Kathie (2): It applies to workplaces.
• 13:14
  Kathie (2): It applies to your friendships.
• 13:17
  Kathie (2): It applies to your families.
• 13:20
  Kathie (2): So this week, choose one ordinary situation, a meeting, a family conversation, a group chat, an event you're helping plan.
• 13:30
  Kathie (2): First notice what changes.
• 13:32
  Kathie (2): Stay with what you can observe, then notice your own response.
• 13:38
  Kathie (2): Are you rushing, reassuring, withdrawing, preparing an argument?
• 13:43
  Kathie (2): Give yourself a brief pause before your next move.
• 13:48
  Kathie (2): Pause, and ask,"What actually needs my attention here?" Then try one sentence that holds two truths.
• 13:58
  Kathie (2): I want help, and I need to understand the priority.
• 14:02
  Kathie (2): I care about this, and I can take a moment to think.
• 14:06
  Kathie (2): I feel the pressure, and I can choose my response.
• 14:11
  Kathie (2): Choose one useful action.
• 14:13
  Kathie (2): Ask a clear question.
• 14:15
  Kathie (2): Do the task that matters.
• 14:17
  Kathie (2): Wait before replying.
• 14:19
  Kathie (2): Return to the work you were doing.
• 14:22
  Kathie (2): Your pause may not change the entire room, but it gives you a chance to stop repeating your part automatically.
• 14:30
  Kathie (2): Remember, awareness creates choice.
• 14:35
  Kathie (2): The blog post that goes with this episode is linked in the description and show notes below, and it's at www.kathieowen.com, and it brings these ideas together with the research references and reflection questions you can return to during the week.
• 14:52
  Kathie (2): If you've recognized something in your workplace, your family, or yourself, visit that article and use it to take a closer look.
• 15:00
  Kathie (2): Then tell me in the comments what do you see happening in your world, and how did this episode help you look at something differently?
• 15:09
  Kathie (2): If this was valuable, like the video, subscribe for more conversations about human patterns under pressure and reality transurfing, And share it with someone who would find it useful.
• 15:20
  Kathie (2): Those actions help more people discover this work.
• 15:24
  Kathie (2): My name is Kathie Owen.
• 15:26
  Kathie (2): I'm a private consultant, speaker, and author of Human Patterns Under Pressure and The Truth Bubbles Up.
• 15:32
  Kathie (2): I help leaders in organizations examine the human patterns affecting performance, decisions, and culture, especially when pressure rises.
• 15:42
  Kathie (2): If you want to explore a pattern in your organization or your life, you can reach out through the, my website for a private conversation.
• 15:51
  Kathie (2): For this week, take this question with you: whose nervous system is running the room, and how do I want to participate?
• 16:02
  Kathie (2): All right, thank you for being here.
• 16:03
  Kathie (2): I trust that you found this helpful, and I'll see you in the next episode of the Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast.