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Why Does My Mind Go Blank in Hard Conversations? · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  Kamini Wood: Welcome to Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:03
  Kamini Wood: I'm Kamini Wood.
• 0:05
  Kamini Wood: This space is for honest conversations about how we live, love, and lead.
• 0:09
  Kamini Wood: Especially when life doesn't go the way we expect it.
• 0:12
  Kamini Wood: We'll talk about the patterns we fall into, the choices we get to make, and what it looks like to come back to ourselves along the way.
• 0:19
  Kamini Wood: I'm glad you're here.
• 0:20
  Kamini Wood: Let's get into it.
• 0:23
  Kamini Wood: Have you ever been right in the middle of a difficult conversation and suddenly you have forgotten how to speak?
• 0:29
  Kamini Wood: You've forgotten all your words.
• 0:31
  Kamini Wood: Before the conversation, you knew exactly what you wanted to say.
• 0:34
  Kamini Wood: You had your bullet points ready to go, you had examples, maybe even practiced in the car on the weight of the meeting, you had everything prepared, you were totally clear, and then when the per the person in front of you says something that you weren't expecting, or their face changes, or their voice changes, or they challenge something you said, suddenly everything goes blank, right?
• 0:56
  Kamini Wood: There's nothing there.
• 0:57
  Kamini Wood: And they say, Well, what do you think?
• 1:00
  Kamini Wood: And you actually genuinely do not know.
• 1:03
  Kamini Wood: And then the conversation ends.
• 1:05
  Kamini Wood: You leave, you go to your office, you get in the car, and then 10 minutes later, every single word comes back, and you think to yourself, Oh, of course, now I know what I was thinking.
• 1:17
  Kamini Wood: Now I know all my points that I wanted to make.
• 1:19
  Kamini Wood: And then two hours later, you can actually teach an entire masterclass on the subject that you were talking about, and you think to yourself, Where was this person?
• 1:28
  Kamini Wood: And it's really frustrating.
• 1:30
  Kamini Wood: If this happens to you, you might be um you might you might have made something of that, right?
• 1:36
  Kamini Wood: You might make it mean that I'm terrible at conflict, I don't know how to communicate.
• 1:41
  Kamini Wood: I've actually had a client say to me multiple times, I forget what I want to say because I'm just really bad at communication, or I just need to speak up.
• 1:49
  Kamini Wood: Why do I always let people do this to me?
• 1:53
  Kamini Wood: But I want to offer another possibility.
• 1:56
  Kamini Wood: Sometimes your nervous system becomes overwhelmed.
• 1:59
  Kamini Wood: And I call this one of the four pressure patterns, and I refer to it as the shutdown.
• 2:04
  Kamini Wood: And I separate the shutdown from the disappearer because from the outside they can almost look exactly alike.
• 2:10
  Kamini Wood: Both people may go quiet, but what's happening inside is very different.
• 2:14
  Kamini Wood: With the disappearer, the words may still be there.
• 2:17
  Kamini Wood: You just don't know what to say.
• 2:19
  Kamini Wood: You decide consciously or not that saying it does not feel safe or worth it.
• 2:23
  Kamini Wood: So you kind of shrink, right?
• 2:25
  Kamini Wood: Maybe you do not want, you don't want to have the conflict, maybe you don't want to have the attention.
• 2:29
  Kamini Wood: Maybe it just feels better to stay under the radar.
• 2:32
  Kamini Wood: So shut down can feel different though.
• 2:34
  Kamini Wood: Shutdown can feel like you've actually lost access to yourself.
• 2:37
  Kamini Wood: The words are just nowhere for you to even grasp.
• 2:40
  Kamini Wood: You feel this sense of fogginess and your thoughts are completely scattered.
• 2:45
  Kamini Wood: Maybe you actually become super still, your body becomes still, and someone asks you what you think, and you genuinely have no answer for them.
• 2:52
  Kamini Wood: And that can happen under pressure.
• 2:54
  Kamini Wood: That's when your nervous system completely shuts down.
• 2:57
  Kamini Wood: Now I want to be careful here because we do not need to turn every moment of I don't know what to say into some big psychological event.
• 3:04
  Kamini Wood: Because sometimes you're just tired and sometimes you're distracted, sometimes you you genuinely need time to think.
• 3:11
  Kamini Wood: Um, and sometimes you genuinely don't know what you think yet because you actually haven't processed what the person said.
• 3:16
  Kamini Wood: So there those are those are totally normal.
• 3:19
  Kamini Wood: But if you notice a pretty consistent pattern where when there's conflict or criticism or intensity or you're feeling put on the spot, you have this mind going blank.
• 3:28
  Kamini Wood: That's something to just get curious about.
• 3:31
  Kamini Wood: Because the usual advice is just speak up.
• 3:33
  Kamini Wood: Okay, yeah, I totally would if I could.
• 3:35
  Kamini Wood: If the issue is I cannot access the words, telling me to use my words is not super useful.
• 3:41
  Kamini Wood: So, what do we do?
• 3:42
  Kamini Wood: We start, or we always start, which is gotta notice.
• 3:46
  Kamini Wood: What happens right before I lose access to my words?
• 3:49
  Kamini Wood: Does my heart start beating faster?
• 3:51
  Kamini Wood: Does my breathing increase?
• 3:53
  Kamini Wood: Does my body go super still?
• 3:55
  Kamini Wood: Do I stop making eye contact?
• 3:58
  Kamini Wood: Do I suddenly feel cold or sweaty?
• 4:01
  Kamini Wood: Do I notice myself losing track of what the other person is saying?
• 4:04
  Kamini Wood: Because those could be cues of your nervous system right before it goes into shutdown.
• 4:09
  Kamini Wood: The earlier you can recognize those cues, the more room you have to make shifts.
• 4:14
  Kamini Wood: So once we've noticed it, then we can name it, okay, I'm doing this, I'm shutting down.
• 4:19
  Kamini Wood: Which is different from I'm really bad at communication or I always do this, or even worse, very shamey, what's wrong with me?
• 4:27
  Kamini Wood: Right?
• 4:27
  Kamini Wood: We just name it, okay, I'm starting to shut down.
• 4:30
  Kamini Wood: That's information.
• 4:30
  Kamini Wood: And once we have information, we have choice.
• 4:33
  Kamini Wood: Now, choosing does not mean forcing yourself to keep talking.
• 4:37
  Kamini Wood: Okay, that's very important that we say this.
• 4:39
  Kamini Wood: Sometimes the most skillful thing we can do is actually to create space.
• 4:43
  Kamini Wood: So maybe instead of forcing ourselves to continue to be there, we actually say something like, I really want to give you an answer to that, but I need a minute to process.
• 4:52
  Kamini Wood: Or I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts, I'm gonna need a few minutes to process this.
• 4:57
  Kamini Wood: Or I do want to continue having this conversation, but I'm gonna need a little more time.
• 5:02
  Kamini Wood: Or even more, I'm trying, I'm not trying to avoid this.
• 5:04
  Kamini Wood: I just actually can't respond well right now.
• 5:07
  Kamini Wood: Those are communication skills.
• 5:09
  Kamini Wood: We have this idea that healthy communication means being able to process everything in split seconds and saying something back, and some people can do that really well, but some of us need more time to process.
• 5:21
  Kamini Wood: And even people who usually process really quickly, they can also struggle when the pressure rises.
• 5:26
  Kamini Wood: So you're allowed to say, I need a minute, you're allowed to think before you answer, you're allowed to say to somebody, I don't actually know yet.
• 5:34
  Kamini Wood: And that can be a very grounded answer.
• 5:37
  Kamini Wood: And the this next piece is important.
• 5:39
  Kamini Wood: If I say I need 10 minutes and then I come back, that's different from disappearing from the conversation totally.
• 5:45
  Kamini Wood: So instead of saying I need more time and then never coming back to the conversation, if you say I need more time, I'll circle back with you in an hour, it's important to come back in that hour.
• 5:55
  Kamini Wood: So a pause doesn't necessarily mean I'm avoiding it.
• 5:58
  Kamini Wood: A pause can actually make a conversation possible and also fruitful.
• 6:04
  Kamini Wood: Now, I also want to talk to the person on the other side of somebody who's shutting down, because this is where we start moving from leading ourselves into leading the room.
• 6:12
  Kamini Wood: If somebody in front of you is clearly overstimulated and overwhelmed, and you keep and you keep pushing them to say, answer me, answer me, why are you not saying anything?
• 6:21
  Kamini Wood: Come on, it's not that hard, or you always do this, you might be adding more pressure to an already uh overstimulated nervous system.
• 6:31
  Kamini Wood: And then uh we're actually almost pushing that person further and further away from us.
• 6:38
  Kamini Wood: So if you need an answer, yes, somebody else's their silence can be extraordinarily frustrating.
• 6:45
  Kamini Wood: I wholeheartedly recognize that and see that.
• 6:48
  Kamini Wood: And maybe you are feeling ignored, or maybe you're feeling dismissed, or their silence is triggering your own pressure pattern.
• 6:54
  Kamini Wood: You know, your pleaser might think they're mad at me when they're silent, your overrider might think, well, fine, I'll just take over, or your disappearer might think, great, we're definitely not talking about this now.
• 7:04
  Kamini Wood: This is why communication is so complicated, because there's never just one nervous system in the room.
• 7:10
  Kamini Wood: There's their nervous system and there's your nervous system.
• 7:13
  Kamini Wood: And so this is where I use another part of my framework, which is lead yourself, lead the room, right?
• 7:19
  Kamini Wood: We notice, name, and choose what's happening inside of me, because that's recognizing what pressure pattern inside of you just switched on, what is my reflex telling me to do, and what is it that I actually choose to do?
• 7:33
  Kamini Wood: That's the self-work.
• 7:34
  Kamini Wood: But then there's another human being sitting right in front of you, and now how do we leave the room?
• 7:40
  Kamini Wood: And so for that, I ref I use settle see shift.
• 7:45
  Kamini Wood: This is part about the other per this part is about the other person.
• 7:49
  Kamini Wood: We settle, right?
• 7:50
  Kamini Wood: Can I create enough steadiness in this interaction for this person to actually get engage with me?
• 7:55
  Kamini Wood: It doesn't mean making them happy, what it, and it doesn't mean giving in, and it doesn't mean that any boundaries that we have are disappearing.
• 8:02
  Kamini Wood: It just means can I settle so that we both have somewhat of a regulated nervous system?
• 8:07
  Kamini Wood: And then it's C, can I get curious about what is happening for the person in front of me?
• 8:14
  Kamini Wood: Not diagnose them, that's not what I'm talking about, not deciding what I already know, not making assumptions.
• 8:19
  Kamini Wood: It it means actually see that person in front of me.
• 8:24
  Kamini Wood: Ask some curious questions, what's actually happening here?
• 8:28
  Kamini Wood: And then we shift.
• 8:30
  Kamini Wood: Together we now move.
• 8:32
  Kamini Wood: Now maybe we can give feedback.
• 8:33
  Kamini Wood: Now we can set the boundary, now we can make a decision, now we can talk about a consequence, now we can work together to solve this problem or figure out what's next.
• 8:41
  Kamini Wood: So when we're working with somebody, it's around settle, see, shift.
• 8:46
  Kamini Wood: And there's in the order does matter, right?
• 8:50
  Kamini Wood: Think about think about a teenager who's absolutely furious.
• 8:53
  Kamini Wood: You can give the most brilliant lecture, right?
• 8:56
  Kamini Wood: You could you could have given a TED talk uh lecture as a parent.
• 9:00
  Kamini Wood: But if they're not in a place to hear one word of what you just said, even if it was the most fantastic speech, so much teachable in it, they're not going to hear it because they haven't, they haven't been, they have not settled, they have not been seen, and so we can't get to that place where we can make a shift.
• 9:18
  Kamini Wood: Or think about an employee who just realized that they made this huge mistake and they're so embarrassed and humiliated, they're defensive, and you start with all of the seven things that they did wrong.
• 9:28
  Kamini Wood: Well, everything you're saying may actually be technically true, but it they're not hearing anything you're saying.
• 9:33
  Kamini Wood: Sometimes you have to create the conditions for that conversation to actually happen, and it doesn't remove accountability.
• 9:39
  Kamini Wood: If anything, it makes accountability more likely to actually be heard and to be uh taken.
• 9:45
  Kamini Wood: Right?
• 9:46
  Kamini Wood: So this is where all four pressure patterns come together.
• 9:50
  Kamini Wood: The pleaser may become so focused on keeping the other person comfortable that they never get around to actually speaking the hard truth.
• 9:56
  Kamini Wood: The overrider may skip straight to control and solution, the disappearer may decide to not have the conversation at all, and the shutdown loses all access to all words.
• 10:04
  Kamini Wood: Same room, four completely different ways that can that can shape what happens next.
• 10:09
  Kamini Wood: And that's why I keep saying that these patterns affect how we live, love, and lead.
• 10:14
  Kamini Wood: Not because we need a personality label.
• 10:16
  Kamini Wood: Help, you know, we have plenty of those.
• 10:19
  Kamini Wood: The point is to have language for the moment where your reflex starts taking over.
• 10:24
  Kamini Wood: Because once you can see the pattern, you have more choice.
• 10:28
  Kamini Wood: Not a perfect choice, and it's not gonna be perfect every single time.
• 10:32
  Kamini Wood: It's just you get to choose where you're going from here.
• 10:35
  Kamini Wood: Now, I'm not trying to turn you into somebody who never gets activated or triggered because we are human beings.
• 10:41
  Kamini Wood: We are going to overthink, we are going to have moments of freezing, we're going to have moments of taking over, not you know, we're gonna try to make people happy.
• 10:50
  Kamini Wood: Because again, we are human beings.
• 10:52
  Kamini Wood: The goal here is to catch yourself sooner, to shift sooner, to repair faster, to notice, oh, this is my pattern, and then decide whether you want the pattern to make the next decision for you or you want to choose.
• 11:06
  Kamini Wood: So if your mind goes blank under pressure, we start there.
• 11:08
  Kamini Wood: We notice it, we name it, we give ourselves enough room to choose what happens next.
• 11:13
  Kamini Wood: Or if you're on the other side of the person who has gone blank, maybe getting curious with them before you push them harder.
• 11:19
  Kamini Wood: Because sometimes the issue is not that somebody doesn't want to communicate, sometimes the conditions of the conversation are making that communication harder.
• 11:26
  Kamini Wood: Lead yourself and then lead the room.
• 11:28
  Kamini Wood: Notice, name, choose, settle, see, shift.
• 11:32
  Kamini Wood: And this is where I want to take the podcast from here into those everyday moments where you catch yourself thinking, why do I keep doing this?
• 11:41
  Kamini Wood: Why do they keep doing this?
• 11:43
  Kamini Wood: Why did that conversation go so poorly?
• 11:46
  Kamini Wood: Why do I know better?
• 11:48
  Kamini Wood: And yet somehow I'm still responding the same way because underneath all those moments, there's usually a pattern.
• 11:54
  Kamini Wood: And once we can see it, we have somewhere to go.
• 11:57
  Kamini Wood: If you want to start figuring out which pressure pattern tends to show up for you, I'll put my pressure pattern spotting tool in the show notes.
• 12:03
  Kamini Wood: And from here, we are gonna go deeper into both sides of this: how you lead yourself, when your own patterns show up, and how you lead the room when there's another human being in front of you.
• 12:14
  Kamini Wood: Because there really is an order that matters.
• 12:18
  Kamini Wood: And until next time, stay curious.