Defensiveness


If we or someone else challenges our actions or thoughts, our limbic brains perceive a threat, we disregard the data (confirmation bias), and we resist, releasing cortisol and adrenaline, which means

  1. We are focused on defeating or avoiding whatever is threatening us.
  2. We revert to a story that rationalizes what we have already decided, and we double down on that story being the truth.
  3. The resourcefulness of our prefrontal cortex gets shut down, which means we are not able to empathize, explore, innovate, align to goals, or commit to action with ease and flow.
  4. We fall prey to cognitive biases such as confirmation bias and are unable to use new information or feedback to reconsider our position.

Human beings cannot get out of limbic or survival mode by logic or data. Once we are in limbic mode, we can only become resourceful by first realizing that we are in limbic mode, which is a type of metacognition and then quieting our limbic emotions and reactions. Only after our limbic brains are relaxed can we tap into our resourceful prefrontal cortex.

Instead of challenging, let’s find ways to communicate and collaborate.

Mindshifting Educators

Mindshifting is recognizing and shifting from the mindsets that hold us back to the mindsets that push us forward. I write about mindsets, Mindshifting, learning, and education, with the hope that these posts give readers more power over their own lives and helps them give others, like their students, more power as well.

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