One of the most overlooked parts of our lives that we all take for granted is naming our mouse (aka emotions!). It’s easy to forget or not care about what we name our mouse, but it has many consequences on both us and other peoples’ happiness.
- Are you constantly chasing the dynamic that’s happening in a conversation?
- How to respectfully start naming your mouse.
- Why naming your mouse changes the dynamic.
- How everyone can be happy when naming a mouse.
Naming your mouse changes the dynamic in any relationship.
– David Wood
To learn more about Jethro Jones of Transformative Principal, and to listen to the full episode, go to https://www.jethrojones.com/podcast
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– TRANSCRIPT –
[00:00:00] David Wood: And I realized something else about that conversation. I mentioned with the, with the agent, the real estate agent, I’m writing a book right now called name that mouse because the elephant isn’t the enemy animal in the room. And what I did with that agent, and I want to put a name on this so that anyone listening can use this as a technique.
[00:00:22] David Wood: If you like it, and you want to steal it, I became aware of a mouse in the room, which was. All I’m constantly chasing. I’m like, oh, I think this is a dynamic that we have. And then I named it now, we’ll see what happens. I don’t know what’s going to happen with this guy, but that’s the first step is I notice I noticed this has happening between us.
[00:00:44] David Wood: That’s the way it seems to me. Does that seem to you that that’s happening or I noticed that. I wonder if I’ve just made you defensive, you know, it seems like you might want to defend yourself right now, is that, is that what’s happening such a powerful technique and it’s something we could study for years and years, it goes deeper and deeper and deeper just whatever’s happening between me and someone else.
[00:01:08] David Wood: Can I name that? And maybe we change it, maybe we don’t, but at least for now we can now either get shared reality on. Like, oh, they think that too, or no, they have a totally different experience and they might name a different mouse. You know, maybe I have a mouse in the room, they have a hedgehog who knows, but we can at least fight.
[00:01:30] Jethro Jones: Yeah. And that can be challenging to, to do that because you don’t want to offend someone or project your insecurities or weaknesses on them. So how do you, how do you overcome that kind of a challenge? David?
[00:01:45] David Wood: That’s another mouse. So if I think, oh, I want to say to someone Hey, I noticed you’ve been late for the last three weeks.
[00:01:53] David Wood: And I’d like to share how that impacts me and see if you’re open to it. As I imagined saying that I might start getting worried that they’re going to be offended or they’re going to get defensive and that it might not go well. So that’s now a secondary model. I could start with that. I say, Hey, I want to bring up something about how we’ve been interacting.
[00:02:13] David Wood: And you know, I want to do it in a positive way and not in a way that has you be defensive and whatever, is it okay if I share it? So you can name that. I want this to go well. And I’d like this to feel like a supportive conversation and. If it’s not let me know, but that becomes another mouse. I remember when I was sitting in a course with a guru and a whole bunch of students, they’d pass the microphone and I’d have what I wanted to share.
[00:02:43] David Wood: That was my mouse. I want to share. This is how I’m feeling by the time the microphone got to me, I was now terrified. That was my new mail. And I would skip over that and just try and share the other thing, but everyone could see that I was kind of terrified, but I’m talking about how happy I was this morning and it doesn’t fit.
[00:03:04] David Wood: It was just weird. Took me a long time to realize, oh, something new is here now I’ve got a mouse about the mouse. So now I could just start with all right. I’m feeling very nervous and I don’t want to dwell on that. I just wanted to name it and move on and share the, she has something else. Now people can relate to that.
[00:03:23] David Wood: Around that they go, yeah, you seem nervous. Right? That makes a lot of sense. Okay, good. Out of the way.
