I spend a fair amount of time each week with groups of people. We meet either on telephone conference calls or in person, face to face. The groups meet for various purposes – to explore the way money influences our interpersonal relationships; to inquire into how various structural vulnerabilities in the brain contribute to pain and suffering; exploring any number of ways to turn information into inspiration in the age of info-besity. I greatly enjoy these get-togethers and look forward to them each week. And in most of them I find myself having great difficulty.
Facing Up to Reality
One difficulty I have is with people’s faces. Facial expressions are both compelling and distracting to me. As a result, whenever I’m with a group online, I either don’t put up a picture of myself or else I provide a recent still photo. I also don’t look at the faces of the people I’m interacting with on the screen.
There are specific areas of the brain with circuitry dedicated to facial recognition and processing. I suspect my own face processing networks are either very large – faces are like mighty electromagnets the way they draw me to them; or very small – I’m constantly effortfully attending to them in what feels like to an excessive degree. The draw frequently feels like an addiction – I often can’t not look. Evolutionary neuroscience posits that what I’m most looking for are potential threats.
Another reason I don’t show up live in front of a camera on conference calls is because virtually every time I’m on them I find myself yawning repeatedly. Not out of distraction or boredom in response to what people are saying, but out of what feels like a need to stretch my facial muscles and take in more oxygen. I also frequently find my eyes watering non-stop. It’s very much like I’m allergic to talking on the phone. Needless to say, this is all enormously stressful. And interesting! The stress may be the result of hyperarousal similar to that identified in people with Autism Spectrum Disorder which induces them to avoid making eye contact – something I also struggle with and something I have to be very mindful and deliberate about.
Stifling Myself
As a consequence of having so much self-attending to do, more often than not I find it very challenging to track group dynamics and dialogue on the phone, on Zoom or on Skype. As a further consequence I often find myself reluctant to speak up for fear that what I have to say will be off-topic and betray my struggle with attending and tracking.
There is another element involved with this difficulty as well. It turns out that testosterone, in the amounts that get generated during puberty in males – as Louann Brizendine reports in her book The Male Brain – ends up specifically targeting the speech and language centers in adolescent males, pruning and thinning much of that network like a mad gardener. The result for many adolescent boys – and especially for me – is that it takes considerably more effort and energy to generate speech than it did only months or weeks before puberty. I very likely have compromised Anomia Networks. With practice, over time, those networks can become restored, as evidenced by many male professors or politicians. But they don’t for everyone, dependent in part I suspect, on a male’s (or female’s) personal prior and subsequent trauma history.
Working Around My Workaround
Recognizing this speaking difficulty for myself, one workaround I’ve developed is to put together presentations that provide me with clear cues and explicit talking points. I then add extensive notes to remind myself of things I want to say that I hope and expect people will find interesting and useful. I also hope they will inspire talking on their end. Having this format allows my threat-detection networks the ability to relax, which, in and of itself permits greater operational access to Broca and Wernicke (my brain’s predominant speech-generating and language processing areas).
Much of my ongoing challenge has been to find workarounds like this. For the oxygen piece, I often exercise before I’m going to be on an extended call. For the eye-watering, sometimes I’ll take an antihistamine beforehand. In an effort to keep my stress levels in the eustress zone, I might do some desk exercises or practice yogic breathing. Essentially, though, what it continually comes down to is: communicating skillfully and effectively in the service of non-self-stifling … takes a LOT of challenging, mindful, deliberate work!
Who knew you were working so hard at this?! As well as I think I know you, I didn’t. I sensed some of it, but not the extent of it.
Thank you for sharing this, Mark. It gives me an even greater appreciation of all of the ways you do show up, and I’m validated and informed by it as well in my own challenges.
I’m inspired as well, to continue to share my own vulnerabilities in the interest of healing – my own, and that of others. It’s a powerful thing you do, bringing these experiences and insights to the page.
Grateful.
Since you quote Bukowski…maybe you should do a whole blog on his world view.
One of my favorite Bukowski quotes comes from the film “Barfly”…Fay Dunaway’s character says to the best of my recollection “i hate people..I can’t stand them. .Do you hate people?”…To which Micky Rourke’s character playing I guess, Bukowski replies…”no, but I seem to feel better when they’re not around.”
I absolutely can relate!
(btw..I’m workin on that too:)
Must’sve missed what the story behind the pastor’s house burning was all about tho….maybe just another Bukowski moment.