What can a rescue dog and yoga teach us about change and resilience?

Resilience and Renewal

I attended a coaching and neuroscience webinar about six months ago, delivered by Professor Richard Boyatzis, one of the world's leading experts in leadership development, emotional intelligence and coaching. He’s done lots of groundbreaking research studying resilience across the world and cultures. ?As part of the work, he emphasises the importance of emotional and social intelligence in promoting resilience and renewal from stress, and how coaching can boost this, which is what interested me in the webinar.

During the event he defined what he calls ‘renewal moments’ to counteract stress and promote resilience. This was the bit I hadn’t anticipated, and at that moment, different elements of my life that I thought separate, collided together in a beautiful light bulb moment. Professor Boyatzis and his team suggest that renewal moments are activities that can help us recover from a stress state and are crucial for maintaining resilience and overall wellbeing.

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Renewal moments

·?????? meditation and mindfulness

·?????? yoga

·?????? prayer to a loving God

·?????? modest exercise

·?????? feeling hopeful about the future

·?????? being in a loving relationship

·?????? helping others less fortunate

·?????? having a pet like a dog, cat or horse (other pets in different parts of the world)

·?????? being playful with others

·?????? laughing

·?????? walking in nature

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The team suggest that 15 minutes a day of these activities can help to alleviate the toxic impact of stress and that over the course of a week, we should try and have a mixture of renewal moments. I was pleased that I engage in many of those moments, however, when life gets busy or stressful, they can drop to the bottom of the pile, I’m trying to unlearn this.

Tina’s Story

Having a dog is my one constant renewal moment. I have a little rescue dog named Tina. Tina had a terrible start to life. When I adopted her, she was malnourished and terrified. She had been exposed to physical and psychological harm. She was wearing a muzzle, and a Donald Duck baby grow. The sight of this poor dog in a muzzle and Donald Duck baby grow baffled me and broke my heart. I wanted to make everything okay for her (there is a pattern here but more about that another time) and I was quite naive to a dog like Tina’s needs. She didn’t know how to be stroked or walk on a lead. She would run and hide at the slightest noise and when things got too overwhelming for her, her last resort was to bite. Not nip, bite.

At this point I questioned my judgment. One vet suggested I put Tina to sleep. At least two dog behaviourists said she would never recover and to return her to the rescue. Lots of research, time and further trips to a dog behaviourist taught me how to meet Tina needs. What has been most astonishing is Tina’s resilience and ability to become a beautiful, loving, family pet. This little dog wanted to love; she just didn’t know how.

Fast forward a few years and Tina is my shadow. She loves nothing more than running up and down hills, begging for food and belly rubs and curling up on the sofa for cuddles. Whilst having a dog is a definite renewal moment, it’s so much more. They can also teach us the courage to change, even when it’s hard.

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Coaching in Change

Change is complex and messy. We each have a different relationship to change. The pace of change I have witnessed in organisations recently has been incredible. Coaching is all about change, either seeking or managing. When I’m delivering training, navigating complex organisational change always arises. Change managers will tell you that the biggest obstacle to change is people.? We also know that in times of pressure or pace, organisations can be hyper focused on achieving the task as appose to preserving the team and individual (Adair's Action Centred Leadership). It is no surprise that performance dips in periods of change, however this is not always accounted for. Brené Brown sums it up beautifully: ?

“Leaders must spend a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behaviour.”

This is especially true in times of change, by taking care of our teams and individuals – the task will become much easier. Professor Boyatzis and others would say that we can experience change as a threat, activating the parts of our brain responsible for fight or flight. This makes it difficult to process and think clearly. To change well, people need resilience. My first step in coaching is to allow clients the time and space to process what they have lost and focus what is within their control in their current situation. It can also be beneficial for them to focus on building time for renewal moments, to ensure they are in the best place possible for the future.

Yoga and Mindfulness – Practical Tools for Resilience

My next insight from Professor Boyatzis was that yoga, mindfulness and meditation were renewal moments. I have always known that I felt great after a yoga class and my desire to learn why, led me to study it. However, seeing it here as a tool to counteract stress and promote resilience, felt satisfying. ?My curiosity about yoga led me to teach it in my spare time. This was something I felt separate from my professional world, and I was unsure how to align my need for evidence and best practice in my health world with the more subjective, felt sense in yoga. It’s true that some things about yoga teaching are not founded in the best ‘evidence’ and sometimes people misinterpret the benefits, particularly in the West. In its basic form, the word yoga originates from the Sanskrit word ‘yoke’ or to unite, which can refer to a union in body, mind and spirit or life. This aligns with Professor Boyatzis’s definition as a renewal moment and has provided me with the language to understand the benefits of yoga, to then share with others.

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Circling back to my original goal for attending the webinar, which was the relationship between resilience, emotional and social intelligence and coaching. Managing emotions and relationships is crucial for resilience. Coaching holds a mirror up to us and can help to improve self-awareness and maintain lasting, positive relationships. It can also identify the impact of emotions on our performance, wellbeing and relationships. It can help people develop coping strategies to manage stress and change, whilst promoting resilience. One of the most rewarding things about being a coach is seeing clients grow. We are seeking to develop a growth mindset, one that is flexible and adaptable. A growth mindset can help clients navigate their potential, identify what gets in the way of this and crucially, what they are going to do differently as a result. This not only improves work performance but has been shown to increase resilience and overall wellbeing.

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Positive Intelligence Programme

As so often happens in life, one event can be a catalyst for another. My early work in health promotion for vulnerable communities got me interested in brain science and change theory and eventually (after about 18 years) led me to train as a coach. Attending this webinar lit another spark of inspiration and I found the work of Shirzad Charmine and Positive Intelligence.

This work is founded in neuroscience and based on factor analysis research, to get to the root of what enables a growth mindset, enhancing performance, wellbeing and relationships. It has been developed as a six-week brain training programme using an app, and activities to boost mental fitness, creating lasting, positive change. The premise of this being that we wouldn’t expect to see a body transformation after one weightlifting session in the gym, it is the same with mental fitness, we need to build up consistency and practice.

After going through this programme myself, I know the power it has to be life changing. I now have the privilege of offering this programme to others, as a coach. Throughout this programme I help people to identify what gets in in the way of their potential, retraining their brain to create a healthy mindset. I enable them to catch unhelpful thought patterns and self-sabotage to improve work, relationships and health.

The programme offers access to an app to keep people on track and assessment and profiling of the saboteurs. I provide a 1-1 session to explore the saboteurs, weekly group coaching sessions and learning modules, with renewal or mindfulness activities. The feedback I have seen from my current cohort has been wonderful.

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My new cohort for individuals is beginning in January and I can offer it to organisations on request. You can learn more about this by emailing me [email protected]

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You can read the research paper on renewal and resilience here Focusing on Resilience and Renewal From Stress: The Role of Emotional and Social Intelligence Competencies (Liu & Boyatzis, 2021).

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