One of the powerful aspects of emotional health is that is supported by a number of principles, each of which can be very valuable even on its own. We’ve discussed many of these in our blog over time, including the line of choice, the inner observer and the centres of intelligence. This time I want to look at another of these: behavioural freedom.
Superficially, behavioural freedom is very simple. It refers to the ability, at any moment, to make conscious choices around our behaviour in response to a given situation. A higher degree of behavioural freedom is associated with a higher level of emotional health.
One way to think about behavioural freedom is in terms of the way we deal with unpredictability. Life is always unpredictable, as the last year has demonstrated all too clearly. Paradoxically, however, unpredictability is not a state that our human minds tend to be comfortable with.
Think about what it is like to drive into a large city you have never visited before. Everything is new: the layout of the streets, the signage, the landmarks, even the behaviour of other drivers, and it can get increasingly stressful. Unlike driving in a familiar environment, where our mind knows what to look out for and what it can safely ignore, this new environment is the definition of information overload, in real time!
In situations like this, with our anxiety rising, it is very easy to start making spur-of-the-moment decisions. Instead of pulling over and consulting a map, or asking a local for help, we make random turns in the hope of finding something we recognise. Instead of ignoring the noise and simply following the instructions of our GPS, we distrust it or misread it and make turns either too early or too late.
Experts tell us that the best thing to do when we think we are lost – whether in the city or in the bush – is to stop. And deep down most of us know this from our life experience. Unfortunately, the strong human instinct is to do the opposite – to keep moving – which only risks getting us even more disoriented.
Behavioural freedom is the ability to draw on our experience and knowledge and to choose our response to a situation, as opposed to allowing our automatic reactions – the urge to keep moving in this example – to take over.
(It turns out it takes a very high degree of behavioural freedom to remain still when you are lost. Even experienced navigators are prone to keep moving even when they know very well that they should stop.)
Now, the example of unpredictability I’ve just described is a fairly extreme one, and one most of us would encounter rarely. However there are many smaller ones we may confront on a regular basis.
A common workplace scenario is that of receiving feedback.
An automatic reaction to receiving unexpected negative feedback is to become defensive, self-justifying or blaming. In other words, to go below the line.
However, with a sufficient degree of behavioural freedom, we are able to set aside any urge to go below the line and instead choose our response, drawing on what we know and considering the situation more broadly.
We might think about the situation of the person providing the feedback. What’s going on for them? What pressure are they under? Is their behaviour a function of the moment or the space we’re in and, if so, could you ask to pause the discussion, or find somewhere else to have it?
A higher degree of behavioural freedom in these situations is associated with a lower degree of self-centredness. A higher degree of behavioural freedom allows us to see situations from a ‘both…and’ perspective: to understand that the choices we make based on our perspective may not be the best choices from someone else’s perspective, however there may be choices that can meet both our needs.
As with most aspects of emotional health, we can train ourselves to act with a higher degree of behavioural freedom. This begins with drawing on our inner observer in order to better understand our automatic reactions to situations and to ‘catch’ ourselves and choose healthier responses more often.
Gayle
Our book Working with Emotional Health and the Enneagram discusses behavioural freedom in more detail in the context of the other aspects of emotional health.
