Are you above or below the line?

It is something like six years since I first came across the work of Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Klemp. Three or four years after that I finally read their book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, which, along with a couple of other books, I still think of as one of the most complete summaries of what a new era of leadership could be like.

I flicked open a copy of it today and landed on one of the most powerful ideas. On a training course I took, Dethmer once explained that he would give clients an assignment: use an app to buzz themselves at random times throughout the day (RemindMe or MindJogger do this), to ask them: “Are you above or below the line?”

A simple question providing a startling depth of a awareness. I remember sharing this idea with a client almost as soon as I heard it and watching as he used it regularly and powerfully.

The idea is essentially this. At any time we are in one of two states:

We are above the line: we are curious, open, creative, full of possibility. We can collaborate, we can learn, we can engage with each other. We feel clearer and more energised.

Or we are below the line: we are closed, anxious, competitive. We focus on scarcity, and are unable to learn. We feel tenser and under threat.

So, where are you? Are you above or below the line?

Later, when I learned about Polyvagal Theory (and any scientists or people who know more about this please correct me in the comments for any mistakes), I wondered if that was, in fact, what Dethmer, Chapman and Klemp were describing.

The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the body. Remarkably, it connects all our major organs to other parts of us including our face. It has two states: the social engagement state and the threat state. When people talk about being ‘triggered’, in my view they often mean they have shifted from social engagement into the threat state.

And there are key parts of this, which are echoed in the way I have decribed being above or below the line. When we are in the threat state, we can’t learn and we can’t really listen to each other. And so whenever people are having an argument, it’s really important to know: are you in the threat state or social engagement state? If both of you are in threat, that’s a really tricky situation. If one of you can pull back into social engagement state, then things are easier. If you can both get there, then, well, you might actually be able to interact, learn from each other and solve the problem you’re both facing.

My brother described this with his baby son. Sometimes, the baby is essentially seeing red. At that point, the only task is to get him out of that state. With my daughter, this is clearly true, too. And often, thankfully, it doesn’t take long. If I lift Leah up and show her birds flying by outside the window, she often switches out of what I imagine is the threat state quickly. Not always, of course, but often.

And so that becomes the second question for us: if we are below the line, what can we do to shift to being above it?

Dethmer, Chapman and Klemp talk, in their book, about shift practises. One, a simple one, is to move your body to a different position (stand up, walk somewhere, lie down, whatever it is) and take three deep breaths.

Jamie Wheal, in this video about Polyvagal Theory, tells a story about how deep sea divers cope with the risk of slipping into threat state. If something goes wrong it is quite understandable that they might feel threat when the risks are high, but the problem is that if you are in threat state you breath faster and use more oxygen, which you really don’t want to do. A ‘hack’ that Wheal describes – a shift practice – is to breath in deeply and then breathe out for twice as long (breath in for three and out for six, say). And, if you can, to hum as you breathe out – that, apparently, affects the vagas nerve, because it the nerve is connected to the nose. There, then is a second shift practice.

In my marriage, we have a shift practice. When we find ourselves arguing, if/when one of us can pull ourselves close enough to social engagement to do it, we say 'I'm sorry'. If you can say it and mean it, for the situation and argument if not the act that 'caused it', it is a powerful way of shifting and inviting the other person to shift.

My daughter can teach us another: becoming present and putting our attention on nature. Birds, animals, trees, far horizons all seem to be potential shift practices for me.  

And so: are you above or below the line? And if you are below it, how are you going to shift?

—

This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online. 

The first two 12-Minute Method books are out now!

Sign up to my mailing list to receive digests of 12-minute articles every month or two.