How often do you check in with yourself? .. and why it matters.

Fifteen years ago I boarded an 8pm British Airways flight at London Heathrow, having been frantic with prep for a project in Myanmar. I sat in my seat and checked in with myself -

I asked myself, How did I feel about this trip? What came back to me immediately was - I do not feel good - at all.

Within 5 minutes code was coming from the Cock Pit, the Cabin Crew were putting on their jackets and rushing to the doors. A fire engine pulled up alongside us - we had a suspected engine fire and this flight was going no where that night. And the project, well it was supposed to be several weeks but I was home in 2 weeks, due to Monsoon rains and complications.

That was quite a pronounced experience for me at the time. I remember asking, how do I feel - and every cell in my body not sensing good. And in that moment all started to unravel. It felt profound.

Our bodies are very intelligent. All we have to do is give ourselves the space to see what is truth in the moment, and to recognise our own innate resources. If checking in with yourself is the practice, what's the skill that makes this possible?

Perhaps one of the most powerful skills we can have is metacognition. The ability to step back and observe our thinking. Perfectly described by this quote attributed to Victor Frankl:

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

So being able to step back, look at the stream or waterfall or trickle of thoughts that are passed through our mind and just observe them, and just say, I'm not this stream of thoughts, but I can take a look at it and I can see there are options for me.

This is a particularly helpful practice in difficult times, in moments of stress and pressure.

We have choices. In any given tense situation we could choose a fight or flight response - this helped our ancestors for millions of years in a different environment. Or we oculd freeze - I've seen this in teams in a moment of crises. Alternatively, we can find our calm, get grounded and trust that it's going to be ok. And in that trust we activate our innate resources.

That's resilience.

Metacognition is such a powerful tool, and bringing it into practice can really help our propensity to overthink and perhaps stop our escalation into anxiety.

Every cell in our body has a level of awareness and consciousness. So when feeling overwhelmed - Check In With Yourself - and exhale .. is a really powerful practice.

You may want to know your own metacognition score? The Resilience Assessment measures the 50 factors including metacognition, that drive resilient teams. Resilience isn't guesswork - it's a measurable skill and learned capability.

If you'd like to book an assessment for yourself or your team, please connect with me on - deborah.mctaggart@resiliencei.com