Ep. 4 – TCI: Connecting to Self via Conditioned Tendencies

Watch in ASL

Hi. Welcome to the connected interpreter podcast, where we will explore ways of staying connected to ourselves in our work, acknowledging the impact of our practices and continue to grow as practice professionals. I’m Amanda Smith, an interpreter, educator, coach and creative, and I’d love to discuss the puzzles of interpreting the complexities of human interaction and the power we have within ourselves to make a difference. So today’s episode is specifically about connecting with ourselves and both from a personal and a professional standpoint. And so as you go into listening to this, I want you to think about the following reflective prompts. So:

• what if anything is sparking your care for yourself, the work and others?
• Do you feel moved to take any action? And if so, what and when will you do it?
• What questions arise?
• What insights and connections do you see to yourself and your work? So those are the questions to keep in mind.
• I will answer a few of them at the end as well, and let’s go ahead and get started.

Understanding Conditioned Tendencies

So in my somatic training, somatic coach training class, and I will put in the show notes a link to this, there was one of the trainers whose name is Alta Starr, who talked to us about conditioned tendencies. And it’s this idea that as humans we are, we have kind of not necessarily default, because they’re conditioned, but conditioned tendencies, which means that when something goes awry, we tend to react in a particular way. So there, there’s also the there’s also kind of a partner concept of this, which when we talk about our nervous systems, and I’m sure you’ve heard this, is the fight, flight, freeze, fawn responses that are kind of those survival mode kind of responses in our bodies. And so these are a little bit different and also a little bit the same, but they have to do.

What I want you to do is notice there isn’t a right wrong. There also is the truth that we do all of these. It’s but we might have one that is more prevalent than another. So in these conditioned tendencies, there is the three kind of general ways are move toward, move away or move with and so let me talk about those. So when something occurs and we are frightened or scared or shocked, conflict arises if we are a move away or that means that we’re going to withdraw. Our shoulders are going to come in. We’re going to collapse. We’re going to avoid we’re going to move away from whatever that is that is causing the conflict, whatever that is that is causing the sense of unease. So we’re going to move away from that, moving toward something. Now I feel like I’ve gotten the words wrong.

Moving towards something means when that conflict, oh, sorry, I do have it wrong, moving away, moving toward and moving against. So when that conflict occurs, if I am a move against that might be more of a fighter. So that’s somebody who’s going to argue, that’s somebody who is going to challenge whatever it is that is causing that conflict or unease. They’re going to battle with it in the sense of, like no, or that’s not true, or that’s not right kind of idea, right?

So that’s moving away, moving against and then moving toward. Is the idea of appeasement, almost. So the idea that when this conflict or when this unease presents itself, these people move toward the conflict in the sense of, let me appease and melt with you, or blend with you or agree with you so that I am safe again, right? So move away is a safety mechanism. Move against is a safety mechanism and move toward as a safety mechanism. It’s a it’s helpful to know what your tendency is.

Recognizing Your Body’s Responses

So I’ll talk about my experience in finding that out. So knowing myself for 46 years, at the time that I took this training, knowing myself for that long, I really, thought I was a move against I really, really thought I was a warrior, fighter, and I certainly do that because, again, you do all of these. But as this teacher was presenting us this experience so that we could pay attention to what our body actually does, it was fascinating, because. A move away or so that, the way that I explained that just now of my shoulders collapsed, my the tension just kind of tightened in my belly. I My head went down. I tried to get as small as possible and move away like literally in my chair. I sat back farther in my chair with my head down and my shoulders collapsed in and it was really fascinating to see that I was in the circumstance that she led us through, that I was a just collapse and move away, don’t fight against and don’t move toward and agree, just get out of there kind of idea, right? And so that was really interesting for me to recognize that who I think I am and who I am legitimately sometimes, although, as I’ve done further discovery, I’m often that lawyer for other people, not for myself, and then to recognize what that collapse feels like. So feeling that in my body and knowing what that actually tangibly feels like. I don’t mean emotionally what it feels like. I mean like, shoulders collapsed, head down, Move away, move like, literally, move away and back in my chair, knowing what that felt like meant I could notice it in other situations. I could notice when I was collapsing in I could notice when I was feeling threatened or feeling like conflict was happening, or feeling like I had been attacked. And I’m saying that with air quotes, because I mean like, judged, compromised, evaluated in some negative way, thought of negatively, any of those kinds of things. And what that does is it allows me to name that and then make a decision about how I want to respond. So if I can say, Oh, I’m withdrawing, then I’m then I can get to what’s happening that is causing me to withdraw, and what is the truth of what is happening? Truth as I see it, like what is factually happening right now, and is withdrawing, serving in this situation. If it is cool, great. We’re in alignment. Let’s keep doing it. If not, is there another choice that I want to make, but I can’t make that choice if I can’t recognize what state I’m in or what tendency I’m I’m embodying in that moment, right?

So it could be that this situation requires me to actually stand up and say, Actually, I need a moment for XYZ, or it could be that this situation needs me to see their side of things and agree. Oh, I do see what you’re saying. And let’s try to move forward from this place, not from withdrawn and not from fighting, but from and not even from appeasement, but just from agreement. So then what does that have to do with interpreting? I would argue a lot. So lots of things happen in our interpreting work and in our interpreting world, and oftentimes we find ourselves not in choice, which is how some of the somatic teachers would talk about it, being in choice or not in choice.

Applying Somatic Awareness to Interpreting

So I want you to imagine an interpreting situation where you are struggling like it’s not clicking. You don’t, you don’t really understand what’s happening, like it’s barely, it’s barely getting across, but you are not, you’re not sure why or how. Like you’re really just struggling to understand what is happening in this situation, whether that’s the language, whether that’s the content, whether that’s like, I don’t know how these people are related to each other and how they’re talking to each other. Is confusing to me, how whatever, it’s not working. If I don’t understand how my body responds to those things, then I can’t make a choice, right? I’m just going to be reactive, which is going to maybe be just getting by, to get out of there. It might be asking for a switch, or taking a break. It might be any number of things that we might do just in a reactionary kind of way, because we are overwhelmed or unable to understand what is happening in front of us, right?

But if I start to recognize I’m just gonna use myself as an example again, and I’m gonna pretend that in a situation where I don’t know what’s going on, I collapse, right? If I start to recognize that I’m collapsing, oh, okay, so something’s going on. Oh, I don’t understand what’s happening here. Oh, does somebody else know what’s happening here? Am I the only one who doesn’t know what’s happening here? Does everyone not know what’s happening here? What do I need in this moment? Which might lead me to say for the interpreter, can we have a moment? Or might lead me to say to my team. Team, do you know what’s going on here? Or might lead me to say to the consumers, for the interpreters, can you clarify blah, blah, blah, not to get nosy about what’s going on in their in their world, but just to make sure that I understand enough to be able to connect them, you know, through language and interpreting, but I don’t have that choice if I’m only in reaction.

So that’s why this, this part of connecting to self and understanding how I respond in stress, and not even understanding necessarily, like I always do this, but understanding that my body gives me cues, my body provides me information that allows me to stay present and also have choice in what’s happening around me. So when I start to notice that I’m collapsing, it could also be I’m collapsing because I’m exhausted. It’s been eight hours and we are doing this really tedious thing that is high stakes, and I’m just exhausted. So it could be that the conflict, quote, unquote, is actually my fatigue, and I’m collapsing. Well, I’m collapsing because I’m fatigued, not because I’m scared, but because I’m fatigued.

Cultivating Choice in Challenging Situations

Okay, so what do I need to do when I’m fatigued? What are the consequences of being fatigued? What are the you know, some of those kinds of things, right? Which, of course, then hopefully you can see the overlap/ relationship with DCS and the consequences, and looking at the consequences of our decisions. But we have to be in. We have to be aware before we can make choice. And part of being aware is knowing what’s happening in the environment. So the EIPI of DCs, right? And part of it, part of being aware, is being aware of me in that environment. What do I What does my body do? What does my body Tell me? And am I paying attention to those cues, or am I not? For some of you younger interpreters, this might feel like, yeah, for those of us who are a little bit more seasoned and maybe grew up in the time when we weren’t even allowed bathroom breaks because we shouldn’t even have human needs.

The Importance of Connecting to Your Humanity

Hopefully this is inspiring you to connect with your humanity. And I don’t mean your humanity in the compassion, empathy kind of sense, although that’s nice too. I mean your humanity as like actually how you’re wired, neurologically, biologically and nervous system kinds of stuff, right? So I think I will leave it there and let me know if it would be helpful to have kind of an activity that I could lead you through, just as a separate audio clip to help you know what you tend to do. Are you a move away or a move against, er, or a move toward? Er, yeah, I’d be really curious to know. So that is it for this episode.

And again, I want to, I want you to think about anything that might have sparked your care if you feel moved to action questions that arise, what insights and connections you’re making. I’d love to hear from you about those insights ahas and questions. So feel free to reach out to me at arsmithstudios@gmail.com and you can also sign up for my very intermittent newsletter at arsmithstudios.com and click on the newsletter button in the upper right hand corner. So let me go back and answer some of these questions.

Amanda’s Musings on this Episode

So I think I will answer the question about care. So as I’ve talked about in other episodes, I definitely I have a deep care for the work and the practitioners. And in my experience working with seasoned interpreters in graduate school, they often come to us rather wounded from their Interpreter Education, from the field, from their communities, those kinds of things. And so I have a real heart for us as practitioners and what we put ourselves through, as well as what we endure. We are a strong bunch, and I think that we could have better tools to be present, to stand our ground, and not from a combative place, but just from a rooted place, so that strong tree analogy and really leverage our resources in order to serve consumers, in order to serve the community that we work with, the communities that we work with, right? And so that sparks my care. So talking about how it is we react and how we pay attention to and tend to our instrument is really I get really excited talking about this and hopefully equipping people to think more about these tools and resources. So this is all related to the somatic practices for interpreting course as well. And so you can find out more about that at arsmithstudios.com but yeah, so. That’s the that’s the care that sparked as I talk about this, because I just think about all of you and me, all of us who have done our very best with the care that we have and the tools that we have. And unfortunately, for a lot of years, our tools have just been a hammer. And so I want to get that tool kit really, really filled out with more tools so that we can provide better service in the end.

So those are my answers to two of the questions, and I’m super curious to hear yours.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai