Today we’re talking to organizational trauma expert, Dimple Dhabalia about what it means to be a rooted leader and how story healing can help us all. "The antidote to dehumanization is helping people see the humanity in each other again." This is an important episode for right now. Listen in.
"Rooted leadership means leading with empathy and care. It’s about finding ways to connect with people and create communities of trust and psychological safety, where people feel safe enough to show up and be themselves – including in times of crisis."
Today, we're talking to expert in organizational trauma, founder, and award-winning author, Dimple Dhabalia about what it means to be a rooted leader and how practicing story healing can help us all.
We get into:
- The impact of the Industrial Revolution
- Why the mind-body connection is important (even–and maybe especially–at work)
- Workplace trauma and moral injury in the workplace
- Creating "brave spaces"
- Self-awareness and the 5 types of reactions most of us have when experiencing a dysregulated nervous system
- Neuroplasticity and the function of story sharing and story healing
"The antidote to dehumanization is helping people see the humanity in each other again."
This is important work for people to be doing – especially at work, in leadership, and right now. I hope you'll listen and share your takeaways!
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You can find Dimple @dimpstory across all social media platforms, and at dear HUMANitarian on Substack. Her book, Tell Me My Story: Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self is available at all online booksellers.
Dimple D. Dhabalia is the founder of Roots in the Clouds, a human-centered leadership coach, and bestselling author with over twenty years of government and public service experience. Dimple partners with leaders across mission-driven sectors to address root issues of organizational trauma, and design inclusive, human-centered workplace cultures where emerging and seasoned leaders can learn how to preserve their own humanity as they work to preserve it for others.
After almost two decades working on the front lines of the government and humanitarian sectors, Dimple had experienced vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, moral injury, burnout, and anxiety. Like so many others, she worked in an organization that celebrated the resilience of the human spirit in the refugees and displaced persons they served, while often failing to extend the same ethos of care to those working within their own organizations.
Determined to educate and support heart-centered leaders, she developed and launched the Daring Leaders Project (DLP), the first mindfulness-based leadership development program of its kind within her government agency. Her vision and leadership earned her Director’s awards for Innovator of the Year and the Pillar of Leadership.
In 2021, Dimple left a two-decade career in government and humanitarian service to launch Roots in the Clouds with a personal mission of putting the “human” back into humanitarian work and making service sustainable across mission-driven sectors. Today, Dimple’s cutting-edge work uses the power of storytelling to help leaders and organizations heal and rebuild mission-driven cultures using a holistic, human-centered, and trauma-informed approach grounded in principles of mindful performance, positive psychology, and human-centered leadership.
Her new book, Tell Me My Story–Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self [Ambika Media 2024], was the #1 new release in workplace culture on Amazon, and was recently excerpted in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Dimple and her work have also been featured in a number of high-profile podcasts and media outlets including, Fast Company, CEO World Magazine, and the Federal News Network. Dimple recently debuted a limited-series companion podcast to Tell Me My Story called Service Without Sacrifice and is also creator and co-host of the popular podcast What Would Ted Lasso Do? You can find Dimple @dimpstory across all social media platforms, and at dear HUMANitarian on Substack.
[00:00:00] Céline Williams: I'm Celine Williams and welcome to the Leading Through Crisis podcast, a conversation series exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is a familiar face. Her name is Dimple Dhabalia . She's an award winning author of Tell Me My Story and the founder of Roots in the Clouds.
Um, and a familiar face because she has been here before. Welcome back Dimple.
[00:00:24] Dimple Dhabalia: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:25] Céline Williams: It's a pleasure. I always love talking to you. Our pre recording conversations are always fascinating. We get into a lot of stuff, so I'm excited for this conversation, but before we dive in. Even though you've been here before, life happens and time passes.
So I'm curious. Now, what does when you hear leading through crisis, what comes up for you or what, what does that mean for you today?
[00:00:50] Dimple Dhabalia: Yeah. Thanks so much. So again, thanks for having me. And, uh, I feel like this is such a, it's funny that we recorded several years ago and this [00:01:00] was. Um, and I think it's important at that time and now I feel like it's even more important in our current state of world affairs.
Uh, but yeah, like, you know, I, I, I've been thinking about this a lot through this idea of rooted leadership and to me, like, Rooted leadership is about leading with, you know, empathy and care. Um, and so this idea of leading through crisis, I think is really about finding ways to connect with people and create these, um, Communities of trust and psychological safety where people feel safe enough to, um, you know, to really show up and be themselves and which includes if they're experiencing any kind of crisis.
Um, as we know, you know, crisis is a very specific, um, way of showing up and we know that people are in crisis, but we also know that organizations are in crisis. And so leading through [00:02:00] crisis is the ability to kind of remain calm and grounded, even as you are navigating all these challenges and leading your people through them.
Um, and there's just, there's so many things we can dive into about how we do that and all that kind of stuff. But I think it's really about this idea of being as rooted and grounded as you can as a leader in order to navigate. Just, you know, we talk about, um, the term VUCA, right? Like, um, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Um, and we are in that world. And I saw a new word the other day, which I thought was really, um, applicable as well, is this idea of poly crisis. I was like, Oh yeah, like we're definitely in a period like entering our era of poly crisis, right. Where we have just. Multiple crises building upon themselves. And so leading through these moments, I think really requires the ability to know [00:03:00] yourself and to know, you know, like your own, how you react in certain moments, what your patterns are.
Um, and really. How what's happening in your body, right? So that mind body connection, which we've lost, um, over time and, and so being in that space as you then show up for other people.
[00:03:23] Céline Williams: Yeah, I have many things that I want to get into. I want to touch. I've never heard the term poly crisis. I think it is. I am definitely going to have to look it up because I think it is a fascinating concept and, and as soon as you said that I was like, it makes total sense because we, many people, I'm not going to say all or even most, but many people are dealing with their own crisis, a crisis, a family crisis, a workplace crisis, a team crisis, a project crisis, the, I don't know, many crises in the world [00:04:00] on a global scale, like, Yeah, I think about that and we often.
Prioritize a particular crisis in a moment because of whatever reason, whether we're a leader or it's our family, it's our health, whatever, we will prioritize something. And it doesn't mean the other crises don't exist. So poly crisis, I think, is really interesting.
[00:04:21] Dimple Dhabalia: Yeah, I felt the same way when I saw the word, um, it was actually for a conference that I'm looking to go to.
And I was like, Wow. I mean, that just really describes where we are in this moment in time. And yeah, you know, I, even if you let go of all the other things that we're experiencing individually, excuse me, what we're experiencing as a global community is just so heavy, right? I mean, There's just, there's so much happening.
And so, uh, and I think people don't often realize the impact that that has, like we think, Oh, we're far removed. It's not, you know, but it, [00:05:00] it does impact us either because we're looking at images or reading stories or it's impacting our day to day life, you know, based on, um, you know, The people around us and how they're reacting or maybe it's impacting our economics in some way like there's, there's all these ripple effects of what's happening and we are impacted and sometimes we just don't realize it.
[00:05:23] Céline Williams: Yeah, I think that's a really, I think that's really important to remember especially because we are so conditioned to compartmentalize all these things. And this is a wonderful example of how we do that, right? It's like, oh, well, that's not. In my backyard. So I'm not gonna work. It's not really affecting me.
And so we compartmentalize that. And then we, you know, that's not why
[00:05:50] Dimple Dhabalia: we
[00:05:50] Céline Williams: think we're compartmentalizing. Oh, 100%. Excuse me, which I think is often the case with compartmentalization is that we, yeah, we have [00:06:00] created the illusion that we're compartmentalizing things that it's not affecting us, whatever it is.
And that's, unfortunately. not really the case.
[00:06:11] Dimple Dhabalia: Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. I, you know, um, I wrote about this in my book about how we, um, the industrial revolution really was just such a turning point in terms of, um, how we show up and. And so when we think about this idea of, um, compartmentalizing, you know, really, this was something that we were forced into, right?
So with industrialization, there's like a lot of, you know, people are like, Oh, well, it created, it created efficiency and it created standardization, which is great when you have like a job where you are expected to do like repetitive thing, right? But [00:07:00] For the problem is that that model of working was then picked up and then just like applied across the board and it doesn't work, right?
It doesn't work in places where you are actually having to serve other human beings or lead other human beings in that way. It's really challenging. And so this idea, uh, you know, and it also, it created like these fake. Or not fake, but like these false, um, you know, like, Oh, we now have, you know, you, you, you show up to work by eight o'clock and you work until four 30 and, um, you know, you get two breaks.
So this is break time. That's when your body, you know, you can go relieve your body. Um, we eat lunch at noon and, and we. We're taken further and further away from the natural rhythms of our body and the natural like what's the what's my peak work time? What when am I showing up [00:08:00] as my best? When am I actually hungry?
You know, I'm thirsty. Can I have some water now like things like that that we don't really think about but They have impacted us so deeply because we're no longer most of us are not connected anymore. And like we're operating on this, in this autopilot state on such a regular basis that we don't recognize when our body is sending us signals.
And so not just those basic every day, like I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, whatever. You know, uh, I'm in pain, like, emotionally. I am hurt. I am sad. I'm, you know, whatever. We, we don't realize that it's not just the emotion, but our body actually is sending us signals to let us know what it's experiencing. And we just either Push it away, or we ignore it, or we don't notice it.
And all of these things are building up. And so to your point, we've created this illusion of compartmentalizing, but really what we're [00:09:00] doing is we're shoving it all down and eventually it's going to explode into something, whether it's, you know, chronic illnesses. Whether it's, um, you know, like, um, I, uh, for me personally, I, I started getting like these weird rashes on my legs, you know, like there's, there's all kinds of like strange ways that it then manifests, um, or it manifests in, you know, our relationships and our, like how we relate to other human beings because now we are short tempered or we just can't connect because we are so in this space of darkness.
And so that mind body connection is so important. Um, and we have just been conditioned all these years to, to compartmentalize. So we don't want to, we don't want to know about that kind of stuff in our workplace. Like that doesn't belong here, but it does belong there because again, it's a very part like important part of being human, right?
And so when we think about being able to show [00:10:00] up as humans, and so again, in the midst of crisis. Uh, that's when most like human reactions are going to occur. And so if you don't understand your own humanity and to be able to see another person's humanity, it is very challenging to lead in times of crisis.
[00:10:20] Céline Williams: It's to, to go back to what you said about like rooted leadership, it's challenging to lead yourself in times of crisis because we have. A hundred and plus years of dehumanizing everyone in the workplace. It is, it was designed, the system was designed to dehumanize so that it, you know, the people didn't matter.
The efficiency, the product, the outcome, the profit, whatever it was, that's the only thing that mattered because that was the industrial revolution to what you were saying. And we literally dehumanized people. [00:11:00] And we are now reaping the sarcastically benefits of that. We are really seeing what that means and one of the things that I always find fascinating is people will observe or hear about things that happen in the prison system, for example.
And we'll talk about how dehumanizing that is, and it is, and I want to be clear, I am absolutely not disagreeing with that statement, but by commenting on it the way it's done, it is distancing themselves from the reality of how it exists in their life, in their workplace. Where they are also dehumanized, just maybe not in an as extreme way, so the disconnect and that compartmentalization seems to just continue and build rather than, and it's not to say there are people talking about it, not enough, I don't think.
But yeah, [00:12:00] the, the speed of change that could happen to bring the humanity back to the workplace to change the mindsets of the leaders who are continuing to live lead in that way. It's just like, it's not fast enough. And that now that rooted leadership, understanding yourself and then grounding, however you want to whatever.
Language someone wants to use without that you then can't see if you can't see it in yourself. You can't see it
[00:12:37] Dimple Dhabalia: in other
[00:12:37] Céline Williams: people.
[00:12:38] Dimple Dhabalia: Exactly. Exactly. And you know, and the other part of this and this is something that I've been researching because I think it's going to be my next book. Um, but Is kind of the link between the, you know, in terms of the outcomes of the industrial revolution and looking at so so the dehumanization for sure.[00:13:00]
But the other piece of this is, you know, like, I think that we see a lot of workplace trauma. Being lumped under the umbrella of burnout. So we see like tons of articles about burnout and podcasts about burnout. And, and the thing is not everyone's burned out. I think that the reality is that there are a lot of people experiencing moral injury as a result of.
It's kind of like the outcome of the industrial revolution. Like, I think there is a direct tie there because again, because we were dehumanized to such an extent, and we created these, like these cultures of dehumanization within our workplaces, we It left people having to do things that contradict their own deeply held morals and beliefs because, and we tell ourselves like, Oh, well, that doesn't matter because I'm here to do this job.
But it's like, we [00:14:00] forget that again, I'm a human being and like, These things impact me. And so the impact of these actions that we're asked to take or the policies we're asked to uphold or whatever, the impact that that has on our mental health is, um, it's pretty stunning. And so, you know, so I think part of this is also understanding this concept of moral injury and talking about it in the workplace and addressing it so that, you know, because I, I've really like, I've been trying really hard in my work to think about, like, one thing that drives me nuts is when I'm online, like, on social media and stuff, and you see these, like, um, you know, these, these, like, inspirational things people have created, and it's all, like, they're so, like, blanket, and, you know, Um, you know, you just have to do this and everything will be great.
And I'm like, no, like, so even with things like moral injury, you know, each person is [00:15:00] different. And so I know that it's challenging, but at the same time, like, we have to start thinking in terms of these are individual human beings that bring their own stories and their own experiences to the lens through which that they're doing everything.
Right. And so how do we like start to think about it in those terms instead of just doing this overarching, you know, um, here's how you tackle burnout in your workplace. Like it doesn't, I don't know, like I, it really bothers me these days. And so I keep trying to figure out like how we get back to this place of, uh, really bringing in the humanity.
And, um, and understanding like how this is showing up for people. And so for me, like, I think a really great way to do this is, is in this idea of story healing and like being able to share our stories. And I know like that often for a lot of people, they're [00:16:00] like, wow, we're going to talk about storytelling in the workplace?
Like what? But you know, it would again, whatever. Terminology you want to use, but it's about creating space for people to come and share their experiences because on the one hand, while our experiences are unique to us, there is a common humanity in what we are experiencing. And when we see that others are experiencing similar things or, um, or we can understand where someone else is coming from, because we have now gotten to know them and we've gotten to understand like their, you know, um, Uh, it, it makes it, um, it starts to create those conditions for, you know, um, healing in the workplace.
You know, when we talk about healing root issues, what, something you said earlier that the systems were designed this way. I talk about that all the time too, that, you know, You know, people say, Oh, the systems are broken. The systems are broken. And we say, [00:17:00] no, the systems are not broken. They are doing exactly what they were designed to do again, because the people who created them had a certain lens through which they were creating them.
And so. When we want to be more inclusive and we want to be, you know, create those spaces of belonging, we have to broaden that lens, which means broadening those perspectives, creating a diversity of perspectives and bringing more people in. But we can't do that if, um, you know, if we're just kind of perpetuating the same cycles over and over and over again.
[00:17:33] Céline Williams: Yeah, it's, I love that. And I want to make a comment on the system and then go back to something else you said. So. I think that's a really, what you're saying about the systems is really important because I think oftentimes, at least what I see is. leaders or organizations trying to adapt the system in some way or fix the system in some way.
And the problem in [00:18:00] that, to your point, is that they were designed to do what they're doing. So you might tweak it slightly and it doesn't really change what it's creating because that system, a small tweak is not going to change the outcome that it's been creating for however long. And there's a lot of fear around doing something really differently, creating a new system.
Because, yeah, I mean, organizations have done it. There are ways of doing it. And it has worked, you know, whatever scale they were at. And not always, because lots of things don't work. But there's so much fear in doing that, that it seems to always come back to, and always is an extreme, but often come back to.
We'll just tweak the system, because we know it doesn't work, but we can make it. better. And it's like, but it's still the same thing.
[00:18:53] Dimple Dhabalia: Um,
[00:18:54] Céline Williams: and I took what the other thing I wanted to say is when you were talking about [00:19:00] storytelling in the workplace, um, I, so first and foremost, I want to hear more about your experience with that and kind of where that comes, where that comes from for you or what the, what it means to you, because.
One of the things that I do with leadership teams when I'm working with them, and we do, we often do retreats and things, and, um, it's a mix of people, and one of the things we do is we have people tell their story as part of the agenda, and we give them an approximate amount of time, many, we do that now, because the first time I did this, it was the People started telling their story, and it was like, some of them were so long, and emotional, and wonderful, and we didn't want to cut them off by any stretch.
And so now we timebox, and we have different, we have ways of asking certain questions, but the experience has [00:20:00] always been positive. The people on that team, they are much more connected after that. They understand each other much more. They ask questions differently. And people that join later on and have a version, even if it's a shortened version of that experience, especially if they're coming from a place that they've never done it, they're always nervous.
And every one of them, I have people I've worked with for years who refer back to the first time they did that. And then they use a different version with their teams and they adapt it. So I say, I'm asking your experience because I've seen a very microcosm impact of it in some of the work that I do.
Yeah. And I love it. And I don't hear people talking about this. So because you brought it up, I'm like, I want to know more about your experience and, and the impact and, you know, where it came from, all of that.
[00:20:53] Dimple Dhabalia: Yeah, definitely. So, uh, in my work, I call it, um, brave space. [00:21:00] So we work together to create brave space.
And it's specifically called brave space because it acknowledges that not for, especially for a lot of underserved or marginalized communities, there is no such thing as a safe space. And it also acknowledges our humanity, right? So when we gather in these whether it's to share our story or to talk about Like root issues that are often challenging to talk about, um, it acknowledges that we're not going to always say the right thing.
We might say the wrong thing. We might inadvertently hurt someone. Um, but it's about like acknowledging and taking ownership, right? So if that happens, I'm going to acknowledge it. I'm going to take ownership of it. Um, and it's about. recognizing that we're creating this, we're co creating, right? We're creating this space together by sharing parts of ourselves, and it's not going to be a perfect space, but it's the space that we're creating together.
And [00:22:00] so we always start out by creating that container together, um, especially for the bigger kind of Um, story circles, right? And so, um, and, and yeah, like, I, I love the idea of, of people's life stories. And so we'll often talk about origin stories, like what's your origin story for coming to this place to work, right?
Because a lot of times when people, especially when organizations are struggling, there's a loss of morale and there's a loss of feeling of. Purpose and connection. And when we go back to think about like, what is it that brought me here? Like sometimes that helps us get back into that place of like, Oh yeah, I came here because I wanted to make a difference in this way or whatever.
And we're reminded of that, which we often forget when we're in the thick of like the doing the job part. Right. And so, um, so I love that idea of like origin stories and things like that, but. You know, for me, like a lot of [00:23:00] times when I initially like bring this up with organizations, there is like some resistance and this feeling like, well, we don't have time for that.
And so what I always explain is like, you know, sharing our stories doesn't have to be like a I'd Half day retreat or, you know, or whatever, it can be something as simple as like these three minute story circles at the beginning of a meeting or, you know, where you just give people an opportunity to gather with two or three people in within the larger group to share a response to some kind of a prompt, you know.
And the more that we do this on a regular basis, people start to get to know each other. So the origin story and the bigger story, if you have the time, it's amazing. And to your point, I also have never done something like this where people walk away being like, Oh, that was such a waste of time. Like, yeah.
100 percent of the time people walk away like, Oh my gosh, I did not know that about that person. And it does start to shift their [00:24:00] perspective a little bit, but, but not everybody has that time to begin with. So, okay, fine. So we can carve out three minutes at the beginning of a meeting to, you know, to talk about something.
It doesn't have to be super deep or super, you know, even something as innocuous as like, you know, let's talk about, let's spend three minutes sharing what we did this weekend or whatever. Um, there's little details that come out from that, that start to again, it starts to help people see the humanity in each other.
So to your point, the antidote to dehumanization is helping people see the humanity in each other again. Right. And so I really think that these kinds of, um, moments of sharing just little details and. And I also tell people this, that this is not, we're not saying like, tell me every like sorted thing that's happened in your life.
That's like, tell me every trauma you've experienced. No, like you don't need to do that. We're not saying you need to share everything about your [00:25:00] life, but I struggle when people say like, Oh, this is just my workplace. This is not my family. This is not Okay, fine. We don't have to call it a family. Um, that's fine.
But, but you spend a significant amount of time in this place and it deserves to have like the relationships that you create in this space deserve the same level of attention because who wants to be miserable? Like if you have to go into work every day, who wants to be miserable in that space? We want to create spaces where we, Find joy, even if maybe the work itself, we're not crazy about or whatever, but we like going to work because we know that there are people there that we connect with and they make us feel seen and they make us feel heard and valued.
And at the end of the day, as human beings, that's all we want. Like that's our, our little nervous systems. That's all they're looking like it's looking for is just [00:26:00] to feel safe and being seen, being heard, being valued makes us feel safe. And so the more we do that, you know, when we look at all these workplace stressors and traumas, occupational traumas, uh, the more that we can start to balance, um, Our, you know, regulate our nervous system in real time.
And so this is like when I talk about self care, I, I look at self care as moments to regulate my nervous system in real time. And so I talk about like really targeted self care practices. So being able to check in with yourself multiple times during the day to say like, all right, where am I at? What do I need in this moment?
Um, and especially if you're feeling anxiety or whatever, to just pause for a minute to breathe and to notice, like, Where's this anxiety coming from? And is there something I can do to address it in this moment? Because the more we start to regulate our nervous systems in that way on an ongoing basis, the less we are going to be [00:27:00] susceptible to, you know, like the wider it, it, it makes our window of tolerance for stress.
Um, So that we are more adaptable and we are able to navigate those challenges with greater ease rather than, um, you know, just coming at it from this place of reaction because our nervous system is activated, you know?
[00:27:21] Céline Williams: So I have a, I have a observation and question as a result of that. Um, I have known some people, I have had the experience of some people Who would tell you that, um, that's not how they show up, that they, you know, they're, they would probably tell you that they're never anxious and that's not their experience and they are, you know, they're, they, they're really rational, they're rational people.
And so this whole emotional thing, that's not like, they don't really [00:28:00] worry about that because at work they look at the information and they make decisions and they're, it's just. logical and rational all the time. Brain, brain, brain, brain, brain, right? Yeah. No feelings. And I'm, by the way, I'm saying this and I'm sure we all know at least one person or have known at least one person that would fall into this category.
A hundred percent. Um, and so they would, and I've seen them do it, resist all of this because they don't need to, they don't need to check in with, they know what's going on. They understand themselves. They can read themselves and when they react, they say that's because this is wrong or this wasn't done or what, you know, they have a, an answer for their reaction that has nothing to do with anxiety or not, like, of course not.
So when you think of someone [00:29:00] like that, because they exist in the world. 100 percent This sort of practice that you're talking about is. It's even more important and how do you get through to someone who is like, I don't feel feelings. What are you talking about? I'm totally logical and rational all the time because they truly, if they could name more than three feelings, it would be a miracle.
[00:29:25] Dimple Dhabalia: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's just it. Right. We don't, we aren't taught to name our feelings. We know, like we know our basic feelings and we tend to like rely on those, right. Anything deeper. And we're like, and so, um, but this is why I like neuroscience. Because I think when you approach it from this perspective of, you know what?
Let's talk about what's actually happening in your brain, um, and in your body in these moments that that's fine. You don't feel any emotions. Okay. Let me tell you how, uh, When your nervous system is [00:30:00] activated, especially within the workplace context, there are five ways, five types of reactions. And so the first is fight, which we all know, but the way that fight shows up is it shows up as blame.
It shows us, shows up as criticism. It shows up as judgment and all of those can be directed. Towards others or towards ourselves. So we start to notice, okay, am I, am I blaming? Am I criticizing? Am I judging? Oh, guess what? My, my nervous system is activated. And then flight. So flight is where we don't want to be.
So when someone says something like this, they're in flight mode. Because when we're in flight mode, we don't want to be connected to our emotions. So we do anything we can to get away from them. So this may be physically getting up and leaving a space rather than interacting with people. Um, but it's also Like a mental, [00:31:00] you know, fleeing, right?
So this is where we see a lot of addictions. Um, whether it's alcoholism, workaholism, um, this is where we see a lot of like binge watching television for hours on end, right? Anything that we can do to not have to actually deal with our emotions is our flight, um, reaction being activated. And then there's fix.
So fix is Um, sorry, next is freeze. And so freeze is like, um, uh, you know, paralysis by analysis. We're overthinking everything. We cannot make a decision. We cannot move forward. We're just stuck. And so if, if we start to notice that that's how we're feeling, okay, my flight. Uh, my, sorry, my freeze reaction has been activated.
And then the two that are less common that people don't know about are fix and fake. So fix is like these if then propositions. So we play this game with [00:32:00] ourselves where we tell ourselves, okay, well, if I could just be a little more productive, like if I just work a few longer hours, then my organization will think that I am, um, you know, worthy of this position or, uh, more, you know, Like, um, you know, they'll be happier to have me there.
Like we, we, we create these scenarios in our mind, which are all about changing ourselves to fit into what we believe we need to be in order to please other people. And, uh, And so if we're noticing that we're trying to people please in some way or trying to change ourselves, it usually stems from a, um, a feeling of unworthiness.
And so again, we're not going to know that, um, emotion necessarily, or that feeling like, Oh, I feel unworthy, but that's where it's coming from. And so we're trying to change ourselves so that we fit into this space because we think we need to do that. [00:33:00] And then the last one is fake. That's the place where I think a lot of leaders live.
Um, and fake is really about where we do not want to show any vulnerability. We do not want to show that we don't know something, right? Uh, we don't want to say, well, I don't know because that's not what leaders are supposed to do. And this is where we see the Like perfectionism and perfectionistic tendencies often be born because there's such a like feeling and pressure to be all things and do all things and exist in this space as though you are like infallible and like, you know, everything.
That we start to create these very, um, untenable expectations for ourselves, and we hold ourselves to the super high standard and it's not sustainable over the course of a career, right? And, but the problem with this is that the more that we are creating these conditions for [00:34:00] ourselves, we are then creating them for our team as well.
So this, I, I went through this, this was one of my first major leadership roles. And. The more that I just got more and more rigid and like, we're going to do it this way. And you know, if you don't like it, you can leave. I mean, I was like, I was, it was not my finest leadership moment. And, um, and, you know, and It's only in looking back that I was able to see like, Oh, wow.
Like I, I was doing this because I thought I was doing this for myself. Like, Oh, I, I'm good at this. I can do this. But in reality, I was creating this space for my team that was so toxic. Right. And so this is where, so, so when I encounter leaders who. Make statements like that, that, you know, I, I'm rational.
I'm this, I'm that we go through these five, you know, um, reactions. [00:35:00] And, and I asked like, well, do you ever see any of these reactions in yourself? Because again, this is a very like mind, body science related, you know, it's not just purely emotional. This is what's actually happening. Your nervous system is being react.
Like reactive, uh, are activated and it's now reacting. Um, so that's like the first thing. And then the second part of this is when you have leaders who make statements like that, excuse me, you know that there's often, I'm so sorry.
[00:35:32] Céline Williams: All good.
[00:35:33] Dimple Dhabalia: Um, kind of a lack of self awareness, right? And so we want to, so again, if you noticed as I was going through those, I was saying we start to notice this in ourselves, right?
So this is part of it is we want to get to the point where we start to notice like, Okay, how am I reacting in a situation? I might think like I'm cool and collected, but really let me pause and look at what I'm doing here. And, and am I reacting in one of these five ways? [00:36:00] Okay, then I know that my nervous system is activated and a good way to do this honestly is, is ask some of your peers or people that you really trust and ask them, hey, in that situation, did I react?
Like, how did I react? And because oftentimes we can't see it. Right. Because we're so in it. And so get people that you trust to tell you. Yeah. You know what? Your tone was a little like this. Oh, okay. Then maybe this actually was activated. And so once we start to notice, um, What's coming up for us. We can name it, right?
So now we can name the reactions. Um, we can name the underlying emotions because we start to dig a little bit deeper and then that allows us to navigate through whatever the situation is. And so I always say that as we start to introduce self awareness, we have to couple it with self compassion because Uh, when we get to this point where we're starting to notice our patterns and our you know, like how we react [00:37:00] to things Um, and we decide like oh i'm gonna change that.
I don't want to be that person Uh, we will ultimately backslide because that's what we do so Uh, but what happens is when people backslide then they're really really hard on themselves Um, and I think it's really important for us to be able to talk to ourselves first of all, and then second, that they often give up.
They're like, well, you know, screw this. Like I, it's too hard. Like, I'm not going to worry about it, but if we can bring in some self compassion and talk to ourselves as we would talk to somebody that we really care about, um, which is so crazy to me that it's so hard to care for ourselves as much as we care for other people, even though we 24 seven, but, you know, um, But yeah, and so I always think that self awareness and self compassion go hand in hand.
And so I think, you know, for me, when I approach it this way, like through the science of it and through the, like really getting people to kind of be honest about with themselves about, you know, like how do these reactions show up for me and getting them to [00:38:00] understand that. Again, this doesn't make you a bad person, right?
There's no judgment here. It's, it's just, this is how as human beings, again, are that fight, you know, that, um, reaction system is there to protect us. It's, it's believing that it's protecting us in this moment. And so we want to embrace it and say, thank you, and then put it aside because we're not in danger in this moment, but we do need to be able to respond, uh, with intention and With a clear mind, which when we're in reaction mode, we can't, and if we can't see it, it's even worse because now we're reacting and people around us are now reacting and it creates this big mess.
So again, this idea of leading through crisis, we want to be self aware, we want to be compassionate, and we want to be able to regulate our nervous systems so that. Also, we can help others co regulate with us because if we show up grounded and rooted in that way, [00:39:00] uh, the mirror neurons in our brain make it possible for others to then ground and root themselves as well so that they are not no longer in that space of reaction either.
[00:39:09] Céline Williams: Yeah.
[00:39:10] Dimple Dhabalia: Um,
[00:39:11] Céline Williams: thank you for that. And thank you for the, the, um, explanation, the five examples. I think that's really helpful because I think a lot of times people don't know. I think many people have heard of fight, fight, flight, or freeze. It's so hard for me to say those in order. And some may have heard of fawning, and I don't think many people have heard of them in the workplace or what specific workplace reactions are.
So I appreciate that context and I think it's really helpful for, for folks to hear that. Truly.
[00:39:48] Dimple Dhabalia: Yeah. Well, and there's actually something I just read an article recently. There's something like 20 different reactions that our nervous system has. These five, I think are very specific to the [00:40:00] workplace. Um, and maybe outside of life.
I mean, outside of work too, but, um, but in my book, I talk about them as our surviving stories because. Like, we all have these, like, shaping stories. That's what starts us out, right? So, the experiences and, um, encounters that we've had in our life that shape our, like, the lens through which we see and experience the world and our place in it.
And so, those stories shape everything we do. It shapes every decision we make, um, the choices that we make, and I think, really, the career paths that we ultimately end up taking, those shaping stories. And a lot of them happen early on in our childhood. And those lead to survival reactions. And so these become our surviving stories.
And so we have very distinct patterns. And so depending on, uh, the situation, you know, you may have like fight. And fix in a particular situation, [00:41:00] or maybe it's flea and, um, freeze, you know, like, or sometimes it's all five of them. Um, and so one of the things that I work closely with leaders on is really like starting to notice what are my patterns.
So what, what were my shaping stories and what were the corresponding surviving stories that, that led me into this like loop of, um, reaction so that we can then get to the point of what I call seeing and that's that point at which we start to create the self awareness around it so that we can then shift and we can start creating new stories because because so many of these stories were created at such an early age in our life they've created these deeply etched neural pathways in our brains and so when we are When we encounter a situation like that, our nervous system automatically, um, well, the, uh, our amygdala kind of, you know, goes into action and we default into [00:42:00] one of these neural pathways and that's why we react in a certain way.
And so we want to be able to create, and that's the beauty, like we now know that because of something called neuroplasticity, that we can actually create new neural pathways. Um, but. You have to repeat those actions. Like, um, I want to say somebody told me recently was something like 400 times or something before you start to create a new neural pathway.
I could be wrong on that. I might have to look that up, but, um, so it's possible, but we have to keep doing it. And that's where that self compassion comes in to be able to help us keep coming back to keep doing it so we can shift and make new neural pathways that are going to better serve us so that.
When we are then in that moment of crisis, we're now defaulting into, um, a way of being, not a reaction, but a way of being that's actually grounded and able to think clearly [00:43:00] and lead people through this moment. And then the last piece of that whole cycle is sharing our stories. And so this is again, where.
We now start to share our stories and our experiences with other people to create that sense of connection and common humanity that, um, again, just keeps us in that space of a regulated nervous system because we feel safe because we are with others who understand us.
[00:43:24] Céline Williams: Hmm.
[00:43:25] Dimple Dhabalia: I love
[00:43:25] Céline Williams: that. Um, and again, thank you for sharing that process.
I think it's really, I love the language that you've put around it and I think it's really important work for people to be doing and spending the time on that. Um, before we wrap this up, I'm going to ask a question that is unrelated to all of this, but I'm curious, what is it that you are most proud of this year, speaking of stories and Oh my gosh.
What is it that you're most proud of this year? Because you've had a, [00:44:00] first of all, your book is incredible, and you've had a year of touring it and talking about it. I know you're recording an audio book, so it doesn't have to be book related, but you've had a really cool year.
[00:44:12] Dimple Dhabalia: I feel almost guilty talking about how good of a year I've had.
Because I know so many people are struggling and sad, and I'm just like, I am so grateful, like so grateful. Um, yeah, like all the book related stuff has been amazing and has been really, really great. Um. I think, you know, um, having the book excerpted in the Stanford Social Innovation Review was something I was really proud of.
Um, but I will say, um, as odd as this is going to sound, um, I, this year I took a plant based storytelling class, which has been life changing because [00:45:00] it, was so different from anything I've ever done. And it was really about this idea of like, you know, we, we tend to look at plants and trees and stuff as these, these things in our orbit, but we don't really stop to consider the role they play in creating time and place and, um, You know, as living beings having witnessed so much of history that we have not or that we will not, right.
And because they are here for much longer than we are. And so it's been really fascinating to, um, to kind of explore a lot of these topics. Through that lens of, um, and so what I'm, what I'm really excited about is, um, I, I launched a new thing this year called a route. Um, and that is really about, um, it was after the elections, the U.
S. elections. And I, [00:46:00] was entering my era of divine rage and trying to figure out how to harness that. Um, and I really just started thinking about this idea of rooting as an act of resistance and community building and healing. And it's been so interesting to look at a lot of these topics like moral injury or like.
Um, you know how we relate to each other in the workplace through that lens, which has been fascinating. Um, and so I'm really, really proud of that. And some of the really creative kind of things that have come out of that. Um, and then I am just about to launch something called the rooted leader, which, um, will take a lot of these same topics, But approach them more through that leadership lens.
So, um, I know that's all work related in a way, but, um, I have to say this year, that is what I'm most proud of because, um, yeah, it's been, it's been a really, really good year. So I [00:47:00] love that. Thank you for sharing.
[00:47:01] Céline Williams: Yeah, if people are interested in learning more about your writing specifically as you're talking about, you know, rooted and where, what, where's the best place for them to do that?
[00:47:12] Dimple Dhabalia: Yeah. So if you go to substack, you can find me at dimp story, D I M P as in Peter story. Yep. Um, and that lists. It's like all the different publications. So that'll have root. It'll have the rooted leader. Um, so that's the best place. And then my book is available at all, uh, major online retailers. Um, so yeah, you can, you can buy it anywhere and it's in some bookstores here in the U.
S. as well. Um, but, uh, it's definitely available online. So please go and buy it and if you like it, uh, please leave a review and we'll link to
[00:47:49] Céline Williams: it. Um, having read your book, it's amazing and I recommend it to every one of the listeners. So we'll definitely have a link to it. Um, you're welcome. Thank you for coming on and [00:48:00] sharing today.
I really appreciate it.
[00:48:02] Dimple Dhabalia: Yeah, it was my pleasure. Thanks again for having me. Anytime.
[00:48:06] Céline Williams: Thanks for joining me today on the Leading Through Crisis podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.
leadingthroughcrisis. ca