Cathy's blog

We have this expression in my mother tongue:

"I was standing there with my mouth full of teeth" 

Meaning: I had no clue what to say.

That used to happen to me ALL THE TIME!

When someone asked me a question and I didn’t immediately have THE answer.
Or when someone would be rude.
Or say something hurtful.

Or even when someone oozed just a little bit too much confidence 😉.

I’d just shut down. Like my brain stopped working.

And then I would wake up at 4AM the next day, with at least 4 brilliant comebacks. Where were those comebacks when I needed them??

Wanna know how I got rid of this annoying reaction?

1. I learned that it’s me — not them.
   
   You know how they say that, yes you can end up in a bad relationship by mistake once. Maybe even twice. But when it becomes a pattern? It’s probably you.
   
   And the same is true for this brain freeze of mine (no ice-cream involved — sadly!) I needed to own it. It was no one else’s fault. I froze. I needed to learn how to unfreeze.
   
   That might not sound like good news, but it IS. Because if it’s me — I can fix it 😊
    
2. I learned to recognize my patterns
   
   Even though I felt like I ALWAYS froze — in reality it only happened with certain people and in certain circumstances.
   
   Some of my usual suspects?
   That boss who never looked me in the eye.
   That client who ended every conversation with “yes, but” so we’d be back to square one.
   And meetings with unknown agenda’s.
    
3. I found a way to prepare myself better for brain-freeze-moments
   
   Now that I knew in which situations and with which specific people my brain went on strike, I could DO something about it. I could prepare myself. I could ask myself:
   
   What usually happens in these situations?
   What are my triggers? What pushes my red buttons?
   What are my brilliant 4AM post-freeze scenarios, and how could they help me next time?
   How would I deal with this same situation, if it were with someone else?

Preparing helps you feel... prepared! More confident. Less easy to throw off balance.

Give it a try 😉

You got this!