ABSTRACT
A primary aim in Breakthrough Conversations is to support clients to recognise and regulate their emotions. Attending to body–brain states provides a powerful technique for identifying and managing emotions and for enhancing self-awareness. Opening up this terrain of interior subjectivity also paves the way for fostering greater curiosity about the emotional states underpinning the behaviour of others. Drawing on key areas of brain science – differentiations in the key structures of the brain, polyvagal theory, heart rate variability and an understanding of the hormones associated with different emotional states– I propose a distinction between three body–brain systems: the RED, AMBER, and GREEN systems. These systems underpin three characteristic patterns of relating to others, and they shape whether conversations are productive or unproductive. By recognising these different body–brain states, clients can become more self-aware. Using a combination of guided reflection and indicative clues from body sensations, and non-verbal and verbal behaviours, clients can be supported to recognise RAG states in themselves and others. The very act of inviting clients to observe and discriminate experiences in terms of the RAG categories requires conscious intention, implicitly activating the GREEN/reflective system, and so in itself plays a part in fostering the basis for Breakthrough Conversations. This chapter focuses on the development of body–brain awareness. In the next chapter I expand this investigation of awareness beyond the body–brain to other domains of experience that impact conversational effectiveness.
