June 2025 - Neuroscience Behaviour Approach

So, maybe this sounds a little heavy for someone dedicated to simplifying and decluttering their life. But I am really excited to have taken part in a 10 day (over 6 months) course, centered on understanding human behaviour through this specific lens. I feel like what I have learnt is really going to up my coaching game and give some new tools and approaches to use - which ultimately will benefit you.

The NBA is based on the idea that we have four "governances" within our brains, each one offering a different perspective on a situation. We access these governances unconsciously, but it is possible to become aware of which one is leading us in certain situations and then ultimately that provides us the opportunity to switch governances if we are not getting what we want from a situation. Switching governances is not so simple of course but just knowing there is a way is encouraging. A bit like when we become aware that we can choose our mindset - sounds simple but requires some work!

The four governances are called:

Instinctive: This one is what we most commonly know as fight, flight or freeze and encompasses those instinctive stress responses. (There are a couple of others but those are the main ones)

Gregarious: The easiest way to explain this is in the context of the jungle! Everyone has an unconscious "set point" as to their dominance vs. submission and their integration style. Much like the animals in the jungle know who they can fight with or eat and who they need to avoid. This set point is decided from around age 10/11 and again its largely unconscious but as humans we are also looking to stabilise this set point when we are in a group environment.

Emotional: This is about our likes and dislikes as well as how we would like others to think of us. Our reputation is quite important in emotional governance and once you delve deeper you will see there are different motivations depending on whether it is something we truly like, something we think we should like or something we wish we liked!

In emotional governance we also see patterns of behaviour that are not always helpful - sometimes borne into us by embarrassing or difficult experiences in childhood. For example not wanting to "show off", or not believing we are "good enough".

Adaptive: This is the most resourceful governance for dealing with complex or new situations. It is where we find the ability to hold different view points without making judgements, be assertive and be able to express our true opinions (without concern for how we appear to others). In this governance we are not exhibiting automatic behaviour or biases. It can be tiring to access this governance but if we want to change our behaviour, thoughts or cycles then this is where we need to be.

Across these governances there are a total of fifteen different "containers" which are even more specific behaviour nuances but I will leave it there for today.

Please do get in touch if this interests you, as if there is sufficient interest I will put together a workshop to do a bit of a deeper dive on the topic.