Shark Music

Rachel Morris: This is a You are Not a Frog quick dip, a tiny taster of the kinds of things we talk about on our full podcast episodes. I’ve chosen today’s topic to give you a helpful boost in the time it takes to have a cup of tea, so you can return to whatever else you’re up to feeling energised and inspired. For more tools, tips and insights to help you thrive at work, don’t forget to subscribe to You are Not a Frog wherever you get your podcasts.

This week on our quick dip episode, I want to talk about shark music. I remember quite a few years ago, when the kids were really little, I went on a parenting course with my other half and some of our friends. Now, I can’t remember much about the parenting course, only that it was pretty good and pretty helpful, but I do remember one video that they showed us. So they showed us a video, from the viewer’s perspective, of somebody walking down a path towards a beautiful beach.

From the perspective in the video, we pass some gorse bushes, some beautiful plants and some shrubs, and then, it opened out onto this wonderful view of a beach. There were some lovely rock formations in the distance and the waves were gently lapping the shore. The sun was shining. The sky was blue and the water was gorgeous. We’ve watched this feeling totally relaxed, just wishing we could be there. Then, they played the video again.

This time, they put some shark music in the background, so that Jaws theme solid ‘dun-dun, dun-dun’. So as we were walking on this path surrounded by beautiful plants and shrubs, we got to the ocean and all we could hear was ‘dun-dun, dun-dun’. We looked into the water expecting to see a shark anywhere. The scene suddenly turned from a beautiful idyllic relaxing scene to something that was really quite stressful.

Now, those of you that have watched the film Jaws know that it’s not a particularly scarily visual film. I mean, the shark is made from paper mache, I think, or fibreglass or something that won’t melt in the water. At some points, you can see that it is really been constructed really, very, very simply. It is not a scary shark, but what’s really scary about that film is the music. It’s before we’ve even seen the shark.

It’s our imagination of what is going on below the surface. It’s the way that that music just tricks us into thinking there is going to be something bad happening at any point. Actually, when you do see it, the shock is a bit of a relief because it doesn’t move at all, and it’s the most wooden thing you’ve ever seen. Anyway, that shark music is now iconic, isn’t it? But so often, we have the shark music going on for us in all these different situations.

So I was chatting with a friend the other day, and she was working with someone who was really quite difficult to work with. She really needed their advice, but every time she emailed them, she got this shark music in the background ‘dun-dun, dun-dun’. What sort of reply am I going to get? Is it going to be patronising it? Is it going to be difficult? Are they going to criticise me? They’re going to tell me that I’ve done something wrong.

So this was causing her all sorts of anxiety and stress, and it got me thinking about all those other times in our lives when we have the shark music going on in the background. I know that when I was growing up, my friends were really, really important to me, and they still are really, really important to me.

For me, not being invited to something or thinking that other people are doing stuff without me makes me really anxious, so that when one of my children tells me that they haven’t been invited to something like a party, or they might have been left out ‘dun-dun, dun-dun’. Immediately, I’m triggered. I’ve got the shark music in the background that triggers me more, then say that I’m not getting a great grade in a subject or something like that, because I’m projecting what happened to me as a child and my fears onto them.

I’m sure you’ve experienced this when perhaps a child who has had issues with eating just says that they’re not hungry or doesn’t want something, ‘dun-dun, dun-dun’, that shark music again in the background. Now, this shark music comes at different times for all of us. They might be very, very different different things that we’re all triggered by. Sometimes when we see particular relatives, ‘dun-dun, dun-dun’, we get the shark music in the background, and then it feels like they just can’t say or do anything right.

I’m sure you’ve noticed people that you know really well tend to be completely different people when they’re with their in-laws, for example, and they react in ways that you know they would never normally react. That is because of the shark music going on in their heads. What does the shark music imply? It implies an assumption that things are going to go very wrong very, very quickly, that they are in danger.

The problem with shark music is that it starts playing even when there aren’t any sharks based on our own assumptions, and we can get shark music about our patients, about our friends, about our colleagues, about situations that we’ve experienced before that have upset us or that have been really difficult. We apply that shark music to any of the new situations that come across, that we come across.

I remember I was working at a new surgery once, and I saw a patient who was perfectly pleasant. So with him and his wife, we prescribed what we needed to do, and he left happy, I think. Immediately after that appointment, I went to the the staff room for coffee, and one of the other doctors said to me, oh, no, I see you’ve got someone still on your list. Oh, it’s gonna be really, really difficult. I’m so sorry that he’s come to see you, blah, blah, blah.

They didn’t realise that I’d already seen this patient. I was so grateful that I’d already seen them, because if I had seen them after I’d had that conversation, my knowledge would have been really tainted. Yes, this patient had been really, really difficult and had made several complaints about this other doctor, and obviously, something had gone on there, but I didn’t know about it.

I could see them with a beginner’s mind completely, untainted by previous assumptions of what they’re like. So often, we go in with these assumptions, and the reason why our minds jump to these assumptions is because we believe they’re going to keep us safe, because our amygdala, our threat detection system that I talk about all the time, our amygdala looks for threats. It doesn’t look for happy things.

It looks for threats, so it will always see the tiger where there isn’t one. It will always make those assumptions saying, well, look what happened to you last time to keep you safe. It’s much better if we just assume the worst. But assuming the worst means that we’re quite often in our fight, flight or freeze state before anything’s even happened. We end up reacting, which then gets a similar reaction from the person we’re speaking to, and there we go.

History is repeating itself, or it’s been fulfilled what we thought was going to happen anyway. I remember when I was growing up, we had a student who would often come around to our house to have a shower. I’ve no idea why he didn’t have any showers in his hall of residence, but it was the 1980s. Anyway, Steve would turn up and he was always so friendly. Everybody liked Steve and he’d come have a chow, come have a chat with family and off we’d go.

Then, somebody told me Steve’s philosophy on life. Steve’s philosophy on life was if you assume that everybody’s gonna like you, then they probably will. What a great assumption to have. He had decided that he was not going to have that shark music in the background for him when he was meeting new people. He was going to assume the best. So assuming the best is always the way to beat the shark music.

Assume good intent from that person in front of you, assume that they’re not out to get you, assume that actually probably they’re much more worried about themselves and getting what they need. Don’t assume that things are done for a malicious reason. Often, they’re done because of ignorance, because people don’t know the right thing to do. People often aren’t out to get you. So giving people the benefit of the doubt can really help to get rid of that shark music.

Secondly, what we need to do is actually identify when we get that shark music. It’s gonna be different for everybody. For me, it’s around friendships and things like that quite often. For me, it’s if I feel that I haven’t done enough to help someone, and I might be implicitly criticised.

I sometimes get that shark music because I know I forget to do things and I can be quite disorganised sometimes. But for some of you, there will be some shark music that comes up that’s related to stuff that happened in the past, bad experiences that you’ve had, or even your biggest fears for the future. Let’s face it. One thing we are very good at doing is projecting into the future to catastrophising, to thinking we know what people are thinking to think of it’s all going to go completely wrong.

Recognise what triggers you, recognise when you’ve got that shark music playing in the background. Catch yourself doing it, and then here’s what I’d like you to do. I’d like you to ask yourself in this situation here, if I knew that everything was going to be okay, how would I be responding right here, right now? If I knew it was going to be alright, how would I be acting?

Because if you knew that, then actually, if you knew that the shark wasn’t going to eat you, that actually there wasn’t a shark, you’d be jumping straight into that water. You’d be having a lovely swim, and you wouldn’t be hyper vigilant. You wouldn’t be shouting at the kids to stay in the shallows where I can see you and watch out. You’d just be enjoying life. You’d be in your parasympathetic zone rather than your sympathetic fight, flight or freeze zone, and you’d be responding much, much better.

So I just wanted to talk to you about shark music. For me, recognising when it’s happening to me is really, really important. Going in with beginner’s mind, trying to get rid of any assumptions about how I feel people are going to act, giving people the benefit of the doubt and then asking that killer question, if I knew it was going to be okay, how would I be behaving right now?

So try it next time you’re in your shark music mode, and just see what happens. I’d love to hear any of your comments and any of your thoughts and I’ll see you for the next quick tip episode. Bye for now.