The Meeting That Stays With You

Somebody I’m working with recently spoke about a meeting they couldn't get out of their head.

It had been two days previously, but it was still running on a loop at the back of their mind. 

Churning with the things they wished they'd said. Playing through, rewinding and starting again.

I knew exactly what they meant. It was something I'd done many times and still happens on occasion.

I feel it as a weight in the pit of my stomach. The thoughts rolling round my skull like a relentless ferris wheel. The conversation is over but my body is still working it through.

For a long time I thought that replaying it was useful. 

That if I ran the conversation enough times I'd find the thing I'd missed, satisfy myself I was 'right'. So I let it persist, even feeding it. It felt like a diligent approach.

It wasn't. I never solved anything on the Nth loop that I hadn't seen on the first.

The churning wasn't thinking. It was my body still braced for a meeting that had ended hours/days ago, looking for somewhere to put what it was still holding.

That's the trick of it. The loop feels like work. It feels urgent and important, like it's getting somewhere. It isn't. It's just picking at the scab rather than cleaning it and putting a dressing on..

At senior levels, meetings carry more weight. More is at stake, more is exposed, more is riding on how you show up. And that can land after the room has emptied, where it's just you and the loop. 

I'd like to tell you I've been able to stop this. I haven't.

What's changed is that I now know the signs. When the wheel starts I can name it for what it is. Not a problem I'm working on. Just the body still running after the danger has passed. 

It doesn't switch it off. But it stops me mistaking the churning for thinking, and that helps me not feed it.

The pressure of the role is real and it's mostly unavoidable. What it does to us outside of office hours is the part nobody talks about.

What are you still carrying from a conversation that's already over?

The Meeting That Stays With You