... I hope so!

We all might perceive irritation as uncertainty, something tending to provoke a rather negative feeling, right?

Stop saving energy!

According to the latest brain research and renowned educators, such as G. Hüther or R. Arnold, a perceived irritation is clearly an opportunity. A chance to absorb and retain a new piece of information in a sustainable way, i.e. to learn. Of course, we are not talking about physical irritation here, but about psychological one. So if you wonder why your conversation partner, for example, no longer listens, or reacts differently than you expected, then the point has come when you are given the chance to learn. Yey!

Irritation is the result of incoherence in our brain. Something you see, hear or feel simply does not match what your brain would have expected. Since we unfortunately evaluate too fast in today's time, the brain plays the 1st trick on us here: it quickly saves information without reflection. Because evaluation routines have the advantage that we do not have to motivate ourselves for lateral thinking or reflection every time anew. That saves energy at last. And our brain always wants to save energy. In the end it's all about physics: thermodnamic laws simply rule us (aside hormones :-) ).

That basically means:

adult brains rather refuse to learn, the older they get.

That's why irritation is often overwritten and you get angry or think you have to teach your conversation partner. A child, which is not yet as fixed and shaped as our adult brains, does one thing naturally out of reflex: it asks questions. Irritation thus drives it literally to learn.

For this reason, the non-comfort zone is my favorite zone. In our comfort zone, our brain is not very motivated, because the familiar is closer to us than the unknown, because overwriting our experienced learnings would require too much energy again! So what's the point of learning something new? Emotions are therefore a basic prerequisite for sustainable learning, and I place them specifically in my workshops. It's all about human interactions. So I am looking forward to successful, irritating, but above all humorous workshops with you and your organization.

Theresa Irresberger