When the Musk Ox Wears a Name Badge

Twice in Alaska, I've had the, uh, er, pleasure of encountering a very unhappy musk ox. Once at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and once at the Alaska Zoo.

Both times, the animal made its displeasure with our presence known by charging the fence.

And both times, we jumped. Hearts racing, adrenaline flowing because our threat detection system went off as designed.  

However, once we realized the fence was doing its job and we were safe, something interesting happened. We could stand there and watch. Instead of reacting to the musk ox, we became observers of its behavior.

And it was fascinating. Both the animal's power and behavior, and the experience change of becoming the observer.

A few months after that second musk ox encounter, I was talking with someone who described a familiar physiological response.

Only in their situation, it wasn’t a musk ox, it was a supervisor.

Every one-on-one meeting seemed to trigger the same response: a flushed face, racing heart, tension, and the urge to hide.

As we explored what was happening, they recognized that the supervisor's comments, which many would agree came across as demeaning, threatened their sense of value and respect.

David Rock's SCARF model identifies five social needs that influence our threat and reward responses: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness.

For this person, the threat was primarily to their sense of status. Their internal narrative sounded something like:

I don't matter. I'm not valued here. I'm going to lose my job.

Their brain was detecting a threat, and their body was responding accordingly.

I shared my musk ox story and what happened once we realized we were safe and could simply observe the animal's behavior.

When I asked what that brought to mind, their first response was wonderfully tongue-in-cheek. Imagining the supervisor as an animal at the zoo was pretty funny. (Though that was not the point of the story). 

But they realized something more important.

They realized they could anticipate what might happen in these meetings, recognize and name what was being threatened and their own threat response, remind themselves they aren’t being charged by a muskox, they were safe, and shift into observing the interaction rather than being consumed by their reaction.

That allowed for space to choose how they wanted to respond.

And that mattered because they had goals for how they wanted to show up, including the behavior they wanted to role-model for others in the department, and for the things they needed to ask for.

They also recognized that managing the interaction didn't mean their body would instantly settle afterward. They might still need a reset. A short walk, a few quiet minutes, deep breaths, something tactile, or whatever helped them unwind before returning to the rest of their day.

None of this made the supervisor's behavior acceptable. Nor did it mean they couldn't address it.

But they now had a plan. They could anticipate, recognize, observe, choose, and reset.

They couldn't control the supervisor's behavior. But they had more choice about their own.

And that was empowering.

Reflection:

• Consider a time when you had a fight-or-flight response to an interpersonal interaction. Which of the SCARF model components felt threatened?

• What might be possible if, next time, you recognized and named that threat response for yourself?

• What might change for you, if you then became the observer of the interaction?