Trudi West
August 27, 2026
)
If it’s awkward and avoidable – why do it? Trudi West reveals how microdosing “itchy armpit moments” helps us not only learn about who we are, but determine who we can become.
“That was really awkward! Why would you make us do that? That would never happen in real life!”
This was shouted at me during a face-to-face workshop. I was working with a group of senior leaders that had previously only met virtually. In the run up to this workshop, they had asked for it to be more experiential as they said they wanted to feel challenged.
This is what I do at Hult Ashridge Executive Education. I work with leaders to stretch their understanding of themselves through experiences and reflection, with just enough theory to hang their hat on. In this case, the exercise was simple: spend two minutes checking in with another participant, in silence.
This uncomfortable high-stress situation is an example of what I call an “itchy armpit moment”. Partly because in “risky” environments, adrenaline is released, which can activate sweat glands in the armpits. And mostly because, many years ago, my friend drove too fast around a roundabout. As she described her experience, her aunt asked, “Did you get itchy armpits?” On reflection, she realized she had!
Itchy armpit moments – Trudi West at TEDxHultAshridge
Itchy armpit moments
I have been interested in what happens under pressure since my time as a runner and then as a broker on an open outcry trading floor. Now, as a development practitioner working with senior leaders, I am fascinated by how pressure impacts how we trust ourselves, make decisions, take risks, and behave.
I believe that itchy armpit moments can disrupt not only our everyday experience but also our sense of identity. Surprisingly small disruptions can reveal a lot about our comfort zones and mental shortcuts, as well as the inner narratives we hold about judgment, power, criticism and risk.
Tuning into these helps us distinguish between hunches, assumptions and the voice of our inner critic. Noticing makes it possible to challenge presumptions about what we can and cannot do.
To explore this, I have developed breaching experiments. First developed by Garfinkel (1967), breaching experiments intentionally disrupt everyday expectations. These small experiential exercises (like the silent check in) when coupled with reflection, help leaders develop the capacity to hear their inner voice and notice their habits and presumptions. From here, they can begin to discern what is really at risk.
When we can safely and intentionally experiment with what may feel risky “in here”, we can better develop our response when things may be risky “out there”. For example, when doing something different at work like having a difficult conversation, or speaking truth to power.
Finding your edge
Participants are often surprised by the range of responses they can have in those two minutes. Some people gesture wildly to communicate while others stare at the floor. Some write things down while others find themselves bonding through their shared silence. It quickly becomes apparent to everyone just how much their inner voice is shaping their experience beyond what is, in effect, a room full of people sitting together in silence for just two minutes.
Finding the edge of the breach is key. For example, another breaching experiment is to have dinner by yourself. When I did this, I realized having a phone or a book with me made it feel much easier. So, the next time I did it, I left them behind. I ended up journalling on the back of a napkin. I told myself that was “allowed”. Anything, rather than face what was really going on: I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me.
A participant later challenged the exercise, explaining that he regularly ate alone while traveling and enjoyed striking up conversations with locals. When I suggested he have dinner by himself on a Tuesday night in his hometown, he responded with an emphatic – “Oh no, I’m not doing that!”
His experience traveling tells the story of a person who is adventurous “out there”. His reaction to doing the same thing at home revealed what felt risky for him “in here”.
Try these breaching experiments for yourself
Go out for dinner on your own in your hometown without a phone or a book
Wear an unexpected item of clothing all day without explanation
Go to the cinema alone and watch whatever film is next
Drive at precisely the speed limit (presuming it is safe to)
Ask someone three questions you have never asked anyone before
It is best not to think too deeply about what you think will happen. Just decide to experiment and explore what occurs.
When you can hear and challenge the stories you are telling yourself, you will learn to differentiate what feels risky “in here” from what is, or isn’t, risky “out there” because you can hear and challenge the stories you are telling yourself. The insights that arise can be so rich that eventually, experiments and reflection become part of your everyday.
Microdosing for biographical disruption
Of course, there are some experiences which not only breach our tolerance for risk – they biographically disrupt (Bury, 1983). I now realize that in this practice of breaching experiments, I was, in effect, “microdosing” experiences that would ultimately prepare me for a much larger breach, when I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.
Pranka (2018) describes how life-threatening illness breaks an individual’s social and cultural experience by threatening his or her self-identity. A diagnosis of this kind can evoke a search for meaning from past events to try and answer, “Why me? Why now?” Expectations and plans for the future are re-examined.
***
“It’s not just a lump – it’s an infinite number of potentials, of moments that we will now experience. People to meet and stories to hear. And I notice I don’t actually want to talk – I don’t have the language and I’m not ready to find one. I left the hospital with their words: cancer, operation, radiotherapy, and chemo, along with suspicions and “you strike me as a fighter”. They’re all quite heavy words and that’s more than enough to be getting on with. Even if it’s just a storm in a teacup – there is a storm and there’s still a teacup.”
– Trudi West – journal entry
***
I have been asked if biographical disruption is another name for trauma. While there have been traumatic moments, the focus of this work is much closer to learning and self-determination. For example, I started treatment feeling well but it was necessary for me to become very poorly to become invisibly better. In that time, I reflected on who I am, how I see myself, how much I can tolerate and the finite value of time and energy.
Many readers will recognize their own biographical disruptions through illness, grief, or loss. These are not one-off events – they create a series of breaching experiences whereby stories about our past, present and future are challenged, requiring reflection on what has changed and what must now change.
Reflection methods for learning that lasts
For learning to last, it is essential to reflect on experience. The value is not in the breach itself. The value comes from how we make sense of it. By using different methods to reflect on breaching experiences, it is possible to notice where thoughts run in the moment and connect what would otherwise remain disconnected as patterns begin to coalesce. Invariably, this provides enough momentum to think, feel or do something different.
1. Writing
One method I use draws on Turner-Vesselago’s (1995) technique for writers: “Freefall Writing” (in Marshall, 2008). Writing helps us to reflect on experience and gives rise to new insights – the “aha” moments (Gopnick, 2000). I tell leaders if they run out of things to write to put “I’m running out of things to write…” until they think of something else. No-one will read this except you, and maybe not even then. It is intended to bring the thoughts out and potentially, bring them together.
Once, I was working with a network of CEOs. After introducing freefall writing, one of them asked, “How can I trust what I’ve just written?” He explained that he had struggled with imposter syndrome for most of his career, and he had not always trusted himself. I asked him how he felt as he was writing – “I trusted myself to write what I needed, whatever that needed to be”. He seemed genuinely surprised at himself.
2. Speaking
Speaking also helps us to reflect and make connections, creating clarity through emergent articulation. In conversation with those we trust, we can identify presumptions, and share hunches, anecdotes, and moral challenges. We can hear ourselves judging and justifying ourselves and others.
Spacks (1985) might describe this as “serious gossip” – dialogue that “provides opportunity for self-disclosure and for examination of moral decisions”. Its value is in being able to share experiences as part of a social system.
These emerging conversations are key on programs, where much of the learning happens when participants create their own content and make connections for themselves and with each other. Continuing in action learning sets provides ongoing opportunity to develop this method.
These reflection methods will not necessarily provide definitive answers. But they do provide enough to help locate our hunches as a catalyst for further reflection or action.
A working theory
My working theory is that there is potential to breach, transform, or threaten our self-identity at any time. Breaching experiences and biographical disruptions exist on the same spectrum – they are simply on a different scale. Whatever disruptions we experience, they can fundamentally shift our thinking, feeling and action, even when the disruption is something as simple as wearing a hat for no reason.
But significant breaches can occur when eating dinner by yourself, while checking in with a stranger for two minutes in silence, or with the puncture of a biopsy needle. The disruptions we experience can fundamentally shift our thinking, feeling and action. Some are small and intentional, others unpredictable and life-changing. Both can reshape how we understand and govern ourselves.
Meet the expert
)
Trudi West
Professor of Practice in Leadership and Psychology at Hult International Business School
Trudi has a keen interest in what drives thinking, feeling and action at an individual, group and organizational level. She mostly works with leaders being pulled in many directions, with few ‘right’ answers.
Underpinned by her research and with experience working globally across a range of industries, Trudi creates trusting yet challenging learning environments for leaders to experience, make sense and ultimately, do something different to enable change for themselves and others”
)
Want to see more TEDx Hult Ashridge talks?
In this collection of short talks, discover 12 thought-provoking perspectives on human leadership, strategy, and change.
Explore more insights
)
)
)
)
