Because Fridays are for making enormous declarations about life lessons you’ve permanently learned pizza and telly noticing. I don’t make the rules…
On-topic noticings
~ Survival panic cannot be reasoned with
I was with a Person I Care About this week when they went into survival panic.
Some kind of wisdom helped me see that any kind of ‘Calm down’ vibes would have either no effect or a negative effect.
All I could think of to do was stay with them, present, listening to them talk it through as many times as they wanted, help them be in their body and wait for the adrenalin to leave.
Seems to just need a matter of time.
Anyone any other experiences to add?
~ Do you want some stuff on how to deal with people who are freaking out?
This made me think that maybe there might be room for me to put together some thoughts about how to help other people when they are freaking out.
I also notice that not a few people arrive here by googling things like, ‘How to help people when they are freaking out,’ so, you know, I can get a message sometimes. Interested or not? Any specific aspect particularly urgent/puzzling for you?
~ You can’t change a reaction whilst you’re having it
I am all up for defusing triggers. I spend a lot of my time doing just that – personal work (including Byron Katie’s Inquiry process, meditation and weirdo regression weirdness, not to mention all kinds of internal be-less-certain processes), so don’t get me wrong, it’s great.
What I really noticed this week is that very very often defusing an issue is a separate process from being in the middle of having that issue triggered. When you’re in it, it’s difficult to process it unless you’ve pre-processed it.
Right?
This is why a lot of my recent thoughts/work has been focusing on what to do when you’re in the reaction.
~ Worry comes from predictions
Yep, this one again.
We’ve had a weird week this week.
I have been pretty super-anxious at times – just a lot going on personally, professionally, and movey-to-newey-continentey. As I realised before, almost all of my anxiety comes from making predictions and believing them.
More practice at being-less-certain, methinks.
~ Dreamfeelingextrapolationbad
Several times in the past couple of weeks I have woken up from a dream with an emotion (anxiety, sadness…), then promptly forgotten that that feeling came from the dream and started looking around my life for what supported that emotion (What else am I anxious about? What else is making me sad?).
Hyuh.
Note to Future Self – it’s ok to feel stuff after you wake up from a dream AND the reason you’re feeling it is that something in the dream triggered it.
~ I hold a lot of tension as a defence against the world
I was flicking through a book on piano practice this week and they mentioned the Rosen method. I have no idea what this is (I’ve yet to google it) but even the description made me realise just how much tension I habitually hold in my body out of defence against the world.
Just noticing so far…
~ Have to keep an eye on how changing circumstances affect your capacity
In my continuing battle to have goals that are do-able by a human being (remember if this were only my real life?), I have been working hard to notice how much my capacity is flexing as more and more variables landed in our laps in the past 10 days.
I’m not doing too bad, but I did have to send a couple of emails saying, You know that thing I said I’d do? I can only do this much…’
Progress, though, right?
Meta-blogging Noticings
~ Comments – you learn stuff!
I totally learned stuff from your comments on the 10 beliefs of interrupters and especially in the one about the purpose of conversation. Zowee. I love comments even more now!
~ Writing my own stuff is a gasquizzlionoogol times easier than writing client stuff.
Eeee I’ve had to really motivate myself this week to squeeze the words out on client stuff. Hard.
In other news
~ I totally made a hat.
Yep. I totally did! You can ask me for the picture, if you like…
~ Fruit Reward TM
I have made a new reward system which makes word counts go by like that. More next week!
~ Sandra makes me laugh
As well as being a freakin Twitter-DM ROCK, Sandra is the person who has most consistently made me loudly guffaw in public.
She reminded me of the interrupting cow knock-knock joke this week. Makes me laugh every time, even if I just do it in my head.
Moooo!
~ Well-tempered Clavier
Like many amateur pianists before me, I have the intention to begin working through the Well-Tempered Clavier – preludes and fugues in all 24 keys. Let’s see how that goes… Just let me have my dream for a bit…
~ Dresden Files – oy.
In his new Dresden Files book, Jim Butcher has the most appallingly tension-filled first page of any book I’ve read in a long time. Especially if you’ve read the other twelve, which like a good fan-boy, I have. Some twice.
~ Check out Briana and Eileen’s new site.
The hopscotch distillery. Makes ya feel comfy, eh?
***
You?
Whatcha notice this week?
Big or small – half-baked or just ‘hi’ – splurge it in the comments.
***
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: sarahmarmoset
Re: advice about helping people who are freaking out, the hardest thing for me is helping people who are freaking out specifically because they’re worried about me. I never have any idea what to do with that little energy I have left over after holding back my instinctual anger in that situation.
Anyway, just a thought. Maybe not what you were talking about at all, hehe.
Twitter: sandrajapandra
Aww, man, hell of a week you had. You came through it with grace and wisdom that are inspiring for all of us. And, thanks. That is like the nicest thing anyone ever wrote abouMOOOOOO!
I noticed on this fair Friday that when some people worry ad nauseam, they are just too consumed with their own process, and really need to get out of their head in order to develop perspective and compassion for others’ true suffering.
Thanks for allowing me to vent/reflect!
Twitter: bigbrightbulb
This week I noticed that I very often use memories as a weapon, as an excuse, as a leash…but very rarely as anything happy, like as entertainment or a pleasant reminder, or useful, like as a resource.
Now that I’ve noticed it, I could be feeling excited and relieved to have that clear, and I expect I will get to that at some point, but right now I’m just intensely sad. I’ll be sure to notice when that changes
Twitter: brianaaldrich
Oh my goodness, Andrew – I relate to every subheading in this post!
Hugest stressor for me is trying to come up with the right way (this instant!) to respond to something that I’m predicting will happen (in the future) – hello impossible. And when I remember that it’s such a relief, but of course, do I remember in the moment? Nooo.
And sometimes when I have a bad feeling, but I can’t put my finger on why, I go searching for plausible reasons… Not such a good plan of attack, I always find a jillion reasons to be upset that probably have nothing to do with the original thing.
And of course, so glad it makes you feel comfy! Come in and hang anytime.
Twitter: a_creative_life
Hey Andrew,
Good for you for figuring out that “Calm down” vibes would be of no use when your person went into survival panic. And good for you for being able to just stay with them and listen, which was probably exactly what the panicker needed!
I’ve spent over a dozen years practicing a form of co-counseling (Re-evaluation Counseling, or RC) that espouses exactly this. I’ve gotten pretty good at being with people who are having feelings/freaking out. When you do it enough, it gets less scary. Especially when you learn to do it in a setting in which having feelings (freaking out or otherwise) is assumed to be *normal*, *human*, and is allowed and encouraged!
There’s a theory that “discharging” emotion (through crying, shaking, yelling, yawning, sweating, etc., or generally “freaking out”) is one way that human beings actually heal from hurts, both emotional and physical.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture that has a lot of confusion about this. People tend to think that the crying/freaking out IS the hurt. They get scared or uncomfortable, and just want to make the crying/freaking out STOP.
The thing is, the crying/freaking out is NOT the hurt, but is actually HEALING from the hurt. But we learn that it’s not okay to cry, not okay to freak out. We learn to stuff our feelings away, and to somehow operate “on top” of them.
The problem, of course, is that feelings don’t just go away. They roil under the surface, and make it harder and harder to function until they are released.
The best gift you can give a freaking-out person is calm, loving attention. Just witnessing their freak-out, with complete knowledge that they are GOOD, they are FULLY INTELLIGENT, they have all the answers WITHIN THEM — that’s an incredible gift! Nobody ever gets enough of this kind of attention, especially when they’re freaking out! It’s incredibly powerful.
Kudos to you for handling a challenging situation really beautifully.
Melissa
Hey lovelies – just to say thanks for your honest noticings.
I seem to get stuck at replying – sometimes I think I need to say something profound to every comment.
So, I’m gonna stick with my policy of half-baked and just say – I hear you. And it warms my heart to have you here…
Twitter: a_creative_life
Hey Andrew,
So glad you replied, even if it felt “half-baked” to you.
I also tend to get stuck in that headspace of feeling like everything I type has to be profound. :-\
Good for you for blowing past that! A reply of any kind is just so lovely.
xo
Melissa
Twitter: MRMHypno
You’re a Dresden fan too? Amazing!
Well, not so amazing I suppose, the books are great.
One response to ‘freak-outs’ that always annoys/infuriates/maddens me is, ‘Stop overreacting!’.
There are so many things wrong with this idea that I hardly know where to start!
I’ll write this in first person, because that’s how I usually experience it (having experienced it, I make a point of never telling anyone that they are overreacting).
Please note that I’m talking about genuine, emotional freak-outs here; I’m not talking about those times when a small child, for example, gets all upset over nothing merely because she wants attention.
(a) If I’m reacting, it’s because this is important to me, and therefore I feel that it is worth my emotional energy to respond to.
(b) ‘*Over*-reacting’? There is no such thing! If I’m reacting, I am reacting in proportion to the depth and extent of the emotion that I feel. (See above.) No one ‘overreacts’ on purpose, unless they’re faking it. It is a tribute to your grace and high-mindedness that you will give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that my emotions are genuine.
(c) No one said that you had to share my emotion. The fact that you do not identify with my emotion or the situation in which I am expressing it does not mean that my emotion is invalid.
(d) To tell me that I am overreacting is to tell me that I have no sense of my own emotions. What you are saying is, “This does not or should not matter to you. You have no right to feel this way”.
Ouch. Just major freaking *ouch*. Would you say to someone who has just had her hand cut off, “You have no right to feel pain”? Then why say to someone who is freaking out, “You are overreacting; you have no right to feel this way”? As above: the fact that you do not *share* or identify with my pain does not make my pain invalid.
Depriving a person of their right to their own emotions is one of the cruellest and most barbarous things that one human can do to another, because it ultimately deprives them of their personhood. It is the emotional equivalent of sexual abuse (depriving a person of the right to their own body).
(e) If telling me to stop overreacting is your version of asking me to calm down, then you’re barking up two wrong trees simultaneously. If I could calm down, I would. If I could have avoided freaking out, I would have. You think I enjoy feeling this way? Do you think I’m freaking out on purpose? That’s just insulting. The reason I am feeling this emotion is because I cannot help it. In this moment, the freak-out is my world.
(f) To tell me that I am overreacting is just plain unhelpful. The last thing that a person who is freaking out needs is for someone to tell them that their pain is not real. What they do need is exactly what you supplied above, Andrew: someone to stay with them and listen and just ‘be there’, like a guardian or a shepherd, until they have expressed the pain and can cope with it on their own.
When I am panicking, your job is to help me to not hurt myself or others while I am panicking. It is not to tell me that there is something wrong with me or that I ‘should’ do one thing or another.
O.K., I’m ranted out.
The ‘stop overreacting’ thing really sets me off because I have had it done to me so many times (complete with rolling eyes and snorts of scorn); yet it’s so basic: if we thought about it for a few minutes, we would realise that it’s cruel and unhelpful. The only reasons we would ever do it to someone else are that either we’ve never had it done to us or we’ve learnt that ‘stop overreacting’ is what you say to people who are having a freak-out that you don’t understand.