Feelings are almost never fresh out of the box.
They are almost always (and I’m saying ‘almost’ just to seem all cool and provisional and fair and not-totally-certain but I really mean always) about something that has happened before.
They are (almost) never about what seems to be happening in front of you.
We have a variety of triggers – things that start an automatic chain of reaction which leads us down a particular path.
Catching the trigger as it starts is A Good Thing, because sometimes by bringing consciousness in, you can put the brakes on the train before it hurtles onto the broken bridge and off the edge of the cliff.
Consciousness is hard work
Thing is, the mind is slippery.
The mind doesn’t want you to be conscious.
It wants to keep running its patterns, because that’s what keeps you safe (in its very limited view).
Or maybe it’s even more mechanistic than that and it ‘wants’ to run its patterns because that’s what it does.
So we (I) need ways to get around the sleep, the automaticity of the mind.
One of the questions I am asking myself (as part of The Steps to not-freaking-out-ery) is ‘Do I have a Thing about this?’
Well, turns out that keeping track of if I have a Thing isn’t necessarily easy.
For example, this morning I was helping a Person I Care About do a thing, but when they came over, it looked like I was doing something totally different and to do with my interests, even though that really really wasn’t the case, and I got defensive and angry and tight-lipped and pokey-fingered.
Hmmm – could that be a Thing?
When I float the nostalgia boat back along that particular emotional river, I notice that I can remember times in my childhood where I was unfairly ‘caught’ doing something that I wasn’t actually doing.
Plus there’s a Thing about being in my own little world and then being brought out of it by being teased (I’m often really really not a good sport about being teased).
And I have a Thing about unfairly being seen as being selfish, especially when my intention is to be helpful.
So all those things together? Reaction. (Choo choo… Shh-tickuk, shh-tickuk… here comes the Trigger Train…)
A Trigger List helps you remember earlier
A Trigger list helps you to get conscious when in the middle of the thing that’s being triggered because, just like when you haven’t looked after the chimpanzee, when you’re in the middle of an emotional reaction, the ability to see you’re in one is impaired by the fact of being in one.
So the Trigger List helps you to poke the bubble a little and let some other options in.
Back to this morning…
Then ‘all’ I had to do was allow the adrenalin to subside, let myself feel what I was feeling, but at least it helped me to refrain from acting on the reaction any more than I already had.
Helps to see that the reaction has nothing to do with the person in front of me too, and allows me to take responsibility for what I’m feeling, rather than getting all Blaming Barry.
So…
…One more step towards bringing consciousness into the process earlier than otherwise might happen.
And yes, I really do mean a list, like, outside of your head.
What do you reckon?
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
By the way, yes, “Do I have a Thing about this?” totally helps me cool down and connect at work and in community.
And yes, it’s a heck of a lot harder to identify those Things in the family setting.
Thanks for your blog. I subscribe via Google reader and look forward to your updates.
Yay – ‘Do I have a Thing?’ works for someone else!
Yes, yes! “do I have a thing?”…I *adore* your description of your process.
(You are like, totally in my head. But way more articulate