Seeing The Present
Have you ever reacted in a way that you regret? Maybe you find certain situations and/or people trigger undesired responses in you. This common human trait is confusing as much as it is confounding for many people. As much as it may feel like a curse it, more often than not, is merely an indicator of a growth area.
Many challenges you face are the seeds and kernels of opportunities. Like seeds, the initial presentation of challenges are often hard, disguising the potential they hold. The packaging you likely recognise are uncomfortable feelings. Most people try to avoid these feelings. Sometimes by ignoring them, dulling them, deflecting attention, withdrawing amongst a host of other generally unhealthy reactions. Learning to observe a feeling and the default response it generates cracks open the seed, allowing you a glimpse at why you default to act and react how you do. Acknowledging your feelings and accepting them frees you to explore what responses are deliberate and which ones are default programmed responses. You likely have reactions and possibly even expectations that were set in your childhood.
Examining an emotion without judgement of yourself or getting defensive allows you to consider if your response is the most appropriate for that situation. A response that may have served you well in the past could now be inappropriate. The silent treatment could have been effective on a sibling but be damaging team dynamics at work.
When you can step out of yourself, metaphorically speaking, you are better positioned to unemotively observe an action or reaction for what it is. Developing an ability to observe yourself without preconceptions, judgement or assumptions allows you to examine your feelings and responses. Feelings usually have a story behind them. The story could be an old ingrained story or a current one that you are telling yourself and using it as a coping mechanism.
Essentially, in those situations, your response is your younger self trying to keep you safe. Often you may also be crucialising the situation, seeing all the worst case potential outcomes and scenarios. All humans develop coping mechanisms to navigate through childhood and life. You'll be no different.
An example I often use is to imagine you are seven years old and you're in the classroom of your favourite teacher. She asks a question and you enthusiastically put up your hand. You want to impress and are stretching your hand high in the air. She picks you to give the answer and you confidently respond. But you are wrong. The answer is so wrong, the entire class laughs. Even your favourite teacher can't help a little smirk, which makes the class laugh even more. One kid is laughing so much he falls off his chair, leading to an absolute outburst of laughter. You sit there, bright red, wishing the ground would open up and swallow you. You promise yourself that you will never speak in public again. Sure enough, you get through intermediate school and high school, avoiding all requirements to do public speaking, even if it means calling in sick for the day. You grow up and now you are 37 and you are asked to speak at your brother's 50th birthday party. You go into panic mode. Your hands sweat, your pupils dilate, your heart races, your mouth dries up and terror grips you.
If you pause at that moment and look at the situation, you realise that the fear is irrational. You know and love your brother and have a lot of great things to say. The feeling is a reminder message that the last time you were in this situation, you were laughed at. However, you are not at school, you are no longer seven and there is no ‘right’ answer.
Likely when you think of the last couple of times you ‘messed up’, only some reasons will be attributable to childhood tactics. Some will be reactions from things that happened recently. The growth opportunity is to own your response and check to see if there is a better one. You are not responsible for other people's actions and reactions, only your own. Sometimes you will know and understand where the programming for your default response comes from. Other times you won’t.
The key is being able to see and accept that you have responses programmed into your psyche. Some serve you well. Others do not. We can often see the programming in others’ lives and responses. When you can identify responses and connections that are not serving you well, you can then rewrite them with a better one. Sometimes people do not know why they act the way they do and, if it is hampering their effectiveness, it's helpful to see a specialist. You respond from a place of programming and if it is undesirable, then you need to take the steps to rewrite the story in your mind.
Pick two or three recent examples where your response was less than desirable. Aim to analyse them from an outsider looking in. Review your responses and deliberately trace back to when you started responding in that way. Think about when you first did it. Explore why you chose that response. What was the outcome? Why did you think that was favourable? What responses does that technique typically produce now? What would you have to change to give you a better result?
If this does not work for you and/or if you are not necessarily ready to revisit some of your past, consider somebody who reacts well in similar situations – who reacts and responds like you would like to. What do they do differently? What would you need to do to achieve an equally favourable response?
Here’s to your success!
