Dial It Back: Social Intelligence

Restraint is a superpower when it helps us dial back our tendency to correct people when they are wrong or show off what we know. This is a tough one, because being smart is a high value commodity in the world and many of us have sacrificed much to earn our expertise in one area of life or another. But in this article, the author talks about social intelligence - understanding that nobody really wants to know how smart we are; they just want to know how we can “play a role in their life that benefits them.” Callous? Maybe. But isn’t it also true?

My friend Jean had a very intelligent father. He was also extremely curious - which is the trait I most admire and remember about him. He LOVED to tell stories, but he also LOVED to inquire about the life of others - hence, his repertoire of great stories! He was interested in everything and everyone. His face lit up when he saw someone new walk into a room. He just had this way of making others feel valued and special. In hindsight, I realize that he had the gift of restraint. It showed up in his capacity for listening.

How could you dial it back in terms of talking? How could you up your listening?

PS Maybe you are the introverted type and can give yourself credit for not being a chatting Cathy like me. But...what if you dialed back your silence and stepped up your active listening?

Dial It Back: Recognizing Triggers

When triggered, I can be reactive. This has had its benefits, and its costs. One time when I was very very young I came upon a group of senior high school athletes in an isolated corridor of our school teasing a special needs student. They circled her, threw pennies at her feet and demanded she “dance for her money.” They laughed and clapped and she thought they were playing WITH her. They were not. I marched into the center of that circle and boy howdy, those boys must have thought their mothers and grandmothers and every strong woman who had ever given them what for had entered my seventh grade body. I gave them a talking to; forced them to get on the floor and pick up those damn pennies and apologize to my new friend. I have a vague memory of finger pointing, clear and direct shaming, and issuing threats that bore no meaning but evidently sounded convincing. That was reactive. I think it was a good thing because it turned out alright, but I wonder: should I have perhaps run for adult backup?

My reactivity has also been costly. I have said things I should not have meant nor spoken. I have been impulsive when restraint was called for. I have made bad situations worse. One tool that I have adopted to help me with my reactivity comes from the SMART Recovery worksheets. It’s called the cost-Benefit Analysis (Appendix B: Figure 3.4. Worksheets, SMART Recovery Handbook). One great thing about any habit that we form is that it is usually predictable. And if it is predictable, it means we can study it and learn how to do differently.

Example: I am triggered when I believe that a vulnerable person is being taken advantage of in some way. I react by trying to interrupt the injustice, call out the injustice, or bring justice into the situation. Yesterday, someone aggressively cut in front of someone in a pharmacy drive through pick-up line. I wanted to make that person get out of line and go to the back of the line. But my previous work on reactivity and my CBA (cost-benefit analysis) allowed me to use restraint.

Scenario: To react or NOT react

Answer the following questions:

What are the benefits of me reacting?

What are the costs of me reacting?

What are the benefits of me NOT reacting?

What are the costs of me NOT reacting?

After I answer these questions, I go back and consider short term and long term benefits and consequences. I notice that with some pondering, there are many times when restraint would be better than reacting. In this case, using my automatic CBA habit I have acquired, I chose to use restraint. This gave me time to come up with the following insights: Maybe the line breaker was in a crisis situation and they needed to butt in and is actually the most vulnerable person in this story; this was not my issue - nor my business; making a stink about this might interrupt grace in action; maybe this person is not well mentally and would get aggressive with me if I got all feisty with him; in the end - what is the real cost here to one line butt? Do you own cost analysis about your relationship with not practicing restraint - see what you discover!

Dial It Back: Restraint

My friend Linda sent me an article called “7 Psychological Superpowers Few People Have (That You Can Use to Set Yourself Apart)” which I love. I love it because the title is long enough to be a paragraph. I love the content. In fact, I love it so much I want to blog about practically every single sentence and since I am quarantined, I ask myself: “Why not?” So here goes…

In the opening paragraphs, this article claims that one superpower that many of us refrain from accessing is: RESTRAINT. He makes quite a case for finding and exercising it.

When I practice restraint as a superpower, several wonderful things happen:

* I am curbing my urges and compulsions.

* I am pausing to prepare.

* I am doing less, which frees me to choose to do better.

Although it never occurred to me before, it seems so true: “Success, happiness, or whatever word you use to articulate what you want, often involves what you don’t do.”

The pandemic, at whatever stage it is in when you read this, provided participants a chance to do less. At various times I found this to be a blessing, frustrating, anxiety inducing, depressing, binding and freeing.

It forced me to curb some of my urges; I learned that much of what felt like an obligation pre-quarantine was truly non-essential. Much of what was initially disquieting has turned into deep silence and joy. Restraint was hard and good.

How might restraint serve you? What has a lack of restraint cost you in the past? Tomorrow, I will present a little exercise that might help you process these questions. In the meantime, think about it and see what you come up with!

Meditation Moment

Suddenly the cherries were there although I had forgotten that cherries exist.

Gunter Grass, “Transformation”

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NIV

Today, consider your weakness. Accept it. Rejoice in it, for these broken places may indeed end up being your strength. Your hope. Your experience. Your superpower.

Selfish? I Think Not!

I am not a fan of the old, worn out belief that AA and other mutual aid societies promote a selfish program, although I understand the sentiment. A husband who regularly pulled his wife out of pubs and honky tonks in the wee hours of the morning laments, “It used to be that my wife was never around because of her drinking; now she’s always at a meeting.”

In the short term, this husband sees no difference between his wife in the midst of her SUD and in recovery - where is she? He has a point but I think misses the potential for change. This program changes us; it wakes us up spiritually; we become more decent human beings. At first the program may feel arduous and time-consuming. It needs to be. We are working hard to manage early recovery post acute withdrawal symptoms. We are learning new skills. We need to establish and deepen a support system. Eventually - this wife can show up more fully present in her home.

This is not being selfish; this is learning how to treat a potentially fatal disease.

I had a guy tell me this was a selfish program because members help others because it helps themselves. According to him, this is selfish. We need to do things from a pure motivation he says and anything short of pure love is useless. I heard what he said but still scratched my head over the sentiment. OF COURSE this work helps both the giver and the receiver. Antibiotics helped me get over a sinus infection last month but no one called me selfish for taking them! Now, if the ONLY reason we work a 12th step is to benefit ourselves, I assure you, it will not last. But if it takes this understanding of the benefits of the work for us to get started? Who can argue with such reasoning? It’s ok to start with a mixed motive.

If we stick with this work long enough, it will occur to us that we better do so without expectations of reward or compensation. Because let me tell you - oftentimes, there is no reward or compensation. And that is as it should be. Many of the people who tried to help me pre-recovery received no benefit from their efforts. In fact, they usually ended up having to endure my baloney. Today, I see how each foray into the jungle of my dark lost mind with the intent to rescue was a breadcrumb that eventually led me out of the darkness and toward the light. But none of the breadcrumb droppers know that!

Sharing, even in the face of heartbreak, gives us a new set of problems.