Attend to Yourself!

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

Read the past few days before reading today.

If the son is not attentive to himself, and has done very little work, then a question from his partner about cleanliness will likely lead to an explosive reaction.  Overtime he's learned to associate his mother's standard of cleanliness (which he later attaches to any conversation about cleanliness) with a deep internal sense that he has no value, that he's a burden on others, that he is a failure, that he's inherently damaged, that he's completely misunderstood, or some other core message.  In this case, an innocuous question (from the partner's perspective) can lead very quickly to a conversation about whether or not this relationship is even worth continuing.  

Triggers don't mean that a person is weak or stupid or overly sensitive.  Triggers are merely things that remind us of our baggage.  If we've dealt with our baggage, triggers are not necessarily overly disruptive.  If we haven't deal with our baggage, they wreak havoc.  

We require attentiveness in order to discern what kinds of conversations or events create unnecessarily large reactions within us.  If we're able to recognize these reactions when they happen, then we can begin to parse out the root of these reactions.  

This is the beginning of learning to choose new and different responses. 

2021 Scott enters the ring to destroy the writing of 2017 Scott, and here’s his response:

I don’t have a tremendous amount of new things to say in response to these few days that I haven’t already said. I will continue to say that it’s a complex web of factors that leads to our healing. Some of it is attentiveness to ourselves and our patterns. Some of it is healing relationships. It might take counseling or support groups. It might take new hobbies. It might mean slowing down. It might mean a career path. Whatever the case may be, it’s worth asking ourselves: Am I living a life that I am excited about? If not, what is in my power to change that I believe might help?

Safety and Growth

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

Make sure to read the past couple days before reading today.

The trigger in our example is the mother's voicing of something related to the son's cleanliness.  Because of the nature of their relationship, the son explodes on his mother in reaction to his trigger.  The reaction in this circumstance is loud, external, aggressive.  It's also something that, to the son, feels justified.  

But triggers also translate to other relationships and this is where they begin to get tricky.  Let's say the son has a girlfriend, wife, spouse, roommate, partner, etc.  Let's say the the son and his partner have a history of a wonderfully healthy and mutually respectful relationship.  Let's say the partner one day says, "Hey, since we've got company coming in this weekend would you mind picking up the dirty clothes next to your side of the bed and I'll do the same?"  How does the son respond?  

It depends on many factors, including how attentive he is to himself and how much work he has done.  If he's aware that, given his history, requests for cleanliness are always going to sound like harsh critiques then he may be aware that he has to suppress the experience of a trigger in order to choose an appropriate response to his partner.  He may find that his internal reaction is angry, he may feel like his stomach is in a knot, he may feel uncomfortable.  

If he's done some good work with a support system to process and deal with his issues, and has learned to be attentive to himself, he may have the capacity to resist an accidental release of tension.  Instead, he may say, "Sure, I'll get this stuff cleaned up."  

2021 Scott’s thoughts on 2017 Scott:

The son’s response in these examples is not just about the work he’s done- it may also be about the role these other relationships play in his life. Let’s say he has a partner that makes him feel safe, secure, and deeply loved- it may very well be that this is what it takes to lessen the intensity of his reactions. This is because we can have a healing impact on others through being safe, through avoiding criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and more. This helps us all stay calm. 

You can, with your presence alone, help someone feel safe. When they feel safe, they might even grow.

Context is Everything

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

We're using a few days to discuss the nature of triggers.  What, exactly, does a trigger look like?  

For instance, consider a mother says to a son who is visiting home for Christmas, "Would you like me to do your laundry?"  The son immediately loses his temper and calls his mother an overly controlling b-word.  

Her offer, on the surface, seems sincere, even kind.  But what if I told you the son is 45 years old?  What if I told you that this mother regularly calls him a "disgusting slob" because he wears t-shirts when he's not at work as opposed to the button-downs that his mother tells him "a true man wears"?  What if I told you that his mother regularly tells him that he'll never be married if he doesn't shave off his "nasty" beard?  

Context is king.  The son's response to his mother is way out of proportion considering what is happening strictly on the surface: an offer to do laundry.  The son is "triggered" by what is going on beneath the surface:  a lifetime of being chastised by his mother because she believes he doesn't adequately take care of himself and has no qualms about shaming him about this.  

2021 Scott’s thoughts:

It’s important to add something on here: We may never know other people’s context. If you see someone react completely “irrationally” to something- it’s likely that the response is irrational to you based on the amount of information you have, but that response might make total sense if you knew the fuller picture. This is how we develop empathy- we remember that the picture we have is incomplete and that, with more information, this person who is acting irrationally might make sense…they might even seem more lovable.

Stop Sleepwalking!

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

How do we stop trying to regain control in such destructive ways?

I am, obviously, not an expert.  I can only pass on some things I've been taught but haven't yet learned.  

We cannot sleepwalk through life and expect to see any progress in our relationship to unconscious living.  Diligent attentiveness paves the path forward.  Attentiveness to what?

We'll start with triggers.  This has, unfortunately, become a politicized word.  Some seem to find pleasure in boasting about how strong they are with the implication being they do not experience triggers.  

We all experiences triggers.  When your reaction to a circumstance, or something someone says to you, or some such thing far exceeds what is rational for that specific circumstance at that specific moment in time then you have experienced a trigger.  

Looking back: 2021 Scott TAKES DOWN 2017 Scott

I have nothing negative to say about myself here. It’s true- we cannot sleepwalk through life. It’s important to know our desires. It’s important that we know what kind of life we want to live. It’s important to know what kind of life we can realistically live- and create. It’s important to accept the limits we may have in pursuing the life we want to live. And it’s important that we stretch ourselves to grow and continuously add new things to our lives so that, no matter what life throws at us, we have things that help life feel as if it’s worth living.

Accepting Acceptance

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

I suppose the most pressing question we have after the first 15 days is:  How do we stop trying to regain control in such destructive ways?

I am, obviously, not an expert.  I can only pass on some things I've been taught but haven't yet learned.  

The first step is always going to be finding ways to process and accept the various challenges life throws our way.  When we set things to the side and assume that time heals all wounds we will only find that time numbs pain, but it doesn't truly heal.  

Consequently, we need a support system for difficult times.  We need a support system that consists of multiple people.  For me and Brittany, the past two years have shown us that we need more support than we can find solely in the context of our marriage.  It's too much pressure on one person to be the sole source of support for another person.  Humans are not meant to function that way and, if they do, they are severely isolated.  We may convince ourselves we're not isolating because we have our spouse, or that best friend, or whoever, but we need more than that.  

If the wounds are large enough and deep enough we may need a skilled therapist.  If our wounds are spiritual in nature we may need to dialogue with (safe) pastor, priest, bishop, or whoever.  Sometimes friends and community are enough and sometimes we need specialists.  The point is, an isolated existence will not support our efforts to release control.  

Scott with grey hair’s (2021 Scott) critique of Scott without grey hair: 

I don’t think I talked enough about acceptance. Acceptance is such a key part of life. Let’s be clear- acceptance does not mean learning to enjoy, or even appreciate, hardship- it means learning to live with it. Learning to tolerate it. Learning to live with the fact that there are things that happen to us that we wish didn’t happen but that we also cannot change. 

What is it you struggle to accept? Do you think you could learn to tolerate it?