Repairing Without Reactivity (Part 1)
Repairing Without Reactivity (Part 1)
and learn to put the best foot forward in your relationship.
I woke up on International Women’s Day to this message on my Pattern app:
This is an opportunity to get in touch with deep, heartfelt compassion – for yourself and others. This is an important time to reflect on love – and grief – and how these emotions have been a part of your life up to this point.
Consider the experiences that have left you feeling hurt, like a victim, or lost – and try to integrate them in my own heart. If you have difficulty accessing your feelings, try to open up yourself to whatever spiritual energy you identify with – to connect your heart to something larger.
For some people, this energy can feel confusing. Remember that at a higher level, nothing is wrong – and all is as it should be. Right now, its not necessary to take things too seriously – or be overly focused on getting results in the material world.
During this time, you might ask yourself, “Can I love myself enough to embrace my deeper feelings?” Ideally, you’ll embrace the opportunity to go within and find your way to a new level of emotional maturity.
I don’t know how the Pattern app does it, but it’s eerily accurate 100% of the time for me. Apparently it is also eerily accurate for Channing Tatum, who accused the app of spying on his therapy sessions.
I found the message above comforting, as it spoke directly to my swirling anxiety this whole week around work and relationship issues. It's good timing for this topic, because as I write this, I am also challenging myself to look inward to do the work, despite my anxiety. All external conflict starts with reactivity in our minds, so I want to address the root cause of the issue first.
If you asked me to go through the above self-reflection exercise suggested by the Pattern app 6 months to a year ago, I would have been able to come up with something eloquent, but still impulse-driven. All this anxiety and emotional reactivity still existed within me despite graduating with a law degree, having a decade's worth of experience scaling great Asean startups, logging 600+ hours of Vipassana meditation, and my affable nature. Depression and anxiety doesn’t discriminate its victims.
In my world, the suffering from emotional reactivity is magnified 10,000x in a state of anxiety and depression. So I had to do the work to cope, adapt and eventually, thrive despite my mental handicap.
100% of the time, chronic emotional reactivity is a big red sign calling for our attention to some internal disconnect with our needs and the way we are perceiving events around us.
It could be triggered by something unwanted happening, or something you wanted to happen didn’t happen. It could feel very karmic, like this is happening — again? Anticipating the worst case scenario, such as abandonment, adultery, rejection, perceiving life has no meaning, etc and responding with hurt, anger, or worse, suicide, are some of the terribly tragic responses that occur in life.
At this point, it is necessary to undertake self-inquiry to check our internal dialogue first, before starting any external dialogue with our partner.
What feelings come up? Can you name them? What sort of tender need is driving these feelings?
If rational self-inquiry isn't effective, take other self-soothing interventions first to reconnect with the self.
Pro tip: refrain from communicating with your partner or with the world when feeling reactive. Take all the time you need to process your feelings and emotions. Not repress, process.
Why do I say process your feelings and emotions? I say this for 2 reasons. I’ll cover this in 2 parts. Part 1 will be free and Part 2 will only be for paying subscribers:
Part 1) All your feelings and emotions are valid.
You are entitled to all your feelings and all your emotions, positive and negative. You have every right to experience them. Repressing them means to invalidate your experience.
I used to repress my emotions all the time. It comes from a mindset of less-than, self-judgement, and a low perception of my self-worth. That’s the best recipe for reactivity. For those who are great at repressing, at some point, it will erupt. Years and years of repression will come gushing out like a volcano. It could manifest as anxiety and depression for some. For others, it could mean repeating trauma patterns to losing the will to live.
It is sad to see men roll their eyes when they gossip about women they have dated: “Oh, that ex of mine? She was psycho.” That ex reacted that way because the mental self-harm she was doing to herself is just so horrific.
The whole story line, “How could you treat me this way? How dare you treat me this way after everything I’ve done for you?” is a cry for help. People that express this reactive request don't know how or are unable to frame their request in love. It is easier to justify a sense of victimhood or martyrdom. I’m not excusing this behavior — I was this person too, once upon a time. But peel the layers of reactivity away — anger, fear, hurt, indignation, frustration — and you will find a very tender need that needs attending. To be seen, to be loved. Victimhood and matrydom mentalities come from a place of ego bashing and lack of self-love. These negative emotions comes from a source of great pain. Negative, positive, all emotions evoked in our being are valid and deserves our equanimous attention.
The validity of emotions extends to all of humanity, and it doesn’t matter whether you have a full range or limited range of emotionality, i.e. whether you can only feel intense emotions or subtle emotions, or both. You deserve to attend to your emotions. You deserve to feel your emotions, to be fully witnessed and seen.
Before creating conflict and suffering in the life of others, send yourself love and compassion when you feel emotionally overwhelmed. The last thing you need is to feel bad for having feelings. That’s just going to multiply your misery, or add fuel to the fire. Start instead with a quick internal scan of your emotions.
Pro tip: Scale the intensity of your emotions to pick an intervention that works for you.
Depending on how you scale the intensity of emotional overwhelm (1 being OK, I’m anxious but I am still in control, to 10 being this is a FUBAR situation, I’m going to die): different interventions will apply. I like this “pick a skill” intervention chart from @dbt_bee:
Notice the kind of interventions suggested in the face of emotional overwhelm (6-10). It is not drinking, staying angry, or picking fights with your partner. Distress tolerance interventions range from breath work, self-soothing, therapy and medication. These are all interventions to calm your nervous system down. It is not a form of escapism, because you will come back to address the issue later when your emotional intensity lessens.
Some people get stuck in this emotional state for a long time. I was literally stuck in this state for a good 6 months before I could make any meaningful progress through talk therapy. And its ok. Be exceedingly kind and gentle to yourself during this time. Personally, I found the guided meditations by Agnes Vivarelli on YouTube very useful in helping me through this time.
At a 3-5, cognitive behavioural therapy principles are applied -- challenging your thought process, generating new possibilities and new ways of thinking. Deploying effective communication skills to express your emotional state and request is very important here. You can undertake this self-inquiry and conscious communication on your own once you have had some training in it.
If you're at 1-2, you're likely able to check in with yourself and carry on a mindful conversation with others without reactivity. Keep monitoring your emotional state and continue to be self-aware.
You are the sole authority on how your emotions predicate your response. Being self-aware and learning to self-soothe in times of emotional reactivity is like any skill - it takes practice. Have faith, and never give up. You have the power to create the love you deserve to give to yourself, and embody that kind of love you seek with your partner by learning to work with your emotions. Be a paid subscriber to find out more in Part 2.