October 1, 2012; 12:30am
Have you ever felt, "I was never taught how to prevent
going through trauma once my buttons are pushed." Many of us, sadly, are not taught how to
prevent some trauma buttons from forming from a young enough age to go
unscathed in one way or another, so we are left to learn other ways of coping
with certain traumas.
But think for a moment, YOU were the one who created your
own buttons and triggers, so only YOU can fix them within yourself. And in the
process, you can create good buttons you can use at a later time. We have no
idea what my come across our paths, but we do know that we have control over
what we do, or do not, pay attention to ... and how we either act, or react, to
the events in our environment.
What can I
do about it?
This is one way of un-creating
any buttons you don’t wish to have any more. You must really know that you can do this and have the
confidence in yourself to follow through if you are to succeed in ridding
yourself of troublesome buttons and their triggers.
First, try to think of all of your emotions, both positive and
negative, and everything in between, as simply tools. Your emotions were
designed as helpful tools for identifying what is going on around you, allowing
you to observe what needs to be changed one way or another. To
survive effectively you need to be able to exchange one kind of emotion for
another in order to adjust them to fit to your goals or your desires.
For example: Say,
that right now you are in a good mood or at least a neutral one. Then something
occurs either around or within you that turns such a mood into a less desirable
one. Let’s start with one of the most basic of emotions we understand and go
with anger. So perhaps, someone has just ragged all over you and now you are
angry about the negative things they said about you.
How do we typically see others react to this situation?
Usually the anger flares up, clouds their judgement, and they begin to react in
a number of ways they have learned from observing others in similar
circumstances. Raised voices, ears turned off, harsh words returned, fights
begin, people either get hurt or burn out that anger one way or another through
various different reactive aggressions. They act out a total communications
breakdown that doesn’t benefit them. All of this on full display for others to
see and judge them by; not to mention that what others see them doing may
become a chain reaction of copied behaviours some later day.
But right now all they can do is react in their own way to
either escalate the problem, continue the problem, or to end it. You may or may
not like their solution or the resulting outcome, but if you were on the
receiving end of this outburst, you lost control over the situation and are
stuck with it. In other words, a button
was pressed and it was reacted to instead of being pro-actively fixed, so the
reaction caused the following negative emotion.
Unmaking a
button:
So let us break it down to how you can begin to unmake such
a button. First imagine, someone just said something negative about you and you
feel anger upon hearing it. What choices do you have? Well, the possibilities
are endless but here is an exercise that may help if your goal is to lose that
button so that you are free to think and chose more clearly when faced with
such in the future:
- Identify to yourself that you are angry.
- Determine what exactly it was that triggered that anger to such a degree.
- Once you understand the specific thoughts and other feelings that triggered your anger, you can get to the root of your problem.
- Now that you have that information you can decide what you want to do about it inside first.
- Next you set a goal as to what emotional state you wish to be in now, as well as would rather be in when faced with similar circumstances later on.
- Make the decision to change your mind; to change your negative emotion into the one you have just picked out instead of the one that has been hurting you.
- Now think…imagine what the outcome you want looks like to you when you are finished?
- What action will result in reaching the outcome(s) you want instead of what happened the last time this button was pressed or created?
- Follow the path you just created to your new outcome.
- Observe the negative and positive consequences of what your new reaction did or didn’t do, and repeat the process outlined above the next time this comes up. This will make it possible for you to improve the process through time so that you reach your actual goals.
Now keep in mind that with all the variables involved you
still may not reach 100% of the outcome you want the first time, but you are
almost there. This may take practice, trial and error in all the details of the
actual situation; but at least in your own mind, you have reached the level of
control over yourself you were working towards for this purpose. This mental
change in reaction is bound to be noticed by someone around you, and this can
go a long way into changing how others see you.
Re-evaluating
this exercise:
One: So-and-so
said negative things about me. That triggered my anger.
Two: Why am I so
angry about what was said about me? Do I care that much about their opinion? Or
do I care what others may now think if they hear something like that about me? Will
their opinion actually hurt me in any
way? Was my pride or reputation damaged by what was said?
Three: What do I
feel underneath the anger? Hurt? Sad? Afraid? I have to be honest with myself
or none of this will help. Only I am inside my own head.
Four: I want to
get rid of this trigger and button that causes me to be angry when this
happens.
For this example, let us assume the answer is that we do
care about the opinion others may have of us. Since if we didn’t care, we may
have an easier time cooling our jets without needing to go through the next
step. So, basically our pride or reputation may be in question. This means that
if we react in one of the common aggressive ways we all know of, then all we
will have accomplished is the very opposite of what we wanted everyone to think
of us. Which brings us to step …
Five: Let’s
choose to feel calm and collected and smooth sailing instead of angry.
Six: Now we need
to change our mind to agree with that new mood or feeling, or at least to fake
it convincingly until it becomes a real feeling.
Seven: Realize
that we really do want the others around us to think we are a mature, self-controlled,
and pleasant adult.
Eight: Well at
this point we are in control enough to CHOOSE any of several different reactions;
such as coming back with a cool, calm, witty choice of words that we figure might
get us closer to our desired outcome. Or we could choose to walk away, or any
number of other actions that we think may work better than loosing our self-control.
Nine: Take
action! Follow the new actions we
just figured out.
Ten: Now we get
to see if we achieved the outcome we wanted after following the choices we’ve
just tried. This is great; we now have the opportunity to analyze and process what
happened this time around. By reviewing what
happened at a later time, we will better understand everything involved in this
process due to our cooler mind, and have another chance to improve on what we
came up with if desired. By repeating this process as necessary, we will reach our
goals.
Conclusion:
Now you are better able to get out of your own way without
your old button holding you back from achieving what you truly want. And now
you have a method to find better solutions to what comes your way in the future.
At least you may be able to give yourself some emotional and psychological
healing as well as more control over yourself and where your life is headed.
This does take effort and practice as with any new technique
you are unaccustomed to, especially when trying to learn for the first time.
Don’t ever give up on yourself. We are all here for a purpose and have special
places to be, and fantastic roles to experience on this Earth. Just like every
cell is a part of your body as a whole, you are a part of humanity as a whole. Furthermore,
you are just as important as all the others are, and you are necessary to keeping
us going healthy as a species.
With
Love,
Violet Sky
October 2012
October 2012
If this helpped you and you would like further information click this link: How To Have A Relationship That Is Over The Top (view mobile)
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