Thinking about the Thought

I posted a quote yesterday, and the process of typing it in got me to thinking…

Melanie and I interviewed a wonderful woman this week for a part time administrative position at our office. We asked her to describe an experience at her current position where she needed to respond to a person who was upset.

Without missing a beat, she began to describe that this is common in her current position of being a coordinator position at a manufacturing plant. She coordinates the dispatching of product as it is being freshly manufactured, fork lift operators who are bringing in supplies and carting out product, and truck drivers who will haul it all over the country.

Oh, and there are bosses at the upper level who will let her know what the priorities are, and various other people who also tell her what to consider in doing her job. She spoke of how irate the truck drivers can be, saying something like:“I hear how upset they are, and I respond to them, but I don’t react to them.I try to understand their position.They’re hot and tired, and they have families they are eager to go home to.It’s upsetting when you have to wait for hours because production is behind.However, I don’t react, I just do the best I can with what I’ve got.However, sometimes there are productions issues and there just isn’t any product ready for them to haul away.”

She found a balance between having empathy for a painful situation for another and understanding their position and their reactions, without becoming reactive to it.

Yesterday’s quote that I posted connected me to this conversation.It reminded me of the difficult balance of being present in this world, hearing what others are saying, noticing how others are reacting, and having all of that matter, without it hijacking the feelings you have, the thoughts you are thinking, and that other’s problems and issues become yours without you deciding how you really feel and want to respond to something.

• It’s a challenge to listen to the deepest part of ourselves and live out lives in this world out of that inner guidance, rather than being pulled this way and that by people who want a certain reaction from us.
• It’s a challenge for a person to be yelled at to not become automatically defensive or retort angrily back.
• It’s not easy to not automatically shrivel with anxiety under the glare of a judgemental loved one.

When people come at us with strong emotion, it pokes at parts of us that feel accused or inadequate or hurt.And there can be almost a “knee jerk” reaction to being poked like that.Faster than a blink of an eye, there is an inner reaction to protect the poked part:

• Nostrils flare, eyebrows furrow, and the blast of anger shoots out…nobody treats me that way!
• All hands on deck!Talk fast to help the other person feel better.Spring into action to find ways to “get out of the dog house”…to get back into the other’s “good books”. Turbo “butt kissing” in action!

OR

• RUN! Get out of the firing range, put the other person’s disappointed look far away from your field of vision.Run away from the relationship, run to alcohol, or the computer or…

You see where I’m going.

Without even realizing it, you have been hijacked by a part of you that seeks to stop you from being hurt by that which feels wounding or shaming or anxiety-creating words and actions.Strings have been pulled and you’ve been yanked this way or that.

It feels pretty yucky.

And that’s putting it politely.

On the other hand, the effects of listening for “the genuine” in yourself is incredible.I use a model called “Internal Family Systems” (IFS), which Dr. Richard Schwartz and his colleagues have developed, which allows people to find “the genuine” in themselves.It facilitates people to gain cooperation from the different parts of themselves with “the genuine” being captain, so to speak, working collaboratively with all of who you are.Then external pulls become tugs to which one can then choose how to respond, rather than strings on a marionette’s hand which are automatic.“The genuine” can speak for the parts, rather than a person speaking out of those reactionary parts.

So, rather than yelling in response to an accusation in a reflexive reaction, a person can say, “There’s a part of me that is feeling quite accused, and it’s feeling angry that you would think and say that about me.”

Can you see how that changes a conversation? Can you say how that could change a relationship?

When a person can notice how they are reacting and speak on behalf of that reaction, rather than speak out of the reaction, they begin working on behalf of themselves in ways that collaborate respectfully with others.One can maintain credibility, can keep the other person listening, can advocate for oneself.

The need to run, explode, or madly fix in a way that ultimately doesn’t work diminishes, and you stay in charge of your life.

Think about it.