One of my dad’s favorite things to say was, “never go to bed angry.” As was so often the case, his words were brief but filled with wisdom.
I always thought he was reflecting on the loss of his friends during combat in WWII. With all the loved one’s people have lost over the last few years (during the pandemic, wars, terrorism, mass shootings, and so much more) I understand his words so much more deeply. Surrounded by death, he came to question whether anger was “worth” it.
While it may be uncomfortable to consider, the fact is that in these times of random violence, those we love can be gone within moments. What will we be thinking then? I believe that once a loved one is gone, the anger often gives way to grief. I never hear family members who are being interviewed by news commentators say they are glad the person is gone. They never tell a story about how the person hurt their feelings or owed them an apology. Instead, they talk about the moments of joy they shared with the person and the despair that they can never experience shared joys again.
If a “break” in the relationship had occurred, the survivor is left thinking about how they had spent weeks, months or years, justifying the break. They begin to realize that their thoughts had shifted from the issue that caused the rift to the thought that the person had caused it or wanted it. Upon losing that person, the questions suddenly multiply and change in nature. Did that issue really matter as much as I thought it did? Was it worth the time lost in friendship/love? Was my life truly better without (whoever) in it? Was the apology that was awaited/required compensate for the loss now felt? Was I secretly hoping for a reconciliation that can never happen because they are gone?
Life is unpredictable. Let’s all try to “never go to bed angry” – or at least do so less frequently.
If you wake up every morning, eager to go to work because you find it fulfilling and meaningful then I would agree that relationships are like work. For too many people, however, work is a drudgery, a requirement for money that allows fun outside of the time spent there. It is an obligation, a means to an end. So, what are we saying when we tell ourselves or our friends that relationships are work? In talking to clients about this phrase, I have come to the conclusion that the phrase means we have to grin and bear it, not expect much from the relationship, or that we don’t deserve any more than we are getting. There is little to nothing positive in the suggestion to “make it work”.
As I see it, relationships are places we go to restore our sense of peace and happiness. Life can throw obstacles at us and make things difficult. These obstacles and difficulties can lead us to fantasize about how it would be easier if we had made other choices, selected a different significant other. However, those normal, occasional feelings, lead the couple to “work” to restore the peace and happiness they find in each other. But what if we reframed it so it wasn’t “work”? What if we framed it to feel like finding a new path to that supportive, comforting place?
Perhaps a more helpful analogy regarding relationships is clothing. We are uncomfortable in clothing that doesn’t fit us properly. If we see something we like, but is too tight, we can take it home and choose to work out and lose some weight so we can fit into it. Notice that the change happens in you and not in the clothing. The work is on your part, fueled by a desire to have that clothing and feel comfortable in it. Similarly, if the clothing we love is too large for us, we can choose to have it altered. In other words, we change the clothing.
What troubles me most is when a person is in the early stages of a relationship, yet still refers to it as work. In those cases, I think it is important to question the “fit.” Is the person trying to figure out the world the way a toddler does when given a sorting toy and is trying to put the circle in the triangle? This causes frustration and anger; once the toddler learns to sort properly, the task is easy. I believe that relationships are supposed to be easy, too. They are not supposed to cause us frustration, anger, and upset; they are supposed to replenish us.
If we think of relationships in terms of how they fit us, we can maintain a view that each person involved has qualities. The question becomes do those qualities fit our needs and do ours fit theirs. Do the roles we have in other areas of our life fit? Do our outside interests fit? Is their mutual respect? Is there a desire in both to make the other happy? Are both willing to maintain separate interests as well as explore mutual interests? None of this sounds like work to me. None of it sounds like an onerous chore that must be handled.
It seems much more productive to think about a potential relationship in terms of fit. Just because an outfit doesn’t fit doesn’t mean it isn’t of good quality. We can go into a high fashion store and know the material is flawless, but it just doesn’t fit. Life is like that sometimes. So is love.
It seems much more productive to think about a long-term relationship in terms of fit. A favorite item of clothing can bring us comfort over so many periods of our life. We sometimes find new ways to make it fit our lives. I cannot stress enough that our relationship with our significant other should feel like that – comfortable, familiar, and adaptable.
When the fit is right, relationships are not work. They are a place where our emotional reservoir is replenished.
We all feel great after receiving a compliment. It makes us happy and, while we try to stay humble, we might have the urge to share the compliment with cherished family or friends. Compliments, after all, are affirmations of our worth.
Complaints or criticisms, however, rarely make us feel good about ourselves. When we hear one, often our first reaction is upset. Then we add some defensiveness. And for many of us, it ends there; however, we need to learn to work our way to wonder. Why did the person feel that way? What feedback can I get from this? Wonder, then, is the opening to growth.
I will share a recent example. I was teaching an Introduction to Psychology class on Zoom and was enjoying the interaction that had developed among the students. There was an active dialogue, with students sharing orally or in the chat. We were discussing an article about why boys often lose interest in academics. Then, the complaint. One of the students said, “Well, as a man, I can say that I want you to get to the point. Your stories just don’t hold my interest.”
My reaction: immediate upset. Thoughts included: I work so hard to make the material relevant and useful; that was rude; how does he expect me to respond to that accusation? Defensiveness was next. Thoughts included: I have incredible ratings on MyProfessor.com; I have won two awards for Excellence in Teaching, one a statewide award. Who was he to tell me how to teach?
But then, I encouraged myself to move to wonder. Thoughts included: I wonder what kinds of stories would hold his interest; I wonder how many weeks ago he lost interest; I wonder why he still comes to class; I wonder why he felt comfortable sharing his point of view. That was the opening.
Once I recognized that his comment was an invitation for me to engage in a meaningful conversation, the door to growth opened. I embraced the idea that he felt safe enough to criticize me in real time and I was then able to ask how he thought I could improve. We both grew from the exchange of ideas.
I know I’m not alone in my reaction to complaints or criticisms. They are, at their core, feedback. The problem is that so many of us do not know how to provide meaningful feedback. Compliments are easy feedback. The person simply has to tell us what we did right. A complaint or criticism requires that the person includes a suggestion for improvement; it requires that they tell us what they want/need us to do in the future.
Because most people tell us what they don’t want (the complaint) and forget to include what they do want, we tend to go into fight/flight mode, making our response less effective. The fix, however, is to go into “wonder mode”. When I did that, I was able to elicit the feedback I needed from the student. Wonder mode is much more effective that fight/flight mode. It allows us to think and to solve problems.
So, the next time you get some feedback that causes you to feel upset and defensive, try to add the “I wonder.” Say to your supervisor, “I wonder if you can suggest how I can handle that situation next time.” This is a statement that opens a door to growth. The next time your teacher grades an assignment as needs improvement, ask “I wonder if you could offer some advice about what I need to do to improve this grade going forward.” This is a statement that opens a door to growth. The next time your significant other makes a comment that you interpret as a cause for alarm about the health of your relationship ask, “I wonder if there is something I can do to make things better between us.” This is a statement that opens a door to growth, especially if your partner wonders the same.
A complaint is an opening. So, don’t fear it. Instead wonder about it and embrace the opportunity.
When I’m Not Rushing, Feeling Guilty and Pulled in Every Direction…I Enjoy My Life
So many of us feel like we are always in survival mode, just moving about endlessly from one responsibility to the next, from one requirement to the next, from one obligation to the next. We don’t even have time to consider how we got to this place or what we can do to transition to a “workable” mode, or better yet a “thriving” mode.
Join me for an hour-long online discussion via Zoom at 7PM on Wednesday, February 16th. We will discuss why everything seems to be a priority, how to categorize our priorities more effectively, and how to enjoy our lives – at least a little bit – every day.
Name this emotion: a person’s heart is racing, their pupils are dilated, their perspiration is increased, and their digestion is stopped. Some of you might have named the emotion of anger. Some of you might have named the emotion of fear. Still others might have named the emotion of surprise.
Fascinatingly, every emotion we experience is based on the limited number of physiological responses listed above. In essence, emotions – whether “good” or “bad” – call our parasympathetic nervous system (our fight or flight response) into action. We have an extremely limited set of physiological responses for a wide array of emotional labels.
Emotions are, essentially, our subjective reaction to the physiological reactions of our pupils, heart rate, perspiration, and digestion. Then we add a twist of cognition.
We answer the question, “what do I think I am feeling?” For example, if we experience the symptoms listed above and see our friends shouting, “Happy Birthday” we generally call our primary emotion surprise and then add the emotion of happy. If we do not like such parties, we still might use the primary label of surprise, but add the emotion of anger.
In other words, we feel this limited set of biological events, we look around and appraise the situation, and then we apply the label. The label determines our subjective emotional experience. Based upon our interpretation of the surrounding events, we experience these physical events as pleasant or unpleasant. Interpreting emotions as pleasant, causes the body to return to homeostasis (back to its normal state) more quickly and, because we are not concerned with protecting ourselves from some threat (real or perceived), we use up fewer physiological resources.
What is even more interesting is that the label can be changed, and by changing the label, we have the power to change what we are experiencing.
This is extremely important when we consider how freely we use the words worry, anxiety, and fear. We use the words worry and anxiety when we are less sure of the reason of source of our concern; the concern is more amorphous. We use the word fear when there is a specific source. One psychologist, Todd Pressman, PhD, has suggested that all anxieties and worries can be categorized into five core fears: abandonment/aloneness, loss of identity, loss of meaning, loss of purpose, and fear of death.
What makes this interesting to me is the idea that if we label more things fear, rather than worry or anxiety, we actually increase the number of strategies we can use to resolve the situation. Let me stress again that all three labels are emotions and all three will, physiologically, result in the fight or flight response. But when we label the emotion as fear, we tend to either feel paralyzed (leaving the “field” emotionally) or we feel powerful and ready to “fight” this dreaded enemy. The focus on “fight” calls us to action and provides opportunities for successful resolution.
So, if we fear an exam, we can “take flight” by dropping the class or we can “fight” to succeed by reading, forming study groups, going for tutoring, etc. If we are anxious about our future if we fail an exam, we are paralyzed by the anticipation of all these potentially negative consequences. If we fear that if we fail this exam, our future will not be as good as we hoped, then we can make the preparations to guard ourselves from that outcome.
Each psychological perspective has a method for fighting our fears. Behaviorism advocates exposure therapy, which involves facing the fear. Once they face that fear, and once those fears are unsubstantiated, the person gains control over the fear. Psychoanalysis involves tracking the source of the fear to a childhood trauma, to a moment when our pursuit of pleasure/happiness was severely punished, an event that led one to fear similar abandonment in the present situation. Humanists examine fears through the lens of ideal/real self and use “should statements” as the clue to the discrepancy between those two parts of who we are. The fear, for them, is often that we will not be loved if show our true selves; we must always present the ideal – an impossible standard for anyone. We fear the conditions that must be met if we are to be loved by those important to us. Cognitive psychologists focus on the irrational aspects of our fears, pointing out to us that most of what we anticipate never happens. In fact, a study done by The University of Pennsylvania revealed that 95.1% of what the participants’ worried about/feared never happened.
That last fact is very powerful. I have encouraged many of my students and clients to write down their fears and to record if it actually happened. We then discuss whether the energy expended in the anticipation of the feared event was “worth it.”
Invariably, the answer is no. Ultimately, it helps them to recognize that the things we lump into worry/stress/fear reduce our resources. They keep our fight/flight system on alert for too long, depleting the ability for it to react when actually needed.
What they often find helpful is the idea that we can re-label those earlier emotions. We can be excited about the upcoming test/job interview/party. We can be joyful about the opportunity to demonstrate what we know. If/when things go wrong, then we can use any the techniques discussed above to fight our fear and resolve the situation.
I think we can sum it up by saying if we focus more on solutions than on the worry/anxiety/fear itself, we will gain control over it and use it to make our lives, and the lives of those we love, better.
If you enjoy my posts, please subscribe using the signup box at the bottom of the page. Once you sign up, you will receive a confirming email. When you respond to that email, you will get updates on any new items I post.
