Are You Addicted to Negative Reactions?

Your Emotions

When you are unhappy, your body is trying to communicate with you about what you need to feel better. Anger pulls for change, sadness pulls for connection and fear pulls for safety. There are lots of other emotions, but those are the three basics you will be feeling if you are not feeling happy. Here is an article I wrote that talks about understanding emotions. Feeling and expressing emotions is usually not the problem. What is often the problem is when we react to our emotions.

When we get emotional, we often start using criticism, contempt, or defensiveness (sarcasm, jabs, comments under our breath, eye rolls, etc) to express how we feel. When someone, especially your family or partner, does something that irritates you, are you critical or judgmental? Do you become sarcastic? Do you jump in with a "you should . . ." statements? If you are doing this in your relationships, this is probably your contribution to a lot of arguments and bad feelings. The problem is that those reactions do not clearly express your needs. In fact, they are self-defeating and push people away from you. This is probably a pattern of reactivity that you've had for a long time and are now addicted to.

Yes, You Are Addicted

Your brain creates associations between emotions, experiences and thoughts. When you are continually thinking, feeling and reacting in a certain way, you are strengthening the associations between those thoughts, feelings and reactions. When you are in a similar situation again, your brain will pull up that software program and you will think, feel and react in that same way. You have literally become addicted to those emotions and/or reactions. This will sabotage your efforts and must be our first place to start.

Remember, no one makes us feel anything. We make ourselves feel a certain way because of how we take in and make meaning from what happens. All this starts to build a neural pathway and programs our brain. When you experience something irritating and you jab your partner with sarcasm, you will start to do more and more of this because you have lost touch with your needs and how to express them effectively. Your reactions becomes a habit.

If you want to change your thoughts, feelings and reactions, you have to consistently interrupt that experience (the connections in your brain) and have a new one in order to create a new association and new outcome. If you want to be able to do this "in the moment", you will have to begin increasing your self awareness and create a new pathway in your brain to a different response.

Self-Awareness - The Magic Bullet

Self-awareness is being consciously aware of what your body is feeling, what emotions your body is generating and what impulses you have or do not have. If you can tune into all this (you may be surprised to know that it is always going on inside), you can choose to respond or not knowing why you make either decision. When you feel a surge of emotion to "flip out" in some way such as yelling, jabbing, being critical, etc., you are reacting not responding. When we react versus respond, our actions will always be self-defeating because it is not a clear signal of our needs that someone can meet.

Two Words to Create a Different Response

To become more responsive and less reactive, your goal is to become more self-aware. When you can do this, you will notice your emotions rise up, but you will be able to tune into them, determine what you need and respond in an effective way. As you become aware of your emotions, you can use them as a cue to trigger a new thought - your two empowering words.

If you want to improve your self-awareness, meditation is a powerful technique. Being with yourself and tuning into the messages of your brain (not always truthful) and body (almost always truthful) is a skill, a muscle to flex and strengthen. If you want the ability to be mindful in a difficult or emotional moment, you have to build a pathway to this type of thinking. You have to pre-load your brain with tools to use in those moments. A funny example of this is from the TV series Seinfeld. George Costanza's father, when experiencing a distressful moment, would say out loud, "serenity now!"

Determine your two words

Let's say you want to feel calm, or express patience or kindness. If you want that to be your inner feeling and/or the outer expression of your emotion, what energy would you need to draw in to create that? Here is what my own words are and how I determined them. I want to express kindness, even when I am feeling upset, irritated or annoyed. In order for me to get to kindness when I am feeling those emotions, I need to draw in the energy of tolerance. I have to create this pathway and association in my brain.

Every morning to start my meditation routine I start to clear my mind of thoughts and focus on my two words. I inhale imagining that as I do that I am drawing in the energy of tolerance - as I do this I say the word, "tolerance" in my head. Then I imagine the energy of tolerance transforming into kindness in my body and say the word "kindness" in my head as I exhale.

What do words will empower you? Patience and kindness? Calmness and gentleness? Perhaps you want to focus on healing? How about drawing in "healing energy" and manifesting "health". Choose a word that fuels you up and another that manifests whatever good feelings you want.

Set aside five minutes as you awake in the morning and five minutes as you are going to sleep, to close your eyes and mediate on two words of your choice. You want to find two words that you can use to help you stay calm and intentional when you are feeling the urge to react to your emotions. They may also be two words that energize you to create a positive outcome you seek, such as health. This will become the start to your routine to reprogramming your brain. If you are not focused on working on reactivity, that's okay. Instead, choose words that empower you to attract your goals.

The goal and the result you will experience if you stick with this is increased self-awareness of what your body is feeling and what emotions are inside. You will also strengthen your ability to notice a negative emotion (or fear or doubt about an outcome you seek) and use them as a cue to switch to your two words. Do this and you will strengthen your ability to respond instead of react.

Give this exercise a try and let me know how it goes.