Category: Anger Management

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Mindful Confidence

mindful confidence

“If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re right.”

–Henry Ford

Mindful confidence is the art of living in True Self. If you know who you are and what you want to be, then you are living in True Self. Being centered in True Self is, by definition, mindful confidence.

An important characteristic of living in True Self is the ability to be non-judgmental with yourself and with others. Being non-judgmental means that you have realized that you are human, and that you’re going to occasionally make mistakes. Realizing that others are human as well, allows you to forgive and forget, and to start over. This ability to pick yourself, dust yourself off, and begin again is the essence of confidence.

We previously discussed the idea of implicit memories, and how narrative memories integrate all of our implicit memories together in the story of our lives, like fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. If those pieces fit together, we are able to make sense of our lives, and it is easy to avoid the temptation to engage in emotional aggression.

If, on the other hand, things happen to us that cause our implicit memories not to match up with our narrative, chaos is the result. Emotional aggression occurs when we feel our lives to be chaotic and out-of-control.

Another cause of emotional aggression is insisting on too much order in our lives. When this occurs, we tend to make too many rules for ourselves and for others, and the result is a rigid, inflexible life.

Having too much chaos in life is a problem. So is having too much order in life. The middle ground then would be to find a balance between chaos and order in our lives. Finding such a balance would give us the ability to live in Wise Mind. When we are able to live in Wise Mind, we are living in True Self, and when we are living in True Self, we are living life with confidence.

Mindful Confidence, Chaos and Order

Emotional aggression can occur on either end of this spectrum between chaos and order. The chief cause of chaos in life is overwhelming emotional responses to life’s circumstances. Chaos corresponds to Emotional Mind. When a crisis occurs, there is a natural tendency to respond out of the emotional side of our minds. It’s perfectly okay to have such chaotic emotional feelings. It is possible to have strong emotional reactions without letting them create chaos in our lives.

The way to do this is to understand that when strong feelings hit, we can choose to leave Doing Mode, avoid the temptation to try to ‘fix’ things, and move to Being Mode. In Being Mode we can sit quietly with the emotion until it dissipates, or until we are calm enough to make a rational decision instead of reacting purely out of emotion.

At the other end of the spectrum is the need for order. Order corresponds to the Rational Mind. At the extreme end of the Order portion of the spectrum, the rules for living have become rigid, inflexible, maladaptive, and unstable. At this other extreme end of the spectrum we are back into the Perfection Triad, in which we are making rules that insist on perfection from ourselves and from others in an attempt to shun personal responsibility for our emotional states.

Wise Mind is the middle path between these two extremes. It bridges the gap between Emotional Mind and Rational Mind, and between chaos and order. Wise Mind is the ability to be adaptable when we encounter too much chaos, and the ability to be flexible when we encounter too much order.

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Memories: Making the Pieces Fit

memories

There are many types of memory. Let’s talk about two of them: Implicit Memory and Narrative Memory. Implicit memories are memories about specific events. What did you have for breakfast this morning? What outfit did you wear yesterday? Which people did you talk to today? The answers to these questions are implicit memories.

Narrative memories are memories that try to make sense of our various experiences on a day-to-day basis. Narrative memories integrate our implicit memories into a coherent whole. While implicit memories are the ‘what,’ narrative memories are the ‘why.’ Suppose I don’t usually eat eggs for breakfast, but today I decided to have scrambled eggs. The memory of having scrambled eggs is an implicit memory that answers the question, “What did I have for breakfast?” Further suppose that I was having breakfast with a friend who knew my eating habits, and my friend commented that I don’t usually eat eggs. If I search my own mind for a reason why I chose eggs for breakfast on this particular day, the reason I come up with will be the ‘why’ of narrative memory.

Our lives are made up of implicit memories of our daily events. In order to make sense of our lives, we link these events together in a narrative that gives our lives meaning. These stories that we create about our life experiences are our narrative memories. We all write our own autobiographies every day of our lives. This process of autobiography writing is our narrative memory fitting the pieces of our implicit memories together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Integrating Memories

For most of us, most of the time, our stories make sense and everything runs smoothly. But sometimes we get a bunch of implicit memories that we just can’t seem to fit into our own narratives. It’s as if, while working this jigsaw puzzle, we somehow grabbed a handful of pieces from another box. When this happens, we have to ‘change the picture’ of our life stories to incorporate these new puzzle pieces. This process of fitting the new pieces into the puzzle is called integration.

If we are able to successfully integrate all of these implicit memories, then there’s no problem. If we have difficulty making some of the pieces fit, it usually means that we’d have to change our worldview and re-write our own narrative in order to fit those pieces into the puzzle. This can be a frustrating experience. Sometimes that frustration manifests in emotional aggression.

Living a life of consistency means finding a way to make all of the pieces fit without getting frustrated or without having to act out in emotionally aggressive ways. By learning to integrate our True Selves into the story of our lives, we fit all of our implicit memories into a new narrative memory that creates this new paradigm. When all of these pieces have fit together, we are living at the core of our True Selves.

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Consequences and Letting Go

Ecospirituality

Consequences and letting go is about recognizing the choices we make that lead to consequences we don’t want to experience. Such choices have a tendency to be self-sustaining. That is because we usually make choices in the belief that those choices will make the problem better. But if we continue to make choices that we know aren’t going to make the problem better, then we’re going to continue to get the same results over and over again. The attempted solution to the problem instead makes the problem worse.

One way to get different consequences is to practice letting go. Letting go leads to radical acceptance. That is, if you are faced with a consequence you cannot change, then the only alternative is to accept that this situation cannot be changed. The first step to letting go is to ask ourselves, “What is the worst thing that can happen in this situation?”

This doesn’t mean that we’re asking for the purpose of minimizing or denying concerns. It means that we’re asking this question so we can really figure out what we’re having difficulty accepting. Our fears are usually worse than the reality in situations like this. In some cases, our fears of the worst thing happening might actually be worse than if the worst thing actually did happen.

Once you’ve figured out what the worst thing is, next ask yourself, “Am I prepared for the worst thing? If not, can I accept the worst thing?” If you find that the answer is that you are not prepared for the worst thing, then the next step is to prepare yourself for the worst thing. In many cases where emotional aggression is an issue, the ‘worst thing’ involves other people. If the ‘worst thing’ is that someone else might gain the upper hand, or that someone else might be right, or even that someone else might even leave you, honestly ask yourself, “If this person is going to leave me, and I’m so stressed out about that possibility that I’m acting out in emotionally aggressive ways, would their leaving really be a bad thing?”

Another thing to ask n this situation is, “Am I so worried about this person leaving me that my behavior is actually going to be the reason that this person leaves me?”

Next ask yourself, “Can I live the rest of my life this way if nothing changes? Who has the power to change it?” Note that in this case, ‘changing it’ doesn’t mean trying to get the other person to change. Changing it in this case means either changing yourself or ending the relationship. If you attempt to change the other person, you’re back to engaging in emotional aggression.

If you are having difficulty in accepting a consequence, answer the questions below about the consequence you’d like to change. Remember that the only way to change the consequence is indirectly, by changing the belief and the choice that led to the consequence. If the consequence has already happened, the only alternative left is to accept it and to make different choices the next time so you don’t get a similar consequence.

Questions to Ask Yourself about Consequences and Letting Go

Think about a consequence that you’d like to re-evaluate. It may help to write it down.

Now answer the question, “What is the worst thing that can happen in this situation?” Focus on what you’re afraid might happen if you attempted to change the consequence by making a difference choice the next time. What we’re focusing on here is the consequence after the consequence. If you react negatively to a consequence, then you’ve just created another consequence that is also likely to turn out negative.

Next, answer the question, “Am I prepared for the worst thing?” This question is designed to ask if you have used all of your mindful skills to help you cope should the worst thing happen. Think of which coping skills from previous sessions might help you to find a way to prepare for the thing that you are afraid might happen. If the worst thing has already happened, ask yourself which coping skills might be used to help you to accept what has happened so that you can move on without acting in such a way that you get even further negative consequences.

The next question, “If not, can I accept the worst thing?” involves ways to let go of the consequence without feeling the need to act in an emotionally aggressive way, thereby getting yet another negative consequence. Think about the consequence you are evaluating and see if accepting the ‘worst thing’ in this scenario might help you to find a way to let go. If the consequence has already happened, remember that you can’t change what’s already happened, so there’s really nothing to let go of. All you can do is to engage in ‘damage control’ so that you don’t make the situation worse.

The question, “Can I live the rest of my life this way if nothing changes?” helps to re-set your perception filter by focusing on the assumptions that led to the consequence. Let’s break that down a bit.

Consequences are the result of choices. If you’ve just experienced a negative consequence, ask yourself what choices you made that led to the negative consequence. Then ask yourself what might have to change in order to avoid getting a similar consequence the next time. Remember to keep the focus on what you have the power to change, and avoid ‘musterbating’ by avoiding the temptation to say what others should have done or could have done.

This leads to the final question, “Who has the power to change it?” If the answer to this question involves anyone else but yourself, then the only choice you have is to accept that the consequence is beyond your control. In that case, you will have to accept that this is just the way things are (mindful awareness) or change the way you think about it so that you may focus on the aspects of it that you do have the power to change.

Those aspects that you have the power to change are those choices that you made that led to the consequence. If the consequence was the result of something someone else did and you truly couldn’t have made any choice yourself that would have led to a different consequence, then the only remaining choice is to end the relationship. This is especially true if the consequence you experienced involved being abused in some way. In such a situation, no choice that you made led to the consequence of being abused. There is never any justifiable reason for abuse, and it is never the victim’s fault. In a situation where the consequence was abuse, the choice is to seek help immediately or to find safety as quickly as possible, and to set firm boundaries so that it never happens again.

Consequences and Letting Go List

For the sake of brevity, here’s a bullet list of questions to ask yourself when evaluating consequences. Evaluating consequences in this manner facilitates letting go.

What is the worst thing that can happen in this situation?

Am I prepared for the worst thing?

If not, can I accept the worst thing?

Can I live the rest of my life this way if nothing changes?

Who has the power to change it?

The final lesson of Consequences and Letting Go is that you cannot change others. You can only change yourself. Remember that and letting go becomes easier. You can also download the worksheet below for practice in letting go.

01.12-Letting-Go-Worksheet-and-Diary-CardDownload
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Process Addictions

process addiction group

A process addiction is similar to a substance addiction, except that instead of being addicted to a drug, the person with a process addiction is addicted to a cluster of behaviors. Examples of process addictions would include eating disorders, sexual addictions, and gambling addictions. A process addiction is an addiction to a process or a pattern of behavior.

Emotional aggression can be a process addiction as well. It tends to be an automatic response to certain emotional states, and the motivation for engaging in emotionally aggressive behaviors is that it can sometimes mimic the ‘high’ of abusing a substance. The brain produces neurotransmitters; chemicals which induce or aid in emotional states. Automatic processes can produce these chemicals. So can drugs. In either case, the ‘user’ is creating an artificially-induced chemical state in order to experience a ‘high.’

There are three major characteristics of any addiction:

Withdrawal – In substance abuse, withdrawal manifests in physiological symptoms related to the substance. A person with alcoholism might wake up with a hangover. A person with a heroin addiction might have the sweats or stomach cramps. A person trying to quit smoking might get irritable or angry. With a process addiction, the person may get nervous, anxious or angry when attempting to give up the behavior.

Tolerance – In substance abuse, tolerance manifests as an increasing need for the substance being used in order to get the same ‘high.’ Suppose the first time I drink I get a buzz off of two or three beers. Then six months or a year later, I need a six-pack or more to get the same high. I’ve developed a tolerance for alcohol. In a process addiction, tolerance manifests as a need to engage in more and more of the same behavior in order to get the same effect. With emotional aggression, I might start out acting in an emotionally aggressive way once or twice a week. Then six months later it might be once or twice a day, then a year later it might be five or six times a day, and so on.

Loss of Control – In substance abuse, loss of control manifests as an inability to keep addictive behaviors from interfering in activities of daily living. I might miss work because of a hangover. I might get in trouble with the law for fighting or other illegal activities to support my habit. In emotional aggression, loss of control manifests in a similar fashion. If I’ve ever gotten fired from a job because of my ‘attitude,’ or if I’ve ever been in legal trouble because of my inability to control my anger,’ then I’ve experienced loss of control.

Signs of a Process Addiction

Below is a list of signs that a Process Addiction may be present. If any of these sound familiar, you may be using emotional aggression as a process addiction:

Withdrawal Cluster

  • When the person tries to stop engaging in emotional aggression, he/she becomes moody, has a bad temper, has difficulty paying attention and concentrating, and experiences depression, emptiness, frustration, anger, bitterness and resentment.
  • Changes in appetite or sleep habits when attempting to stop the behavior. With process addictions, withdrawal can lead to anxiety, depression, trembling or nervous tics, sweating, and in extreme circumstances, to violent tendencies.
  • A person with a process addiction might use other behaviors in an attempt to get the same ‘high,’ such as driving fast or engaging in risky activities in order to get an adrenaline rush.
  • A person with an emotional aggression addiction may feel the need to indulge to start the day. That is, he/she may provoke an argument first thing in the morning in order to feel better.
  • A person with a process addiction to emotional aggression might seek out or provoke opportunities to act in emotionally aggressive ways.

Tolerance Cluster

  • A person with a process addiction to emotional aggression may feel that they need to be able to behave this way in order to deal with their problems.
  • A person with a process addiction to emotional aggression may spend more and more time and energy focusing on ways of provoking a situation that will give them an opportunity to act out in emotionally aggressive ways.
  • Many people who are addicted to emotional aggression are in denial. They are either unaware that they have a problem, or they refuse to acknowledge it, preferring to blame their own behavior on others.
  • As the addiction to emotional aggression progresses the person may stop doing things they once enjoyed, or if they engage in those activities, they no longer find them enjoyable.
  • The need to engage in emotional aggression becomes more important than relationships. This often manifests in the need to be ‘right’ all the time, even at the expense of the relationship.

Loss of Control Cluster

  • The individual continues engaging in emotional aggression on a regular basis, even though they are aware of the consequences to family, work, and social circles.
  • The person cannot stop the behavior. At least one serious attempt was made to give up, but the person was unsuccessful. A person who cannot control their physical aggression is a danger to themselves and to others. In extreme cases, when they totally lose control of their behavior, institutionalization may be necessary.
  • Some activities are given up because of an addiction to the process. A person with a process addiction to emotional aggression might turn down social opportunities because of a fear of not being able to regulate their behavior.
  • In some cases the person with a process addiction might make take risks to make sure he/she can continue to engage in emotional aggression. They might quit a job because the boss complained about their attitude. They might leave a relationship because the other person complained about the way they were being treated.
  • A person with a process addiction to emotional aggression may have legal troubles. This could be the result of vandalism during a fit of rage, or physical or sexual abuse committed against others, or of indulging in illegal activities in an effort to regulate moods. This could also include abusing substances as a method of emotional regulation.

If you checked off more than two items from each category above, you may have a process addiction to emotional aggression. If all three elements of withdrawal, tolerance, and loss of control are present, then the emotionally aggressive person has a process addiction to emotional aggression.

The Process Addiction Cycle

The process addiction to emotional aggression manifests in the Addiction Cycle. The Addiction Cycle for process addictions is similar to the Addiction Cycle for substance abuse addictions. The Substance Abuse Addiction Cycle contains five major elements. Those elements are:

  1. Emotional Trigger – There is a problem with emotional regulation that triggers the craving cycle
  2. Craving – Due to the emotional difficulty, the individual begins to crave a substance in order to regulate the emotions
  3. Ritual – The person engages in rituals associated with the addictive behavior
  4. Using – The person succumbs to the craving and uses the substance
  5. Guilt – After indulging in the substance, the person feels guilty about being unable to control their behavior

There is also an addiction cycle for process addictions. In a process addiction, the emotional trigger is not subdued by a substance. Instead, it is subdued by the chemicals produced by the brain during a cycle of emotional aggression.
The steps of the Process Addiction Cycle are as follows:

  1. Emotional Trigger – There is a problem with emotional regulation that triggers the craving cycle
  2. Craving – In the case of a process addiction, due to the emotional difficulty, the individual begins to crave or desire to act in an emotionally aggressive way in order to regulate the emotions that triggered the cycle
  3. Automatic Processes (Ritual) – The person engages in rituals associated with the cycle of emotional aggression
  4. Emotional Aggression (Using) – The person succumbs to the craving and acts out in an emotionally aggressive way
  5. Guilt – After indulging in an episode of emotional aggression, the person feels guilty about being unable to control their behavior

In a process addiction, the emotional trigger is ‘regulated’ by engaging in emotional aggression. But this tendency to indulge in emotional aggression is a short-term fix with damaging long-term consequences. Indulging in the cycle leads to damaged or broken relationships, which then cause the need to indulge in the cycle even more. The guilt caused by an act of emotional aggression is usually enough to trigger another emotional response, which then leads to even more emotionally aggressive acting out.

We’ve already discussed the idea of primary vs. secondary emotions, in which the secondary emotion is the emotion that it is safe to express. The key to stopping the Process Addiction Cycle is in finding the primary emotions that start the cycle. Once they have been identified, it becomes easier to acknowledge them without feeling the need to indulge in the craving by responding in emotionally aggressive ways.

By identifying the primary emotions that serve as triggers, we can choose not to act in emotionally aggressive ways. We may instead use our mindful skills to sit quietly with those feelings in the present moment, reminding ourselves that there is no need to ‘do’ anything in order to make the feeling go away. If we are able to sit quietly with the feeling until it subsides, we have learned how to simply ‘be.’

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Choices and Ruminating Cycles

Snowballing ruminating cycle

Our choices are sometimes a result of our ruminating cycles. Have you ever had a thought that led to another thought, and then another, and so on until your thoughts are snowballing out of control? If so, you’ve experienced a ruminating cycle. When we make choices after engaging in ruminating cycles like this, our choices aren’t usually the type of decisions that yield positive consequences.

Sometimes we make choices in an effort to quell such ruminations. When that happens, those choices may not produce the optimal outcome.

This is because our beliefs are a result of our thoughts and feelings. If our beliefs and choices are leading us to experience consequences that we don’t want, we can learn consciously change those thoughts and beliefs to create consequences that we do want. Poor choices are the result of negative cycles. Stress and anxiety are also usually the results of negative ruminating cycles.

Ruminating Cycle Exercise

Think about a time when you had a negative cycle and acted on it. How did the choices you made lead to consequences you didn’t want? It may help to write down that cycle on a piece of paper, using as much detail as possible. Feel free to get as personal as necessary to complete the exercise.

Here are the instructions for writing down your negative snowballing cycle:

  1. In the circle in the center of the page, write down the trigger that began the negative cycle. What happened that started the negative thought process? What did you think about what happened?
  2. Next, look at the trigger in the center circle, and write down the first thing that comes to mind. Write it next to the circle, and draw a circle around that thought and connect it back to the center circle.
  3. Now write down the next thing that comes to mind when you think about your trigger statement, and write it down as well. Draw a circle around it and connect it back to the center circle as well.
  4. Continue this process until you can’t think of anything else, or until the center circle is surrounded by other circled thoughts.
  5. Next, pick one of those circled thoughts and think about the first thing that comes to mind in response to that thought. Write it in a circle and connect it back to the thought that originated it.
  6. Go on in a similar fashion, listing all the thoughts in your ruminating cycle and linking them back to the thoughts that spawned them. Work outward in concentric ‘circles of circles’ until complete.

Choices and Ruminations

Triggers can lead to ruminating cycles if we choose to let them. Negative ruminating cycles can lead to poor choices, and poor choices can lead to adverse consequences. The more steps in a ruminating cycle we can identify, the more opportunities we have to change them or to stop them completely!
Refer to the Ruminating Cycle Graph you just completed in the previous exercise, and answer the following questions:

  • What are the triggers that activate your ruminating cycle?
  • What assumptions are sustaining your snowballing?
  • What perceptions are sustaining your cycle?
  • What feelings are sustaining your ruminating cycle?
  • What thoughts are sustaining your snowballing?
  • What beliefs are sustaining your cycle?
  • What physiological cues are sustaining your ruminating cycle?
  • What choices are sustaining your negative cycles?
  • What are the consequences of sustaining your snowballing?
  • What is your intention in engaging in this negative cycle?

Look at your answers to the questions above. Which of these answers would help you to either stop your negative ruminating cycle or to change it to a positive ruminating cycle? Why?

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Controlling Others

controlling others

“Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others.”

-H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Controlling others is an attempt to make others responsible for our own emotional states. The actions that happen in our lives lead to a response. That response is a set of beliefs and behaviors about what just happened. When I act on those beliefs by engaging in behaviors, I get consequences. If those consequences are good, nothing has to change. But if those consequences aren’t what I wanted, then the only person who has the power to change that is me. Others cannot change those consequences for me.

How many of your attempts to control others have been the result of your beliefs? Is it difficult to change your beliefs because if you did so you’d have to take responsibility for your own emotional states? It can be pretty scary to assume control of your own life. If you are in control and you fail, then you have nobody to blame but yourself. On the other hand, if you are in control and you succeed, you and you alone are responsible for that success! In that case, you get all the credit!

Emotionally Aggressive Controlling Behaviors

A common excuse for emotionally aggressive controlling behaviors towards others is, “People treat me with disrespect.” While this may be true on occasion, we really have no control over how other people treat us, as much as we might like to think otherwise. The behavior of others is an external event beyond our control. What we can control is how we react to the way we are treated. One way to rephrase the above statement could be, “I can’t help the way others treat me, but I can change the way I react to them.”

There are at least four ways to fail and at least four ways to succeed. Look over the lists below and see if anything from either list sounds familiar:

Controlling Others: Four ways to Fail

  1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: “You always do this…” or “You never do that…”
  2. ‘You’ Statements: “This is all your fault!”
  3. ‘Musterbating:’ “Shoulda, woulda, coulda…”
  4. False Comparisons: “Everybody else gets this, why can’t you?”

Four ways to Succeed

  1. Exceptional Thinking: Look for positive exceptions to the ‘rule’
  2. ‘I’ Statements: “This is how I feel about what you said/did”
  3. ‘Solution-Seeking:’ “What can I do to help so this doesn’t happen again?”
  4. True Comparisons: “You did that much better than other people would have”

The next time you feel the temptation to control the people in your life, review these lists and remind yourself that you can’t control others. You can only control yourself. If you control or change the way you respond to others, then they may be willing to change the way they respond to you.

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Mindful Self-Control

Self-Control Point Ruston letting go

“Happiness is the absence of the pursuit of happiness.”

–Chuang Tsu

Self-control is a requirement for happiness. This quote by Chuang Tsu reminds us that if we are happy, there is no need to pursue happiness, and that if we are pursuing happiness, then it is obvious that we must not be happy! So how can self-control lead to happiness?

Emotional aggression is the pursuit of happiness in unproductive ways. When we act out of emotional aggression, we are trying to get others to be responsible for our happiness. If I rely on others to make me happy, I have just handed control of my life over to others. If others are in control of my happiness, then I can only be happy when they choose to indulge my need for happiness.

The need to control others can sometimes reveal our own insecurities. These insecurities lead to emotional aggression because when we feel vulnerable we feel out of control. When we feel out of control, we sometimes feel that we can regain that control by controlling those around us.

Sometimes the desire to control others manifests in something called self-sabotaging behaviors. A self-sabotaging behavior is a pattern of action that leads us into failure. By deliberately setting ourselves up to fail, we can be attempting to punish those who care about us by punishing ourselves. Sometimes this takes the form of, “I’ll show them! I’ll hurt myself in some way so they’ll regret the way they treated me!”

Ultimately such behaviors are attempts to solicit pity out of others by making them feel guilty. To a person engaged in self-sabotaging behaviors, negative attention is better than no attention at all. In such a case, this person may not know how to seek attention in positive ways, so he attempts to seek attention in the only way he knows how: By injuring himself in some way and hoping this self-injury will cause others to reach out to him.

Another aspect of self-sabotaging is that it is abdicating responsibility to succeed. If I consciously act in ways that go against my own best interests, then I don’t have to try to find a way to be successful. The good news is that you can choose how to feel, and how to behave. In fact, you are the only person who can make that decision for yourself. Another person can never tell you how to feel or how to act.

Self-Control and Beliefs

The key to self-control is to realize that events and circumstances do not cause your reactions. What you believe about events and circumstances cause your reactions. Think about the last time you were stressed out. Were you stressed out because of the events in your life, or were you stressed out because of what you chose to believe about those events? If the stress was a result of the events in your life, then there is nothing you can do to change, and you will never be in control of your own life. You will live like a leaf on the wind, constantly blown to and fro on the winds of chance.

But if the stress was the result of what you chose to believe about those circumstances, then the good news is that you are in control of those beliefs. You can change them so that you are no longer stressed out by life’s bumps and bruises. The choice is up to you. You are in control.

External events – whether in the past, present, or future – cannot influence the way you feel or behave until you become aware of them and begin to think about them. If you had a crisis in your life, but you never knew it happened, would it stress you out? Of course not, because you didn’t even know about it.

So it’s not the events that cause stress. It’s your own beliefs about the events that cause stress. To fear something, or to worry about something, or to react in any other way to something, you have to be thinking about it. The cause of your reaction is not the event – it’s what you tell yourself about the event that causes your reaction.

What are you telling yourself about the circumstances of your life that may be interfering with your ability to control yourself? What alternate narratives could you tell yourself that would increase and enhance your self-control? How can you use your mindful skills to make this happen?

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Aggressive vs. Assertive Communication

Assertive vs. Aggressive Communication

In mindful communication, we learn to communicate in ways that are assertive rather than aggressive. By setting firm boundaries in non-aggressive ways, our interactions with others become assertive without resulting in hurt feelings, arguments, or conflict.

If setting boundaries does lead to conflict, learning to be assertive rather than aggressive allows us to find peaceful and productive resolutions to differences of opinion.

Assertive Communication: No ‘Buts’

In grad school I had a supervisor who said, “After ‘but’ comes b.s.'”

The first step in moving from aggressive communications to assertive communications is to eliminate the word ‘but’ from our vocabulary. Using the word ‘but’ is rationalizing our behavior, and rationalizing is evading. Evading conflict can be a type of emotional aggression in that we are asking others to interpret what we mean without giving them enough information to draw such conclusions.

Also, using the word ‘but’ means that we’re offering excuses for our behaviors instead of owning up to them and taking responsibility for them. For an example illustrating this point, look at the sentence below:

“I’m sorry I swore at you, BUT it was because you made me angry.”

In this sentence, the person speaking has just rationalized the swearing by making excuses. If this statement was offered as an apology, the sentiment has been weakened because this person has shifted the blame to the other person. The implication is that it is the other person’s fault because the other person did something that the person speaking chose to react angrily towards.

Would it sound more like an apology if this person had simply stopped at the first part of the sentence, leaving everything after the word ‘but’ out? By saying ‘but,’ this person is attempting to manipulate the other person into being responsible for the swearing. He has evaded responsibility by blame-shifting.

Assertive speech agrees with specifics, not with generalizations

The Three Ps are personal, permanent, and pervasive. Statements that include ‘always’ and ‘never’ are broad generalizations that eliminate the possibility of change by stating that one instance of a behavior indicates a permanent or pervasive pattern of behavior. Look at the statement below:

“You always ignore me!”

In the above sentence, the person speaking is attempting to make a particular instance of a behavior permanent and/or pervasive by generalizing it to ‘always.’ If you’re on the receiving end of such a statement, you can agree to a specific instance where you engaged in the behavior without agreeing to the generalization in the following way:

“I’m sorry, I did ignore you that time.”

Here the speaker is agreeing to a specific occurrence of the behavior by using the phrase, “that time.”

When agreeing with a specific instance, you may point out that you are agreeing with that specific instance, as long as you avoid the temptation of following it up with a ‘but,’ such as:

“I’m sorry, I did ignore you that time, but I don’t always ignore you.”

If you add the word ‘but,’ you’re back to rationalizing and evading. When agreeing with a specific instance, you’ll have to trust that the other person understands implicitly that you are not agreeing with the generalization. If you feel tempted to point out that you don’t agree with the generalization, remember to avoid blame-shifting.

Don’t try to make it their responsibility that you behaved in a certain way.

Playing ‘dumb’

If you find yourself the victim of a barrage of criticism, you can de-fuse it by ‘playing dumb.’

You can play ‘dumb’ by asking “What do you mean?” After a critical statement. The idea here is that you are refusing to engage in arguing by asking for specifics in an attempt to understand what’s really bothering the other person.

Children are really good at this. Here’s an example:

Child: “Daddy, why is the sky blue?”
Daddy: “Because the air absorbs all the other colors of light”
Child: “Why does the air absorb all the other colors of light?”
Daddy: “Because the other colors of light bounce off the molecules in the air”
Child: “Why do the other colors bounce off the molecules?”
…and so on, and so forth. You get the idea.

In a relationship, here’s a possible scenario in which ‘playing dumb’ might be used:

Husband: “Why did you look at Jim that way?”
Wife: “I don’t know what you mean. What way was I looking at Jim?”
Husband: “You know…that way.”
Wife: “No, I don’t know what you mean by ‘that way.’”
Husband: “Like you were flirting with him!”
Wife: “What do you mean, ‘flirting with him?’”

The conversation would continue in this manner until the husband realized the absurdity of his assertion and gave up. You have to exercise caution in using this technique. The underlying goal is to illustrate the absurdity of the accusation without letting it turn into a full-blown argument.

Avoid the temptation to become emotionally aggressive when using this one. This should only be used in a playful way, and not in a mean-spirited way.

Assertive communication means admitting your mistakes

Saying, “I’m sorry, I screwed up this time” de-fuses any conflict because if you are agreeing with a person who is attempting to criticize you, there’s nothing to argue about. We have a natural tendency to go into ‘defense mode’ when being accused of something, but if the accusation is true, then there’s nothing to defend against.

For example:

Wife: “You forgot to pick the kids up from soccer practice!”

Husband: “I’m sorry, you’re right! I did forget!”

It will be very tempting, when agreeing with a criticism, to give a reason for your behavior.

You should avoid this temptation for two very important reasons:

  1. If you offer an excuse, you’re evading responsibility for the error; and,
  2. If you offer an excuse, and the other person can invalidate the excuse, then you’re left without a leg to stand on. You don’t have to give a reason.

Just accept responsibility for the error and move on.

Here’s an example to illustrate the point:

Wife: “You forgot to pick the kids up from soccer practice!”

Husband: “I’m sorry, you’re right! I did forget, BUT I had a lot of work to catch up on at the office!”

To start with, there’s that magic word ‘but.’ It’s an attempt to evade responsibility by making an excuse. Furthermore, suppose the wife in the above scenario replies with:

Wife: “All you can think about is work! Sometimes I think you care more about that job than you do about your own children!”

Granted that the wife in the above situation is making a generalization about a specific instance of a behavior, but by making the above statement she has also effectively negated her husband’s excuse and added another accusation on top of it.

If the husband responds in kind, the conversation will degenerate into a series of rationalizations, excuses, and accusations. If you find yourself caught in such an episode of blame-storming, the best response is:

“I’m sorry. What can I do to make it better?”

With this statement, you are showing that you are acknowledging the mistake, and also being proactive in finding a solution by asking the other person to help you to find a solution. This has the added benefit of moving the other person from a problem-focused mode to a solution-focused mode.

Think of it like a game of ping-pong. Every time you are served an accusation or a criticism, hit it back over the net by asking the other person to help you come up with a solution so that it doesn’t happen again. In doing so you’re engaging their help in solving the problem, and you’re not stuck having to guess what sort of solution they might find acceptable, because you’re asking them to tell you instead of having to guess.

Offer a compromise

In any conversation where there is disagreement, there are some areas in which you may be willing to compromise, and there are other areas in which you are not willing to compromise.

An issue in which you are willing to negotiate is a compromise issue. An area in which you are not willing to negotiate is a core issue. The way to tell the difference between a core issue and a compromise issue is to ask, “Will my own feelings of self-respect be compromised if I give in on this issue?”

If the end goal requires you to sacrifice your own sense of self-worth, then it is a core issue, and you should not compromise in that area.

Validate but don’t capitulate

When met with resistance, the way to be assertive without becoming aggressive is to validate the other person’s feelings without allowing them to tread on your boundaries.

You can let them know that while you don’t agree with their feelings, you respect their right to see things the way they see them. Both of you don’t have to agree on every single aspect of life.

For example:

Wife: “George Clooney is the sexiest man alive!”

Husband: “I respect your right to feel that way.”

Here you’ve acknowledged that your partner is entitled to her opinion without you having to share it. Remember that you can always validate your partner’s feelings without having to agree with them.

When you have practiced all these skills you will be well on your way to developing an assertive rather than aggressive communication style.

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Living in True Self

The humanist psychotherapist Carl Rogers spoke of the ideas of Self-Image and Ideal Self. This Self-Image, sometimes referred to as the Perceived Self, is the way we perceive ourselves to be. The Ideal Self is the image we have of how we would like to be. Living in True Self means consciously choosing to be your Ideal Self as much as possible.

True Self is this Ideal Self. It is who we would choose to be if we were living up to our own highest expectations of ourselves. The ultimate goal of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is to be able to live fully in True Self.

It would help to have an outline of what this True Self looks like for you. As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Identifying what your own True Self looks like is the first step in creating a road map to get there.

To create this outline of your own True Self, answer the questions below. Your answers are creating an autobiography of how you’d like to be. This autobiography is the substance of your True Self. It may help to write your answers down for future reference.

  • What do you care about?
  • What gives your life passion and meaning?
  • How is emotional aggression related to the things you care about?
  • What are you trying to accomplish by acting in emotionally aggressive ways?
  • Could emotional aggression cause you to lose the things you care about? How?
  • What are some positive alternatives to acting in emotionally aggressive ways? Be specific.
  • How would these different ways of believing and behaving create a more compassionate and positive reality in your life?
  • Suppose you could change yourself so that you never again had to act in emotionally aggressive ways. What would be different about you?

Save your answers to these questions for future reference, as we’ll be talking about your True Self ‘road map’ again in future posts.

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The 7Cs – Compassion

Pride Month

“If your compassion does not include yourself it is incomplete.” – Jack Kornfield

People who have difficulties with emotional aggression are generally people who care deeply about the people in their lives. They have the capacity to be very caring and compassionate people. Their emotional aggression is often the result of attempting to express their compassion in maladaptive ways. If you didn’t care about people, would there be any need to get all worked up in the first place? Would there be any need to act in emotionally aggressive ways about people you didn’t care about?

This is because the opposite of “compassion” isn’t anger or conflict. The opposite of compassion is apathy. If you didn’t care, there’d be nothing to be upset about.

Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is about learning to channel that passion in compassionate and productive ways rather than in destructive and emotionally aggressive ways. We do this by learning to focus on relationships in a compassionate way.

As Jack Kornfield reminds us, if our compassion does not include ourselves, then our compassion is incomplete. Being compassionate means learning to also be gentle with ourselves by realizing that we are entitled to make mistakes. Mistakes are opportunities for growth and learning. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that if you didn’t make mistakes, you’d never learn anything, because if you never made a mistake, it meant that you already knew what you were doing in the first place.

Compassion with Self and Others

To be compassionate with yourself as well as with others, learn to view mistakes as opportunities for growth rather than as opportunities to beat yourself (or others) up. When you make a mistake, focus on your intention in the situation. If, for example, your intention is to have a compassionate relationship with someone, but you make a mistake that doesn’t reflect that intention, regroup and try again. Return to your intention in the situation, apologize if necessary, correct the mistake if possible, learn from it, and continue in a more compassionate fashion.

The idea behind using Meme Triads is to move from a problem-focused paradigm to a solution-focused paradigm. One of the goals of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is to begin to think in terms of solutions instead of in terms of problems. When we start thinking in terms of solutions, we begin to live with intention. We begin to live with compassion.

The power of intention is one of the skills of mindfulness, so by living deliberately and with intention, we move to a solution-focused paradigm.

Since emotional aggression is the result of maladaptive attempts to be compassionate with others, half of the battle is already won! If we weren’t concerned about the other people in our lives, we wouldn’t care how they felt, or how we felt after interacting with them. So the element of care and concern for others is already present when we act out of emotional aggression.

When we behave in emotionally aggressive ways, we are doing it because we care. It’s just that the way we have chosen to express that care and concern is actually having the opposite effect of the way we intended it. Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is a way to learn to express care and concern in positive ways rather than in ways that focus on the negatives.

The ultimate goal of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is take the care and concern we feel for others and to focus on the positive by expressing that love in compassionate, rather than aggressive, ways. When we learn to do so without assumption and without judgment for self or others, we will have taken a giant step forward towards living fully in True Self.