Has your life ever fallen apart? If you’re young, you may have the rare privilege of only minor life collapses. With bittersweet humble appreciation, I grew up facing many challenges. So, I never got lulled into thinking life was easy. Yet, there always comes a point where disaster strikes. The situation that we face appears unacceptable. This new obstacle doesn’t match our anticipated blueprint or map our mind manifested. It mismatches what we perceive as a worthy life.
That’s okay.
Remember this life event. Don’t compare. It doesn’t matter if the event causing your life to collapse seems less severe than other people’s. Or if it seems less problematic than my story. We’re focusing on your emotional reactions. Everyone’s picture of perfect life and how that might fall apart is different. What is similar are the emotions. Fear, anger, disappointment, frustration, sadness, depression—fill in the blank.
Our measurement of happiness is a direct result from the expectations we create. And if we reach those expectations.
Here’s a simple example. Road rage. Every time I get into the car, I EXPECT other drivers to behave in a kind, courteous way. I EXPECT other drivers to obey traffic laws. When they cut me off, honk, speed past me and otherwise drive in a selfish, unsafe manner. I get angry. Why? Why does my mind and body fill me with rage? Because they failed to meet my expectations. And the story I tell myself when they misbehave is that there are selfish jerks and are mistreating me. That story creates a huge trigger for my emotional mind. It slams my brain back in time to those moments when I REALLY was a helpless victim. And my mind floods with fear and anger chemicals.
But when I remember beforehand to EXPECT other drivers’ inappropriate behavior. That stops the emotional flood at the valve. I drive with more caution. And when another driver’s choices trigger my fight or flight mechanism? I tell myself a different story. Did a passenger distract them? They may have lost their job. They may have missed me in their blind spot. If I had done the same thing, wouldn’t I ask for compassion? In an instant, I don’t feel fear and anger, only compassion.
Is the second version of events true? I don’t know. There’s a possibility. Is it any less true than the first story? The one where I attributed bad motives and took it personal? Can’t know unless I’m willing to follow their car and wait until they stop to confront them. Who’s got time for that? And most people get defensive when accused of wrongdoing. We all have a need to be right. So, would I ever get the absolute truth? Or a rewritten perception interpreted after the fact.
Well then. I do have choices. I’m not going to chase them down. All I know is this huge hunk of metal almost ran me off the road. And most of the time I will never see their face, know who they are, or ever see them again.
So, all I can control that will make any difference is the story I tell myself. I can ride along with my automatic story-telling mechanism that I picked up as a child. I can attribute pure unadulterated evil to this narcissistic driver.
That feels good for a moment because now I enjoy the flood of empowerment. I’m better than that devil. But then I must deal with the flood of anger that perpetuates my mind to loop. What a jerk. Can you BELIEVE that guy? I hope a cop catches that scumbag. On and on, looping reinforcing negative attributes to a literal ghost in my head. Not the real person that never knew how I felt about them.
Or I can tell myself a different story. It’s a husband leaving work racing to meet his partner at the hospital. Oh. I’m sorry bro! I’ll get out of your way; hope you make it there!
Is this the first time you’ve discerned you have power over the story you tell yourself? Don’t worry. It takes time to recognize events happening counter to our expectation. Nobody can change their emotional map overnight. These entrenched patterns have continued unnoticed for years. I wanted to provide one visceral example of how the process works. It goes like this: 1. Event. 2. Story we tell ourselves about event. 3. Emotional reaction.
Many of us were never taught to pay attention to this. The split-second story flashing in the back of our mind the moment an event occurs. We’ve all said the expression: that guy made me mad. If we want to tease out the emotional truth here, we could say: That guy did something. I told myself the story that he did it on purpose to hurt me. THAT makes me mad.
When we use the shorter section, we allow ourselves to play the victim role. Then we lose responsibility or power over our emotional response. That feels right. It feels easy. That guy is all bad and I’m in the right.
The problem is, WE’RE the one who’s angry. And unless your body’s cells experience addiction to the emotional state of anger, most of us agree we don’t LIKE being angry. It’s no fun. We’d rather have peace, joy, happiness, contentment, right? Why do we have to get TICKED off at people? It causes us PHYSICAL harm, and sustained, constant anger can kill us.
Hmm. Doesn’t seem fair.
One last example if you’re still scratching your head. Imagine you are in a group of three friends. Your funny friend tells a joke. The friend to your right laughs out loud. He’s falling to the floor, holding his gut, laughing till his face turns red. You, though, took offense. The joke seemed inappropriate, off color by a million shades. You feel angry.
Did your funny friend MAKE you angry? One event, one joke. The friend to your right is NOT angry. He’s enjoying his emotional reaction. Is it magic? Can one person control the emotional states of two different people with a single action? See how our inner reasoning starts to collapse. It sure feels like our funny friend ticked us off. It’s a hundred percent his fault for repeating that joke. Yet, we’re overlooking the story we told ourselves. Being offended by a joke could take different forms. So, what did you tell yourself about your funny friend’s motive, reasoning, or intention? THAT is what fuels the anger.
So, is the lesson here that we shouldn’t feel anger? Anger is a necessary emotion that signals to us that something is wrong. I agree your funny friend needs a good talking to. A nice refresher on workplace etiquette and offensive jokes. The lesson is to be aware of the story you’re telling yourself. Because if you’re unaware, then your anger could blossom out-of-control. And you could attribute that out-of-control anger to your funny friend. Yet, his crime was a thoughtless blunder. And his only INTENTION was to make his other friend laugh—which he accomplished.
It helps so much to pay attention to the ‘stories’ we tell ourselves through mindfulness. Then we’ll discern our own expectations. You EXPECTED your funny friend to know better. You EXPECTED him to know you well enough to realize you wouldn’t appreciate that joke. You EXPECTED him to be more thoughtful. You EXPECTED him to be more mature. The list may go on depending on how much of a recovering perfectionist you are. (You may be ahead of me, here!)
These expectations trip us up. We can’t interrupt the process. Our brains our making predictions all day long. It’s a safety mechanism. It’s how our brain tracks danger. We walk into a bank. We see a stranger wearing dark clothes, a hood, and concealing his right hand beneath his jacket. Before our conscious mind is aware of what we’ve done, we’ve already told ourselves a story. This person is a bank robber and is about to rob the bank.
Our predictive mind works fast to keep us safe.
This same process though can keep us in a state of anxiety and stress if we allow ourselves to get stuck in loops. If we leave the bank, an optimist will say, “Wow! Good thing I got out of there before I got hurt. A pessimist would say, “That’s my luck! This always happens to me! Can you believe this….” And on and on, refeeding the initial surge of panic.
Observing our own predictions or expectations give us power. We can grab control of those embedded automatic stories. Stories from old patterns that don’t serve us anymore.
Back to my life falling apart. For me, it was about my divorce. I divorced at age 31. It devastated me because I never expected it. I expected to grow old with my partner. I expected to work on our marriage through thick and thin. I expected my ex-partner to value our commitment in the same way.
Looking back, I have clarity. I expected my partner to think and feel the same way I did. A mistake all humans make. Our principals, morals and standards are so important to us. We find it almost impossible to empathize with someone who has the exact opposite stance.
I told myself the story it was my fault. I followed the classic pessimist frame. Personal, pervasive and permanent. I told myself the story that it was my fault she left. That this would ruin my entire life. And that I would be miserable for the rest of my life.
I’m not blameless and it DID affect my ENTIRE life for a LONG period of time. But. My initial story was incomplete and one-sided. At the time, though, I knew nothing about emotional health. All I knew was from the standpoint of what I expected my life to look like, it had fallen apart. I sought out a psychologist. That experience was one of the best decisions I EVER made.
I’ve obsessed over emotional health ever since.
But not everyone seeks out a therapist. Not everyone seeks out help. Why? Well, the reasons why are many, varied, complex and up for debate. One could write an entire book on that subject.
We are not talking about everyone. We are talking about YOU!
One of the many things I’m grateful for growing up is my mother instilling in me a love of learning. Loving to learn is the foundation of a happy, productive life. One problem is that well-meaning schools or parents try to force kids to learn. They do this without taking into consideration the fact we all learn in different ways. Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic. Some people love words. Some love music. Some love using their hands. Some love lots of people with high stimulation. Some love the quiet. There are one hundred and one different ways that people love to learn.
