Chapter 5
It’s Not Personal— It’s Just Life
In addition to being bad for the body, stress can stain our reputations as individuals with bad tempers or being a drama queen. Just wanting to be more calm and in control of our emotions is not enough; we have to be a little desperate, because many of us LOVE our fury and will go down swinging when told we have to give it up if we really want happiness. Dealing with urges to throw a tantrum can be a tough one if you are someone who has done that most of your life. Tantrums and anger are often a direct result of us taking some random event and making it personal, or we are afraid of something. Figuring out which it is can make the difference between getting it under control or doing something that can cost you dearly.
Learning how to let go of your over-reactive emotions might feel scary, counterintuitive, and even dangerous at first, because you will feel like you’re letting your guard down. I compare it to being asked to play a game of catch with your eyes closed. You want to have the confidence that the ball will land in the mitt, but you are also wincing because you know you could get hit in the face. However, when you explore the depth of your belief system, which has made getting angry a coping mechanism, you will be able to dismantle it for good.
You first need to learn that when something upsetting happens and you go along with that first rush of adrenaline, your brain will begin to send you every thought and memory possible to validate your anger and frustration and might even have you pointing fingers. “It’s their fault! Why does this keep happening? This is unfair!” So, within seconds, as the adrenaline begins to course through your veins, you are completely captivated. It will feel as if you are one with the emotion.
We find it very hard to separate from it in those first few minutes, but our interpretation of it is an illusion. We are not those emotions, and they are not accurate. They don’t reflect reality as much as they reflect our overblown perspective of it in that moment.
The trick is to remember that when anger does overtake you it is almost never for the reason that you think. Only after you calm down will you see the truth, and it will almost always have its root in some kind of fear. I suggest to clients that when anger rises, they should stop and ask, “What am I afraid of right now?” Common fears are those of embarrassment, rejection, loss, and danger. Getting to that root will always put things in perspective. In the book you will be introduced to your “virtual reality”. You actually have two realities— the one around you that is comprised of your environment and the other one in your head comprised of your memories, beliefs, shoulds and should nots. We spend way too much time in the virtual one and give it way too much credit. You will learn how to step out of there and keep your feet in the real one.
Deciding not to throw tantrums is one of the hardest behaviors to overcome, but it is easier when you reconcile how silly it is and what a false sense of protection it gives. Thankfully, even a little progress in this area will yield big results. When you feel rattled, just taking a long breath at the beginning of the upheaval will change your chemistry enough for you to stay present. You need to remind yourself that you are not going to die from this or that, and you need to place the blame where it really belongs—with that lizard brain of yours.
When uncertainty or a disappointment has you rattled, you may engage in any of the following behaviors to increase some brain chemicals, but the benefits are short-lived. If you complain to other coworkers about how bad your company or boss is, those who agree with you will make you feel safer and more connected because of serotonin and oxytocin. If you put the government or world leaders down, predicting doom and gloom, you make the world feel predictable, releasing some serotonin. Even making false predictions about the future will make you feel superior. After you have practiced the techniques in the book you will learn how to catch these subconscious behaviors and engage in new patterns of thought that will raise your feel-good brain chemicals without having to stoop to screaming, complaining, or gossiping. These are the time and energy suckers in our life. We do them almost everyday and then wonder where the time goes and why we are so tired.
Your Amygdala Needs Drama Rehab!
With all of this stress and drama you are dealing with during the day, it is important to mention the unyielding determination of your amygdala to stress you out at night as well. It is sooooo addicted to stress and drama that some nights, like an addict, it will reach for one more hit right before bed. Does this sound familiar?
Your head hits the pillow and you begin having a heated one-sided discussion with that coworker, child, or spouse, and although this is happening only in your head, you get as angry and upset as if it were happening in real life, with all the same harmful chemicals in play. (My personal favorite is rehashing a situation from childhood or with someone who isn’t even in my life anymore.) Talk about insane behavior! Over and over in your head, you will make your point, chasing some sort of elusive validation like a dog chasing its tail. Before you know it, you’re tossing and turning and can’t sleep.
For others, fears of your loved ones being in danger take over. If you are a parent you know this all too well and mothers are especially good at it. As we toss and turn, witnessing this horror movie of our own making, we search for any reliable gut feeling or sense that we are correct in our fears. As if knowing something bad was coming would allow us to prevent it anyway. Take it from an over-protective aunt who has had her share of sleepless nights for no reason: If you think your fears have any basis, pray. At least I feel like someone with more wisdom and power is responsible now. Oh sure, are there dangers at some point? Yes, but never affiliated with a particular night of tossing and turning. So after all the stress one day can hand you, you climb into bed exhausted and your brain hops back on the Worry-Go-Round™.
Some of us start our day playing this make-believe game with our adversaries in our bathroom while we are getting ready for work! Who hasn’t mentally told someone off while getting ready in the morning? By the time you leave the house, you are ready to explode and have put yourself in a horrible mood. You need to be alert for these autopilot moments. You have to catch them quickly because once cortisol is released, it takes about thirty minutes to subside. You might as well hang a WARNING sign around your neck for a half hour. And there you have it: You are in a “mood” and have no idea how you got there. Not to mention you have now shortened your fuse so anything could ignite it.
By now, I am sure you can see where your time and energy go everyday. So, with all the self-help time-improvement tactics, and with all of the better eating habits, you will be no better if you don’t get to the root of the issues. It is scary to peek behind the curtain of our behavior, but it should be easier when you realize that everyone does this stuff to some degree or another. You are wired to be this way.
After you learn the techniques in the book you will be amazed to see how often you do this. Like when you are preparing for some kind of discussion and you begin reciting word for word what you want to say, or rehashing a past discussion and what you should have said. The problem is you will do this over and over and not even realize it. When you learn these techniques you will know how to properly prepare for a hard discussion and how to disengage from past ones.