A New Challenge (6)
Offline for a month and a couple profound learning moments
Reading time: 11 minutes
During the publication of this blog post I have already entered the internet version of ‘dry January’ for a few days, meaning that until January 31st I will be offline for a month. Articles remain to be published though because they have already been written and one is automatically published every weekend. Being digitally challenged, a world opened up for me when I discovered about the possibility of digital scheduling! So, starting January 2nd, my phone will be off for the rest of the month and I'm super curious about that experience. Of course there will be an article devoted to it come February.
At the beginning of a new year we can look back on the extraordinary year 2023, because I have not emigrated before and especially to an exotic country like China. In this blog post I will share a few personal learning moments from the past period.
In Part 4 of this series can be read that one of my deep-rooted beliefs says I can't take care of myself. That goes irrevocably with the conviction that someone else must take care of me, otherwise I will die (which is literally experienced as such). Because of that I have a strong tendency, consciously or unconsciously, to choose someone who ‘ought to’ take care of me. Reciprocity consists in taking care of the other in a certain way, for example by placing the other on a pedestal and praising them into high heaven.
Let's take a closer look at the phenomenon of ‘pedestal’. Because the reason I put someone up there is to let that other person take care of me: “I adore you, so you take care of me.” Two aspects of this immediately show the fallacy of this way of thinking. First, the concept of ‘care’ is not elaborated. Because it remains unclear what this care should contain, almost by default the other person can never do it right. It follows irrevocably that every time the other person says or does something that threatens ‘my care’, my fear-of-death-button is being pushed. That triggers a physical stress response and I will probably react overly defensive. And I now know from my defensive reactions that they usually do not lead to an open or relaxed atmosphere.
Secondly, my tendency towards adoration arose from learned pleasing behaviour. Of the four defence mechanisms of fighting, fleeing, freezing and fawning, I over-developed the last one while growing up. I learned that ‘being myself’ often caused conflict, while saying what I thought the other person wanted to hear usually did not cause conflict – at least not between me and the other person at that particular moment. From my conviction that I could not take care of myself, I was completely dependent on the other for my existence (which was projected onto several people), therefore conflict with the other had to be prevented at all costs. Yet with the fawning behaviour my inner conflict grew, but that only became apparent much later when the signals of my body could no longer be denied. In my case they were usually anger attacks (fortunately never physically directed at living beings) with a lot of shame and guilt afterwards because ‘again I couldn't contain myself’. But the fear of conflict continued until my mid-forties.
I experienced this fear of death a few years ago at the time of my divorce. There was a growing awareness of my deep convictions, but that did not mean they had lost their strength. With the ending of the marriage, I deliberately let go of my illusory sense of security connected to someone else having to take care of me, which pushed the fear-of-death-button immensely strong. The result was the discovery that I could actually take care of myself, which gradually made the button much smaller and a great deal of relaxation returned to my body and mind.
And then at some point you think that you have pretty much worked through it all, until at an unexpected moment the button is pushed again. That moment came a few weeks ago after I bought an electric heater, because during the weekly room check my tai chi master initially said that I was not allowed to use it. Immediately my heart rate shot up (an obvious signal that I was being ‘under attack’) and a violent stress reaction caused full alertness in his direction, which was manifested by a gaze that drills into prey like a pitbull.
Not so long ago I would have acted like being pushed in a corner: probably reacting haughtily and with disbelief to such a ridiculous remark, and asking him if he was in his right mind to rent out such poorly heated rooms. Needless to say, that wouldn’t have done the atmosphere any good and luckily I was able to stay calm. This allowed me to point out why the heater was bought (except for warming up after a shower, I mainly use it to keep my hands warm enough so as to be able to type), but much more importantly, the realization quickly dawned that he made that remark not so much to bother me, but most likely for another reason yet unbeknownst to me. This allowed for a dialogue that eventually resulted in an agreement that we were both satisfied with.
Yet what happened in my mind that caused the old familiar fear-of-death-button to be pushed? To begin with, I had put someone on a pedestal again. Living through the divorce and the discovery that I could take care of myself after all didn’t mean that my strongly learned tendency to seek self-care outside of myself had suddenly disappeared like snow before the sun. So where I had removed my ex from the care-pedestal, I had imperceptibly put the master on it under the guise of: “I pay you, so you take care of me.” In other words, I had made him responsible for my sense of security. No wonder my fear-of-death-button was pressed hard when he told me not to use the electric heater. My mind translated that into: “You deprive me of the safety and security of a warm environment, but that is not possible at all because I have paid you to teach me and take care of me.” The initial indignation translated into negatively charged thoughts in his direction, but at the same time those thoughts were the key to the understanding that my reaction followed from unconsciously placing someone on a pedestal again. Exactly that understanding provided a quick relaxation in both my mind and body, allowing for a calm, rational and respectful dialogue.
Image: Richard Beukelaar Photography; composition: Erik Stout
A second learning moment manifested itself in the past week during breakfast. We are currently in the school with three students and a personal discussion arose between my two fellow students about how to treat each other.
Since the discussion wasn’t so much about me personally, my role was somewhat limited to moderator or translator of the conversation at the times when I felt there was miscommunication. Then I asked questions or shared what I was observing with the question whether that observation matched theirs, in order to get the conversation back on track.
That was fine until a moment when the discussion threatened to stall, after having continued for about ten minutes without any input from me. I again shared an observation, but now received a comment from one of the table guests which was considered by my whole being as a ‘personal attack.’ Immediately the heart rate went up perceptibly, the heartbeats became harder and my gaze drilled into that of my fellow student. My words did not betray much, but the contraction of my body and gaze were undeniable.
Before proceeding with this scene, clarification is needed of the button that was pushed. In this case, a second, deeply rooted conviction was triggered: “Whatever I do, it's never good enough – ergo, I am never good enough.” The development of this button goes along with developing the conviction that ‘I can't take care of myself.’ I please my ‘caregivers’ as a result of a fear of conflict, but that means certain essential parts of me as a total organism are irrevocably repressed. Those repressed parts can be pushed away for a while, but over time they still undeniably come to the surface, as described in this blog post. By this time my inner conflict has been developing already for a while, but as soon as the oppressed parts begin to demand my attention, the conflicts that I always got into made the I’m not good enough button bigger and bigger.
We pick up the scene again: in words I asked what was meant by the comment, to which the reaction followed: “Now, now, it doesn't have to be so violent,” to which I asked: “What do you notice to make you think I react violently?” In response, my words were repeated, but in particular the tone and volume at which they returned to me were very familiar.
What is extraordinary is that exactly this mirror reaction was needed to get confirmation of what I saw and heard myself doing. From the ‘attack’ moment on, the entire stress response was clearly observed, including the contraction of my body, gaze, and tone and volume of my voice. Despite that present awareness, there was no choice in my physical reaction at that time; that was the automatic defensive contraction as it has been known for years when my buttons are pushed. However, after the other person's mirror confirmed my observation of myself, space appeared as if by magic and the stress reaction seemed to dissolve into nothingness. The heartbeat dropped startlingly fast, and almost immediately there was an apology for the vehemence in my reaction, and a heartfelt expression of gratitude for the mirror she had held before me.
Images: Richard Beukelaar Photography; composition: Erik Stout
Acting in this way would have been impossible until not so long ago. The activation of my buttons was accompanied by automatic reactions that ranged from pleasing without boundaries to an outright ‘counterattack’ using an over-authoritarian attitude – both physically and audibly. That's because the automatic reactions were developed at the same time as the development of the buttons, mostly while growing up. But where the world keeps spinning and everything is constantly changing, the buttons and their automatic reactions remain the same and rigid in their form and execution. They do not evolve with life.
Buttons usually represent an unprocessed pain from childhood, i.e. ‘child pain’. The automatic behaviour in response to a pushed button literally mimics the behaviour we exhibit as a child. As soon as our buttons are pushed, we feel child pain and it triggers our reactions learned in childhood; in other words, childish behaviour. We go from child pain to being a child again! A distinctive feature of this is the great emotional charge of the behaviour. In children, the ratio, our ability to think, is not yet fully developed, but emotions all the more so. The automatic reaction to a pushed button is full of emotion from a deep-seated fear that something will be done to me or taken away from me. At such a moment I am mainly busy with myself and have no eye for what is happening in my surroundings. Here at once is a reason why so many adults often show childish behaviour and at such moments are hardly amenable to reason. Moreover, there is no point in punishing ourselves afterwards for our childish behaviour because we only make the button bigger so that it can be pushed more and more easily in the future.
As long as there is no awareness of these phenomena, we continue to exhibit the same behaviour when our buttons are pushed. We then have no choice in our behaviour because the reaction is automatic; we cannot choose to count to ten or choose another way of expression that avoids a major conflict (between me and another or within myself). What can we do to make a choice in our behaviour? For starters we can become aware of the presence of buttons within ourselves.
With acknowledgement of our own buttons, the opportunity arises to investigate which ones still serve us, and which ones no longer. If an explosion pushes hard on my fear-button, allowing the stress response to provide the energy needed to flee and bring myself to safety; we can say that button serves us well. However, if a rather innocuous comment during a meeting makes me scream in a huff, we can say that button is no longer very helpful. The first button is associated with a physical life-threatening situation, the second with unprocessed child pain. With this knowledge, it can then be investigated at what moments, in what circumstances and in the presence of which people that button is usually pushed. In the end, a pattern becomes visible that makes it predictable for ourselves where, when and by whom that button can and will be pushed.
By putting the spotlight on our buttons in this way, with which we acknowledge their existence, their might is automatically reduced. The longer we examine them, the smaller they become and the less power they exert over us. That very process allowed me not only to observe my reaction to the supposed ‘attack’ in the talk with my fellow students, but to relax as soon as I got mirrored that my perception about my reaction matched that of the other person. The confirmation of the correctness of my observing faculty felt almost the same as a high grade for a test, which completely nullified the feeling of the ‘attack,’ brought relaxation to my whole organism and allowed the conversation to continue amiably.
It is extraordinary that the above learning moments are only two out of a whole series since my arrival in China. I am constantly confronted with prejudices and biases that I thought I didn't have at all. The sometimes difficult communication with the Chinese masters and their inimitable behaviour at certain points makes thoughts come up that indicate the presence of buttons in my being. However, it is nice that there is more and more awareness when they’re pushed, which paves the way for making a choice in the subsequent behaviour. That choice means a step on the way to true freedom and in any case brings a lot of peace and relaxation.
At the bottom of this linked blog post you can find the self-examination method “Five Questions for Self-examination”©, which is particularly aimed at detecting, finding and examining our buttons and triggers, and our subsequent automatic behaviours in terms of thinking, feeling and acting. You are completely free to use it if it appeals to you, or share if you think it could be beneficial for someone you know.
Wishing you an amazingly jolly 2024,
Erik Stout