Methodology: Five Questions For Self-Inquiry
Methodology That Uses Stress To Get To Know Yourself And Your Unconscious Fears
Reading time: 8 minutes
The best way to get to know yourself is to put the spotlight on yourself. Illustration: CCD20
When our buttons are pushed, a stress response takes place in the body (the so called ‘fight or flight’ response). That goes together with more or less intense emotions, mental and physical tension and a certain habitual behaviour that we taught ourselves in childhood for protection – both from real and emotional danger.
As a protective mechanism, the stress response broadly gives us the focus and muscle power to extricate ourselves from a real life-threatening situation. As such, the stress response is as desirable as pain, which helps us avoid grabbing a scorching hot pan for instance. However, if the stress response is activated too often without an actual threat of extermination, the system can become overworked and confused. As a result, the protective mechanism can not only stop protecting our body, but can actually help destroy it.
That tends to happen when our buttons are pushed so often that it becomes a ‘new normal’. We then speak of emotional buttons and after a while we no longer notice that our buttons are being pushed at all, yet various physical and/or mental discomforts begin to emerge. If it turns out that these cannot be biologically explained after examination by an MD or specialist, it becomes advisable and interesting to investigate these probably stress-related discomforts yourself; because the greater our own role in maintaining emotional buttons, the more we can do ourselves to make them smaller.
If we are the creators of our own emotional buttons, we can also become their destroyers. Image: AbsolutVision
In order to gain insight into your own patterns, five questions are offered that you can use to get to know yourself better and map your stressors. It is recommended that you write down the answers. I usually did this a few hours or a day after a strong emotional outburst because the intensity of the moment had subsided, but find out what works best for you.
The questions are:
Who or what pushed my buttons?
What came up in my mind?
Where was the stress response felt in my body?
What was the underlying emotion?
What did I do after my buttons were pushed?
Below we discuss each question individually.
1. Who or what pushed my buttons?
(or: Who or what triggered the stress response?)
A stress response always has a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. In order to trigger a stress response, our brain must sense that we are about to enter a potentially dangerous situation; that is what is meant by ‘pushing buttons’. Something happens that our brain perceives as dangerous, which pushes the button and then the stress response is triggered to protect us from the perceived danger.
Just about anything can serve as a button, but as a rule it is mainly people, situations, or our own thoughts that have the potential to push our emotional buttons. Examples include:
People such as partners, family members, colleagues, or managers who, for whatever reason, do not meet our expectations;
Places where we continually meet people who do not meet our expectations;
Thoughts about people who do not meet our expectations and/or the places where we meet those people.
You see that here emotional buttons are linked to our own expectations. If our partner is not sincere about something and we react furious, anxious or sad, then we have a certain idea about sincerity and the conviction that our partner completely shares our point of view. If that turns out not to be the case, our brain feels that a rift is threatening to develop in the relationship. Depending on the extent to which we identify ourselves with that relationship (or family, or work), our brain will assess such a rift as a potentially dangerous situation and consequently trigger the stress response; even if the situation itself is far from life threatening.[1]
Learning who or what can push our buttons therefore mainly provides information about our own fears. As soon as we dare to acknowledge them, their power diminishes and that almost always happens automatically when you write them down.
In general we don’t like it when our buttons get pushed. Image: Mariakray, edit text: Erik Stout
2. What came up in my mind?
(Words? Sentences? Images? Ill wishes towards myself or others? Write everything down sincerely, nothing is right or wrong.)
Now we’re entering the ‘after’ realm. A stress response not only has physical consequences, but certainly also mental ones. Again, depending on the extent to which we identify with the person or situation that pushes our buttons, thoughts or images will arise in the mind that are related to it.
It is not uncommon for destructive fantasies to arise, such as the desire to hurt or kill someone. According to the famous psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung, this is not a problem. In fact, it is a completely human reaction to an unwanted situation that you cannot control. It is your way of blowing off steam without getting into trouble, whereby of course the realization applies that such fantasies should not be turned into actions.
So there is no fantasy, word, sentence, image, or feeling, that you need to be ashamed of. If you are ashamed of certain thoughts or feelings, then write them down especially. One of the intended results of this method is to develop more compassion for yourself and you can achieve this by, among other things, acknowledging that there are thoughts or feelings that you are ashamed of.
Once you have written down such thoughts or feelings, you can read them back. Then instead of pushing them away, you can embrace them and consciously decide to love them. In doing so, you create a temporary antidote to the shame and if you do that often enough, the power of shame will gradually diminish.
Furthermore, you will see that certain thoughts are linked to certain buttons and therefore to certain people and situations. You will gain insight into your thought patterns, and discovering their compulsive nature can be liberating.
What came up in your mind after your buttons were pushed? Image: Pablochavesuy
3. Where was the stress response felt in my body?
(And describe the feeling.)
Some important physiological adaptations during a stress response are a faster and harder heartbeat, faster breathing, and tensing up of our skeletal muscles. This can sometimes feel like palpitations, hyperventilation, muscle aches or muscle cramps. However, if it is unclear that our buttons have been pushed, anxiety can arise that something is wrong with our heart or lungs for instance – a fear which can increase if tests show that ‘there is nothing wrong’ with our organs. Gaining insight into the fact that a stress response is causing the symptoms can then have a calming effect. A second benefit of locating where the stress response can be felt in our body will be discussed under question 4.
The clearly noticeable physical reactions that occur after a stress response are different for everyone, but in the vast majority of cases it is felt somewhere in our torso or head. This can vary from pain and cramps in the pelvic area, stomach or intestinal cramps, a stone in the stomach, tweaking the back, a tight band around the stomach, pressure on the chest, a strong and fast heartbeat (can feel like palpitations), the feeling that someone is pulling out our stomach through the oesophagus and mouth, difficulty in swallowing, nausea and/or dizziness, headache or migraine, or difficulty in breathing (can feel like hyperventilation), to name but a few. However, the combination of symptoms and locations in the body where a stress response manifests is unique to each individual.[2]
Where did the stress response manifest itself in your body? Image: GDJ
4. What was the underlying emotion?
(anxiety, anger, grief, or ecstasy)
Almost every term we use to express a state of being comes from one of these four basic emotions. Notice however that anger (or rage) is a so-called secondary emotion because anxiety is always its underlying primary emotion. Nevertheless, they all have the power to push our buttons.
Now, if your research shows that during an outburst of rage you feel your heart racing, a band tightening around your chest, and your face hardening into a rigid mask, you will begin to notice that these particular symptoms repeat themselves every time your anger-buttons are pushed.
It is not only useful to learn where certain emotions express themselves in your body, but especially when it is unclear who or what pushed your buttons. As soon as you feel that you are very angry and you feel the particular symptoms that come with anger, you know that your buttons have been pushed. With that knowledge you can look back and ask yourself the question: Who or what actually pushed my buttons? Which of course is the first question and can provide insight into your own fears.
Which of the four basic emotions can you attach to each particular stressor? Image: Mariakray, Edit: Erik Stout
5. What did I do after my buttons were pushed?
(Describe your behaviour.)
The vast majority of us label the feeling after emotional buttons have been pushed as ‘uncomfortable’. Yet instead of learning what is happening inside of us and how to deal with that in an effective and meaningful way, our culture teaches us that uncomfortable is undesirable and we are better off consuming, because then we will definitely feel better. It makes sense that the ‘uncomfortable’ feeling of a stress response is usually suppressed by all the distraction, procrastination and addictive behaviours that exist.
It is precisely these behaviours that nine times out of ten occur fully automatically as soon as our buttons are pushed. Whether it is a cigarette, a drink, social media, gambling, sex, work, or whatever; as soon as we have taught ourselves that such behaviour provides relief from our misery, even if only temporarily, then that becomes our ‘natural’ behaviour that follows a stress response.
But yet again there is much to learn and much to gain by observing ourselves. By writing down objectively and without judgment what we did after our buttons were pushed, we can map out our behavioural patterns. Here too, discovering the compulsive nature of them can be liberating, because writing it down means acknowledging and beginning to accept compulsive behaviour ( of which many feel ashamed).
Released energy from a stress response can also be used for dancing. Image: johnnyclezmayoma9
To sum up: these questions contain the power to get to know yourself in a compassionate way. It is about observing your own thoughts, feelings and behaviour from the outside, as it were, and writing down what factually happened – like a true scientist. Try to stay away from judgments or explanations; judgments are of little use in self-inquiry anyway and explanations will come naturally if you continue this method long enough – I would say at least half a year.[3] However, if you start to notice that this method only meets with resistance, then feel absolutely free to stop and look for a method that suits you better.
For questions and comments, please leave a message below this article, or reach out via the contact form on the homepage. Have fun and good luck with your research.
Jolly greetings,
Erik Stout
[1] Part 1 of the series ‘Fun With Stress’ goes much deeper into the origin of emotional buttons and why chronic stress never manifests itself from one day to the next, but always develops gradually.
[2] One can also think of symptoms like loss of concentration and not waking up energized anymore.
[3] I have been using the method for over seven years now.
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