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Monday, March 28, 2022

Calm

 Get Pocket: How to Stay Calm During a Confrontation, According to an Expert - A psychologist explains why it’s so hard to keep a handle on your emotions when your buttons are pushed, and what you can do to have more productive conversations. By Aiden Wynn

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5 comments:

Mark said...

“no matter how provocative or perturbing someone else’s comments or behaviours are, we can learn to manage our triggers.”
Well, I guess it all depends on what you consider managing.

A particular family member is a professional button pusher and I've learned to prepare for 'battle'. The best I can do to 'manage my triggers' is to keep my mouth shut, not pushing back. It only makes things worse. I know it's a losing proposition going in - 40 years of it now.

7:01 PM
Jim Sande said...

Yes, I know what you are facing. I fail at this all the time too. It's the news that gets me going especially, Cruz, Trump, Putin, senseless destruction, amoral behavior, narcissistic arrogance. It's a rich thing though if you can look at it objectively. The Buddhists have lots of remedies and ideas about it actually, and it's something that I'm presently studying although I would probably fail the practical application test. Simply knowing that you are angry or are getting buttons pushed is a big step and is important. Many many people don't even get that far, they simply react instinctively and lash out creating an endless loop of misery with temporary victors. So you are on the right road, you know it's coming, you see it happening, you know how it can turn on negative emotions in you and have a remedy of being quiet and letting it go through and out. the important thing is to not let it stick around. The rumination about how much you hate the person or are angry at them is useless. It only hurts yourself. We would all like to be wise about this but we are human. But I do know that if you catch yourself ruminating, in the same way that you stay quiet, when you recognize the rumination going on in your head, then drop it. Move on to something else. Create a diversion.

7:37 PM
Mark said...

Yes, rumination is useless and only hurts us. To recognize it and drop it is always what I attempt, but it's easier said than done. And when it's a family member whose own loop of misery is sprayed at you, there's no escape.

9:53 PM
Jim Sande said...

This is true. From the Buddhist point of view they have great devotion for their teachers. However they also have great appreciation for their enemies, because you can only increase patience and working with anger and fear in a positive way when you have an enemy. It's enemies that help us to grow. Without an enemy we can't develop patience, it's enemies that help us to actually implement what we know, our antidotes as it were. There are stories of Buddhists meditating in caves for long periods of time, then coming down into town and acting like real a-holes on purpose, trying to rile up people and cause fights. They waned to see how well they had actually progressed with patience when someone was screaming in their face or threatening them, or actually harming them.

11:07 PM
Mark said...

I have figured out that these are learning opportunities and so 'appreciate' my enemies -- to the best of my ability.

8:03 PM

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