What triggers you?
I don’t mean your pet peeves (please, stop using “there’s” when speaking about anything in the plural). I mean what gets under your skin and affects you viscerally, really hijacks you? I’m talking about the thing that escalates you so fast or intensely it’s like an out of body experience—you know you’re overreacting, you know it’s irrational, and yet all you can do is sit by and watch it unfold, powerless to control or direct it.
I had the pleasure of self-witnessing two such episodes recently, and it’s all so fascinating I had to write about them!
Bad Mom
A leader whom I deeply respect has asked me twice, in separate conversations, in slightly different words, how I manage my time. The second time his words were, “How do you prioritize?” Interestingly, I immediately altered his question in my mind to What do I prioritize? I answered easily both times about strategies for handling emails, task lists, time with family, workouts, etc. But after the second time I started to worry. What’s behind this questioning? Is he worried for me about something here? Does he think I’m neglecting my family for work, and/or my clinical duties for all the extracurricular stuff? Does he think I can’t handle it?
Over the next several days I had to chuckle with that sly, knowing expression when I realized it didn’t really matter what he was thinking. The question, repeated, was a stealth trigger for my Bad Mom fear. It wasn’t that I worried about his concern for my work life balance. It’s that I was worried for it, and that I secretly question, more than I like to admit, whether my kids really feel loved enough by me. This despite my previous blog post claiming that I actually don’t question it! Blaaaaahahaha, how cosmically ironic! Looking back, the article that incited that post was pretty much the same trigger, and it has taken me this long to see it (better late than never). How fascinating!
In my defense, I really do think I’m a good mom—mostly. But like being a good leader, it’s definitely not always easy, and that I question my competence/proficiency/mastery does not necessarily detract from my real, ever developing, occasionally flourishing skillset. Thanks to this new awareness of the Bad Mom Trigger, I have adjusted my strategies and tools, and rebalanced, for now, time and energy between work and home. I look forward to receiving more gracefully the signals for future opportunities to readjust.
Canned and Rote
Last year I was leaving an evening work gathering. A nice man saw me departing, got out of his seat, and approached me, apparently to introduce himself. He said he had heard my ‘shtick’ something something something—I did not really hear anything else, as my abhorrence of that word had made me stop listening. I think I was polite, and I exited with as few words exchanged as possible.
Readers of this blog know how much I admire Brené Brown. Followers of Brené also know that her work is always evolving, new theories testing, refining, and building on prior ones, always with deeper and more meaningful understanding and application in relationships. So I was deeply offended when I heard someone refer to her presentations as ‘shtick’ and ‘spiel.’ These words feel dismissive, mocking, and pejorative to me. I have only heard them used in a disrespectful way about a speaker or their speech. But why should I be so offended on Brené’s behalf? She knows the value of her work; she does not need me to defend her.
Of course, as usual, it hit me later: I identify with Sister Brené, so I took these words personally. To me, shtick and spiel are how we describe presentations, and thus people, who stopped learning and growing long ago. We utter these words and roll our eyes at having heard it all before—nothing new here, folks. David Litt has said that when preparing a presentation ask yourself, what is the one thing you want someone in your audience to tell their friend about your speech the next day? If the words ‘shtick’ or ‘spiel’ appeared within a hundred yards of someone describing my work—if someone thought I had not prepared but just shown up with canned, stagnant drivel—I would be mortified. I pride myself on constant learning, self-awareness, and self-improvement. I want every audience to feel that my presentation was uniquely relevant to them, that I worked hard to meet them exactly where they needed me.
I understand that everybody may not see or hear these words the way I do. I can respect that and monitor/manage my reactions from now on. But wanna trigger me? Tell me you heard my spiel. Go ahead, I dare you.
Debbie Ford and Your Dark Side
OH it’s all so funny, the things that trigger us. Because if we don’t laugh we will absolutely cry. Or pick fights with our spouses that last weeks on end. That’s what happened to me when I read The Dark Side of the Light Chasers about 10 years ago. I was young yet in my adult development journey, and I had a few (just a few) more emotional hang ups than I have now. On page 69 of the paperback edition she lists negative words like greedy, liar, sleazy and freak, and suggests an exercise:
Take a few minutes and identify any words that have an emotional charge for you. Say out loud, “I am _____.” If you can say it without any emotional charge, then move to the next word. Write down the words that you dislike or react to. If you are not sure that the word has any charge for you, close your eyes for a minute and meditate on the word. Repeat it to yourself a few times out loud and ask yourself how you’d really feel if someone you respected called you this word. If you’d be angry or upset, write it down. Also spend some time thinking about words that are not on this list that run your life or cause you pain.
I didn’t get through the whole book back then, so I don’t know what she wrote about ‘embracing your dark side,’ ‘reinterpreting yourself,’ and ‘letting your own light shine.’ But I think I have figured it out for myself, at least a little bit. It’s about self-compassion, acceptance, growth mindset, forgiveness, connection, learning, and joy.
Every light casts a shadow, and we need both light and dark for balance in life. I’m learning to hold it all a little more lightly (ha! Pun!). Debbie Ford felt too heavy for me ten years ago. I’m looking for a new book this week. Maybe I’ll pick hers up again and see how it feels. …Makes me a little nervous, actually. I wonder what I’ll find this time?
