KUNG FU FIGHTING PART III- FREEZE SUCKA

Disclaimer:  I am not a therapist or qualified in any formal way.

I am sharing information from my own experience in the hope that it will benefit someone else.  If this topic resonates with you, it's a good idea to find a qualified professional to help you navigate your stuff.

Not a live dragon.  Probably.

This is part three in a series focused on two sentences uttered

by my therapist that have helped me immensely. 

She said: 

You cannot control that you are triggered.

You can only control how you react to the trigger.

Last post I focused on identifying triggers.

Fight, flight or hide reactions that I believe are indications

that I'm reacting out of fear, anxiety or misalignment to my values.

These reactions are littered all around my behavior and

are so ingrained that it can be difficult to spot them.

Once I notice them ...what are my next steps?
What is the best action to take back my own behavior?
Here's my answer: try to do nothing.

Yep...nothing. NADA.  ZIP.
The most important next step for me when trying
to break a trigger response is to PAUSE.
Finding even a tiny space between the trigger
and the reaction is my short term objective.
I fail at this initiative a lot but I keep trying.

I know that I will eventually finding a way.

I want to highlight that my goal after recognition is NOT

to change; change is usually a bridge to far at this point.

I aim lower-not because I'm lazy but because

I've learned the hard way that interrupting my response

is a nearly Herculean effort.

If I define success as both pausing AND 

doing something smarter or better

than the cockamamie behavior I've had for years then

I'm going to fail a lot more often with less insight.
Knee-jerk reactions are like playing Frogger blind-folded-
occasionally you get the across the street but even the frog knows 
it's dumb luck and not skill that landed him there.

There will be time to consider the change I want to make,
and I need a little distance to make that decision well.

I've used a few tools repeatedly to help my focus here.
I am inherently arrogant and over-confident in my abilities.
I resisted these tools for a long time and I still don't use them
'the right way'.
Please use the google or find someone locally to use them correctly.
I could not have more disclaimers about my depth or ability.

I just want to give the other arrogant and over-confident people
a nudge and say....these tools work.
If you use them.

SAY IT

The first tool I use is a mantra to keep my mind on track.

 I have a ton of stuff on repeat in my brain-

songs, news, to-do lists, anxieties.  It is never quiet in there.

If there's going to be a perpetual loop, 

a mantra will ensure that some of that playlist was set by me.

To get a new mantra incorporated, I turn it into an ear worm.
I say it to myself in my head, write it on post-its,

journal it, and occasionally say it under my breath in meetings.

Using a mantra is magic-

I will actually do what I tell myself to do.
Well...within reason.

I've found the mantra needs to be positive, affirming, and short.

I have to tell myself something aspirational with a clear action.

Anything with a negative in it has failed for me-

my brain leaves out the 'not'.

The two days I tried to use 'Don't murder anyone'

resulted in significantly worse reactions.

I have to change the mantra pretty often, 

finding new ways to say the same thing so 

that my brain hears my intention.
I have to keep learning the same lessons with new words.

A few from my greatest hits reel:

Slow my roll

Shut my trap

Create a gap

Take some space

Give grace

BE STILL

Be here now.

FIND A HAPPY PLACE

Another tool that has been helpful is a kind of visualization or meditation.

Specifically, I focus on a multi-dimensional image that 

pulls a warm, safe or loving feeling out of my dreams.

I try to inhabit that space and engage all of my senses.

What does it smell like? What is the temperature?

Are there sounds?  I focus on my body, does it feel heavy or light?

Here's one I've used:

I'm in a garden on a sunny day with a light breeze.
It smells of rosemary, honeysuckle and fresh dirt.

There are birds twittering and cicadas droning along.
It's early summer so the humidity is just kicking up.
Tomato seedlings are just starting to bloom.
That is a happy, confident place for me.

When I first tried to use this tool, I tried to do it

the 'right' way and my whole being revolted.

I don't like to sit still very long and 

I wasn't used to focusing on happy or calming things.  

My emotional and mental muscles are very weak in this department-

that's what a lifetime of survivalist mentality gets you.

All the online tools I found were recommending daily practice for 

an eternity....like 10 minutes!

Who can sit still with no apparent purpose for 10 minutes

except visualizing serenity?

I couldn't....still can't.

Not for 10 consecutive minutes at least.

I'm currently up to 2 minutes at a time but that has taken a couple of years.
I don't do it every day-which is probably why I am only up to 2 minutes.

I do this in my car, at my desk or in wind down times.

I'm creating a positive muscle memory to reach for and 

making sure that I can do it when I'm stressed by doing it when I'm not.

When I'm feeling jittery,
know that something challenging is coming,
or when I need a boost it's in the toolbox.

Even my yoga mat is busy

BREATHE

The final tool is one that really gets on my nerves.

I mean....why is it so hard to BREATHE?

I've been doing it for my entire life and yet

I apparently don't know how to do it.

My go to breathing in real life is short, shallow breaths.

This makes it difficult for my body to ever believe that we

are not under some sort of strain or threat.

Apparently this is bad for me so I've worked for a while

on trying to deepen my breathing.

It feels like watching paint dry but I CAN DO HARD THINGS!

I've had particular success with Box Breathing-

I think because it gives my border collie brain a checklist.

Breathe in for a count of four, hold it for a count of four,

breathe out for a count of four, hold for a count of four.
It teaches my body to slow down.

How does this help?

These three techniques help me connect my mind, body and spirit.
I get centered when I use all three much more quickly
 than I do when I use just one or when I try to 'wing it'.
Here's a real world example:
I have a tendency to organize and engineer other people's lives.
This was a moderately useful behavior when my children were babies
but it is not an appropriate reaction for people over 2 years old.
It is NEVER a great response when dealing with adults.
And yet, I still find myself volunteering to
take on all the grunt work, make all major life decisions, and 
arrange the cast of characters so that someone else's life
becomes as seamless and positive as possible.
I 'save' other people from the discomfort and struggle
that is inherent in life by taking on their work.
If my life's goal was jailer or house-keeper or puppeteer-
then this would make sense.
None of those labels actually suit my overall life plan.
Still, I keep signing up for things that aren't my job, 
aren't my interest and well...just aren't mine.
Why do I do this?  
(I still do this people-don't even let me pretend that this is resolved)
I do this because I learned somewhere along the way that my value
was found between what I can do for other people
and how many other people's lives I can 'manage'.
That is a lie...and yet, my thoughtless response is to say 'yes' to any ask.
Trigger.

I often have to practice slowing my 'yes' to create a pause.
If possible, I prepare myself before going into a situation
that might tempt me to volunteer or over commit myself to work.

I ground myself with a few minutes of visualization and breathing.

I use essential oils on my wrists to help me remember.

When I find my mouth opening to say what I suspect is a 'yes'

I intentionally reconnect my mind, body and spirit.

I roll my mantra across my brain and
catch a whiff of rosemary while I begin an inhale.

I have found that for most of my triggers, I need about 5 seconds of pause.

That's one breath in and the beginnings of a breath out.

It's not even a whole breath!

By the time my breath starts exiting,

I usually have more clarity, I can see the reaction-
I can pause.
When I use this practice, I am able to say
'yes' to a lot less.
I was asked a few weeks ago to serve spaghetti dinner for a church event.
I am quite capable of cooking the whole dinner, organizing a slew of volunteers,
serving the dinner and cleaning up afterwards.
And I love my church family almost enough to do it.
Except...I knew I needed a pause.
I breathed in...and said:
 'Let me get back to you'.
Upon reflection I was able to determine that there was not 
one cell of me that wanted to serve dinner that night.
I was definitely going to the dinner- it's one of my favorite rituals.
But I usually can't eat what we serve so I bring my own food.
I definitely didn't want to dish out heaping piles of pasta and bread-
knowing that I would be miserable if I ate any of it.
The answer was definitely no.

It still took me a week to say a simple 'no'.
A frigging week.
I wanted to give excuses or apologies.
I wanted to maybe just do it anyway because I admire and respect
the person who asked me.
I wanted to be busy or unable to attend said dinner.
I wanted to belong and I was willing to trade for it.
Nope.
The answer was NO.
Except I needed a pause so I could figure it out.

I am sure that I will get tired and overwhelmed
and respond with 'yesses' when I should have 'no's again.
This is not a one and done-I am not that simple.
With these tools though, I've been able to 
unpack my reactions without spending every waking hour
in my therapists office.

One big caveat:  
If I'm working on a particularly traumatic response,

5 seconds is not enough.
If the trigger is rooted in something violent, 
terrifying or physically reactionary then

I need closer to 90 seconds to clear the crazy chemical fireworks 

that happen within my body.

Ninety seconds is an eternity in real life.
I can't walk around trying to resolve those types
without getting quite a bit of collateral damage.

For those kind of reactions, I need help from

someone I trust to walk me through my response.
My therapist and a few friends have been able to help
me walk through these responses-but I don't
think I could have navigated them alone.

Final note on tools:
Not everyone feels ready to trust a teacher outright-
traditional therapy might be a place you can't go right now.
There are lots more tools out there and 
no matter how crazy they may sound, 
I'm pretty sure they are all useful.
In this age of information, ignorance is a choice.
Meditation, prayer, visualization, yoga, different breathing practices,
acupuncture-the list is long and varied.

I have friends who've used Reiki, EMDR and EFT tapping 
with incredible results for those particularly deep grooves.

If you are arrogant and over-confident like me-keep searching
and use some of what you find.

You can change your response.

If you have other tools you've tried-I'd love to hear about them.
I love to hear about other people's journey-
I learn something useful every time someone else shares.
Triggers are everywhere-but how I react to them is a choice.