PART 2 – ARE YOU RESPONDING? Or just reacting or repressing?
After Part 1 I’m back talking about designing our best lives and leadership. And understanding this next part is crucial.
If you want to focus on DESIGN work, you need to know whether you are operating from an old wound or from a scar. How are you responding to events in your environment?
The way we know if we’re talking from a wound is we have emotional responses to our environment that are situationally inappropriate.
One example, a new staff member apologises profusely for having to cancel a meeting at the last minute due to a personal issue, and you react by saying “Well we know how this is going to go, it’s obvious this business is not a priority in your life!”
They may or may not have a genuine reason for rescheduling, but what I am sure of is you have been hurt by similar situations in the past, which is driving your present ‘over’ reaction.
Another scenario – An event that should be provoking a reaction from you and it provokes no reaction at all.
Others may say things like: “Aren’t you annoyed or upset or concerned by that?”
This is an example of repression, where we choose to accept situations that are not in our best interest or not essentially making us happy. We become repressed and internalise unacceptable conditions..
The spectrum is either REPRESSING, REACTING or RESPONDING.
When we’re able to be responsive in the moment, it’s because we’re practicing the response end of the spectrum.
Repression and reaction shows us that we’re living from old active neurology.
When emotions don’t get processed or events are not properly and thoroughly responded to, consciously and unconsciously, we have to keep those neural networks active, the neurology of that pain or embarrassment, that neurology of fear, guilt, hurt, shame, anxiety, terror, whatever it is. Whenever it’s not being fully processed and integrated, then the neural networks stay active.
It’s essentially like sending out a Google search and the results haven’t come back in yet.
The system is still working. The search engine is still active. The little icon is still spinning on our screen. That’s exactly how it works neurologically as well. We have to syphon off energy in terms of glucose for our brain, neuro-chemicals in the neural-networking infrastructure, to divert energy and resources in order to keep those old infrastructures active to keep that icon spinning.
That’s why in therapy when people talk about a sense of closure, completion and resolution, they actually feel completion of the processing. That feeling also comes from an immense amount of emotional relief. It literally feels like bricks get taken off our back. The reason we have that mental emotional and physical experience with completion or closure or resolution, is because those neural networks are no longer using energy to receive that information. We actually have more energy.
In most cases the energy that was being diverted to that past thought structure, the neural network that maintained and used to require all that energy, actually collapses because you’ve built other neural network around what you learnt from those experiences. So learning is actually the key thing that gives closure. And learning can be through insight, deep unconscious processes, reflection or life experience.
But you guys know with me, its’ either TIME or TRANSFORMATION that will do the healing. And I don’t like counting on time. I’m like, I’M HERE, I want a result, I don’t want to have to suffer through unnecessary emotional experiences. I don’t believe in having to go through more pain to get power. That is not my jam.
That whole thing for me is about using transformative techniques that allow those wounds to then turn into scars.
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