After spending days in contemplation, scrapping draft after draft about topics I’d hoped to discuss, I’d like instead to speak to some of that which is crowding my mental landscape. I find it worthwhile to note my initial intent for this week’s post had been to explore the drawbacks of the excessive controlling behaviours many of us exhibit regularly, only to find that I was trying too hard to force it—the irony…
So a few weeks ago I attended a party. As things were winding down and a few of us were circled around in a small bedroom, engaged in varying conversation, my guest began instigating playful but physically confrontational banter with two of my other friends. A little confused, but ultimately perceiving it as harmless, I let it go on without intervening until things fizzled out. I thought little of it, until a short while later the same person instigated further conflict, this time with a couple women we’d briefly met just that night. Confused, embarrassed, and a bit upset by the behaviour, I later addressed it and was explained that it had been reactionary to the anxiety she began feeling being in an enclosed, messy environment. At first I didn’t really understand… it seems counter productive to ease feelings of anxiousness by creating conflict, but on a deeper level, as she further revealed, there are many ways in which violence (expressed in a very subtle form here) and conflict act as effective ways of exercising power and creating physical space—both of which can contribute to easing that kind of anxiety.
The reason I tell this story is it serves as an apt example of the way in which our internal pain or emotions can manifest into problematic behaviours. Reflecting on my own history I am well aware I have done this many times in the past, and chances are that you have too. It shouldn’t be on other people to bear the result of our unchecked emotional torment, but we all experience pain and difficult emotions, and misery loves company, so how do we keep this intrapersonal struggle from manifesting into interpersonal conflict? There are likely many solutions, however my personal experience lies in self-awareness; more specifically, the kind of self-awareness brought on by observation and mindfulness, and that’s what I’d like to talk about.
Prior to this past summer, I’d gone the better part of 8 years struggling with an undiagnosed mood disorder. I cycled through lows and pains so often I thought they were just part of my personality. Even when I finally began to seek help, and educate myself as to what was really going on, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Pleasantly enough, the practice of presence, combined with some therapeutic counseling, began to take effect. It’s not that the negative feelings stop coming—for the most part these are natural, and can serve as good indicators of our values and personality—but what the awareness provides is an ability to distinguish yourself from what you’re experiencing. With practice, you can then respond out of a place beyond instinctual emotion, and cultivate behaviours that will benefit you positively, rather than perpetuate negativity or cause conflict.
In the process of acknowledging and learning to manage my mood disorder, I opted against pharmaceutical treatment. This was a personal choice I’ll likely be discussing in a future post, but ultimately it led to the majority of my path to stability relying on cognitive behavourial therapy. A solution based form of therapy, CBT’s approach is founded in the idea that our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours are all interrelated, and looks to observing patterns in each of them in order to develop coping strategies against the problems that plague you. This means that in the same way my feeling sad may bring negative thoughts, and then cause me to be lethargic, a day spent lying in bed could cause me to feel sad, and that sadness bring negative thoughts, etc etc. So the key becomes drawing your attention to past sequence of events, to make connections and identify reoccurring patterns. In doing so, you can then develop ways to halt the process and reduce or eliminate those patterns when they present themselves. Makes sense, no?
Truly I urge anyone who may come across this post to try it. Though it’s easiest when done with the guidance of someone learned in the art, regardless of whether or not you’re on medication, in therapy, or even struggling with mental health at all, there is a power in presence that I and many others believe is worth the practice. Religious, spiritual, and psychological texts speak to this as well, and the reason is simple: the road may be treacherously difficult, but through presence and mindfulness we can hope to connect with the deepest part of who we are, and begin bringing that forth. The good that this brings is something no one will be able to take from you; a private inner sanctum all your own, and an exercise in true sustainable power—void of fear, and void of violence, in all the forms they take. ​
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner