This week, I thought I’d share some “practical” thoughts on how I have approached working with my reactions. I was talking with someone who knows me well about how I’ve recognized my ability to do this improving dramatically. And while I won’t call this “advice,” they encouraged me to share my process.
Goodness knows there is always some new example of a man who isn’t able to deal with his reactions. Road rage leading to a shooting in Washington, a confrontation at a gas station in Florida, an Ohio driver steers into a person on a bicycle then escalates into a SWAT standoff, another grown man in Florida threatening a teenager with a rock. And that’s just from one short google search; I’m sure I could find many, many more.
I was thinking of this after I had a traffic incident of my own last weekend. I was waiting at a stoplight in Bellevue with my family and a friend of my youngest daughter. We were on our way home after kayaking on Lake Sammamish. I was basking in the glow of a gorgeous late-summer afternoon, when the light turned green and almost at that same instant, a driver behind me began laying on his horn. Not a light beep-beep, he laid on the horn for a long blast. I couldn’t go anywhere, though. Traffic in front of me was backed up into the intersection. Through the fog of his horn, I felt myself get irritated by it, but I figured, “whatever.” Then he did it again, a long blaring blast of horn. Did he think the sound would make me drive forward into cars in front of me?
I don’t know, but the second blast, got the attention of my daughter’s friend. “What’s his problem?” she asked.
And that’s when a third blast hit.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s his problem. Maybe he can’t see that I can’t go anywhere.” She then relayed a story about a time she was with her family and a similar thing happened. And then the conversation drifted.
When I shared this incident, my friend said, “Imagine if you’d reacted. That would have changed the experience for everyone, and not for the better.”
And that’s when I was reminded that I haven’t always responded well when irritated. There was a time when a horn blaring at me would have promptly led to my middle finger being thrust in the air, followed by some colorful language being shouted.
I’ve never escalated my anger to an armed standoff with police, but I’m still embarrassed that I ever allowed myself to respond with outsized energy to some relatively minor provocation.
So, how’d I get here?
By improving my relationship with myself.
First, I spent a fair amount of time examining why I have strong reactions in the first place. Usually, it was tied to something related to my childhood trauma that I never processed. Feelings of fear, a lack of self-determination. Stuff that’s easy to bury and think you’ve moved on, but just as easy to access when you’re triggered.
Once I understood the reasons for my feelings, I started to get a handle on recognizing when they would come up. This is related to running in that I leveraged my experience with muscle memory in a new way. Instead of teaching myself what it feels like to hit a certain pace or to push through discomfort, I trained my attention on recognizing what my emotions felt like.
After I got pretty good at that, I could notice a feeling coming up and I could give myself some compassion for the reason I felt triggered. That did two things: One, it calmed me in a way that only self-soothing can. Coming to terms with feelings on my own is far more effective than hearing someone tell me to “calm down!” Second, that split second leading to calming was enough to short circuit my lizard brain from overreacting.
I’m now at a point where I can usually tell well ahead of a negative emotion bubbling up that it’s on its way. And the self-compassion can kick in even earlier.
This helps me in moments when conflict arises with family, co-workers, or even the testy driver behind me blaring on his horn.
The intersection cleared in two cycles of the traffic light and the guy behind me made a left turn across two lanes of traffic, taking his issues with him. By the time we got home we were talking about ice cream and future kayak trips, and nobody will remember the blaring horn in a day or two.
And while that’s great, and I’m very glad about the work I’ve done, I want to be clear that it’s not something that ever really ends. The incident was more like a time trial than a race where I crossed a finish line. I will have to return to the work regularly, or that muscle memory will fade. I’m sure some days the guy on his horn will bug me more, I’m not perfect. But I do catch things a lot sooner than I used to and that’s a trajectory I like.
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