First, I want you to take a few seconds and make a list of all the difficult people in your life. If they are close by, or might see this list, just use initials (in fact, you can make up initials - they'll never know!)
Is your spouse/partner being difficult right now? How about one or more of your children? Is your boss difficult? Coworkers? Staff? Do you have the mother-in-law from hell? How about the father-in-law from hell? Mother from hell? Father from hell? What about your brothers and sisters - any of them being difficult? Any difficult neighbors? How about difficult cousins, nephews, nieces, other extended family? Do you have specific friend(s) that are difficult? Difficult customers? Difficult clients?
(How long is your list??)
What are some of the difficult behaviors they engage in?
Anger. Raging. Do you have any whiners and complainers? How about blameless Bettys and blameless Bobs (it wasn't MY fault!) Aggressive behaviour. Yelling. Shouting. Bullying behaviour. One-up-manship - they always did it bigger, better, worse, smarter. People who won't make decisions. People who won't do their jobs. People who are always late. Do you have any "poor me" people in your life? Victims? Everything, everybody is always against them? And the list goes on and on and on and on and on...
I grew up in a small farming town in Saskatchewan, attended the University of Alberta, moved to Calgary, had a son, started working with Canada Customs, got married. You know the funny thing was, when I was going to University I was this fun-loving, carefree young woman, and then I had kids and got married... and someone else came to live in my body and she wasn't a very nice person! A lot of people have this same experience - once they reached adulthood, or got married, or settled into a career, their anger started spiralling out of control. And we all came by it naturally, I certainly did, I learned how to be 'out of control angry' from my mom. And I really didn't like my angry self very much at all.
I looked for the answer for years... 20 years... and finally, while doing some research for a new course I would be presenting, I came upon the answer that changed my whole life.
Dr. Joseph LeDoux, in his book, The Emotional Brain, talks about this little part of the brain called the amygdala. I call it the Safety Brain (because I don't do scientific words).
Our safety brains are the oldest parts of our brain - they are 10,000 years old and are there to keep us safe, to keep us alive. Out in the animal kingdom, when we saw a sabre toothed tiger, our safety brains kicked in and got us to safety.
That's the part of our brain that I'm talking about - the 'human animal' if you will - the animalistic part of our brain.
There are three things you have to remember about our safety brains:
- Our Safety Brains are 100% illogical and irrational
- Our Safety Brains always have 100% complete control
- To our Safety Brains, every situation is life or death
1. Our safety brains are 100% illogical and irrational
Our Safety Brains are the animal part of us, there to keep us alive when we see a sabre-toothed tiger. And our Safety Brains are always looking for the sabre-toothed tiger. Everywhere you go, especially every new place or new situation you go into, your Safety Brain is looking for the sabre-toothed tiger.
Watch yourself the next time you go into a new store, a new place for a meeting, a new house. You will cross the threshold into the store, the meeting, the house and then you will stop - maybe for just a nanosecond, maybe for a few seconds, and you will scan the room looking for the sabre-toothed tiger.
Watch yourself. Watch others. You will see this very clearly.
2. Our Safety Brains always have 100% complete control
Physically, within the brain, every pathway goes to your Safety Brain first. Everything you see, touch, taste, smell, hear, feel; EVERYTHING goes directly to your Safety Brain first, and all it's is doing every second of every day is deciding "Is what's going on right now safe or not." That's it. A very quick, easy decision for it to make.
If your Safety Brain decides that "Yes, it's safe" then it sends the information over a bridge to your Thinking Brain (or your neo cortex). Your Thinking Brain is the human part of your brain. Your Thinking Brain is responsible for things like:
being happy setting goals learning playfulness laughter
thinking logically being rational thinking things through calm
being productive getting things done analyzing organizing solutions
being responsible thinking of others empathy sympathy
3. To Our Safety Brains, every situation is life or death
This one just doesn't make sense any more. Yes, back in the animal kingdom we had to be totally ready to defend ourselves, be that run and hide or fight. But in today's society, if you are not in a war-torn country, we don't face life and death situations much any more. YES, there are exceptions. But please, just look at YOURSELF and your life. Have you ever had to fight for your life? And I mean physically fight for your life?
About 3% of us have had to fight for our lives, and that's NOT every second of every day. Once, maybe. Mostly, we go through life really safe and happy.
Sure, you can allow your mind to go yeah but what about... but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about regular, every day seconds and minutes in your life at work and at home. We are safe. We are not facing life and death situations. Yet your Safety Brain is CONVINCED that every situation is life or death.
So, since we very, very rarely face physically life-threatening situations, it's like our Safety Brains have adjusted and have decided that there are PSYCHOLOGICAL and EMOTIONAL situations that are life and death; and based on what we are THINKING or FEELING our safety brains will take over.
Here's what happens.
Everything goes to your Safety Brain first. If it decides that something is NOT SAFE it instantly, in less than a nanosecond, floods the body with adrenaline. The adrenaline triggers all kinds of neurological reactions but the BIGGEST BIGGEST BIGGEST reaction you have to be aware of is the one that slams a gateway down right in the middle of the bridge, shutting off access to your Thinking Brain. Your Safety Brain takes over, COMPLETELY, cutting all rational, logical, calm thinking OUT. It takes over and based on illogical, irrational thinking, it decides how to get us safe.
What is the ONLY EMOTION that would trigger the Safety Brain to take over?
FEAR
100% OF THE TIME, NO EXCEPTIONS, WHEN PEOPLE ARE BEING DIFFICULT THEY ARE SCARED
Something in the situation triggered their safety brains to say, It's not safe! Slam goes that gateway in their brain, shutting off access to their Thinking Brains. Their Safety Brains take over and decide, based on illogical, irrational thinking, how to get safe.
What Is Anger? Anger is NOT an Emotion. Anger is an attack. Always, 100% of the time, when you get angry, you were scared of something, your safety brain took over and decided that the only way to get safe is to ATTACK.
What Is Anger? Anger is our defensive reaction of attacking someone.
And YES YOU CAN Defuse (or Delete) difficult people in your life. Neutralize your anger. DON'T smack them upside the head! No more bodies buried under the copier!
Jeanette Kasper -- Your Anger UnTangler
Go to http://angerisnotanemotion.com to pick up thousands of tips and strategies you can live in your calm, always!
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