“I just couldn’t do it because I was too anxious.”
Ah yes, the emotional alibi, the slick cover we employ when we recognize our typical mechanisms have failed us. In understanding how rationalizing escape or justifying avoidance is detrimental to our psyche, we must also see it for what it is: widely useful and entirely innate. As I’ve written in several previous pieces, our ancient brains are biologically incapable of differentiating between the year 2023 and the year 10,000 BC. Bearing this overgeneralization in mind, our physiology can respond the same to a sabretooth tiger as it would, say, a rude text message from someone who maintains a prime position on our last nerve. In the same manner our throats constrict to keep us from choking on saliva while hurdling away from threat, our heart pounds when reading idiotic rhetoric in an effort to warn our brain that trouble is ahead.
Frankly, I’ve read stupidity online that makes a grand mauling by a sabretooth tiger seem erotic. The power in social validation and flagrant attention has a magnetic quality, one in close competition with the allure of escaping discomfort and avoiding pain. Evolutionarily, we are geared toward escapism and find more motivation in evading unfortunate circumstances than contacting something we’ve been yearning for. Yes, our phones have proven to be viciously addicting slot machines because of their genius ability in indulging social rewards through likes and comments. This said, using the same hellscape that is an Instagram comments section, imagine you’ve received 98 comments affirming your creativity, with 2 comments attacking your perspective. Do you find yourself blushing at the 98% positivity rate, or infuriated by the angry fraction? Which carries more weight?
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We create emotional alibis for ourselves thinking we’re only protecting our ego and our wellbeing. Perhaps our anxiety is debilitating to the degree that isolation feels ideal, or our supposed coping skills have failed us so repetitiously that we’ve lost all hope in learning more. We allow our symptoms to clutch onto us with such a tight grip that they overpower us, dictating the decisions we make and even our appraisal of such decisions, convincing us we’re in the right despite feeling miserable. While I do hold empathy for these forms of emotional suffering, as I certainly am no stranger to them, I would be remiss if I didn’t reiterate this point for the umpteenth time: shitty events and circumstances may not be our fault, but they’re our responsibility. It is not the world’s role to accommodate our constantly shifting mood, much like it isn’t our place to demand that others mold to our rigidity simply because we cannot tolerate an existence without such structured “rules”.
I used to believe these issues lived primarily on social media. The more people I connect with, though, the more I’m convinced my theory was incorrect. The media representations of certain groups are definitely overrepresentations curated solely for dramatic effect, but I have to say: the on-edge helplessness is rampant, both behind screens and face-to-face. The conversational awkwardness is actually quite painful, and I find myself chronically surprised as to how difficult communication and emotional regulation is for grown adults across various life domains (i.e., marriage, friendships, work, leisure). As much as it may feel initially cathartic to rage on about these deficits, as I’ve been guilty of hundreds of times in the past, I instead will utilize this piece to outline very basic therapeutic principles that are widely studied as not only effective, but as highly actionable.
BUILDING DISTRESS TOLERANCE
An inability to cope with life’s inevitable stream of steaming shit is a skill not automatically given when we reach adulthood. Unfortunately, resilience isn’t afforded to people once they reach a certain age or once they’ve survived some form of a rite of passage. This could be seen as a negative thing, as being grandfathered in to effectively tolerating difficulty could be the antidote to entitlement. Again, as easy as it may be to rehash the negative qualities of many people we work with or are surrounded with, there’s hope in the realization that resilience can be learned in a similar way typing on a keyboard is learned. While arguably more nuanced and definitely more stressful, building grit becomes the gift that continues to give regardless of the circumstances, similar to how the ability to type only makes life easier, more meaningful, and more enjoyable.
One technique to build distress tolerance is called Urge Surfing. In times of distress, we often cave to our vices and emotional alibis, as they’ve offered powerful senses of relief in the past. Knowing this techniques actually make us more sensitive in the future is an important piece of information in developing better strategies when emotions are running high. To Urge Surf, we must first develop a list of safety behaviors we engage in. Safety behaviors, or emotional crutches, are those things we rely on that we pretend protect us from threat but instead function as escape tactics. You can use a table similar to the one below:
Our safety behaviors hinder us in that they validate fear around specific situations. The dentist pumps our fragile gums with Novocain in anticipation that a procedure would be extremely painful without it; this is an adaptive safety behavior I’m grateful for and don’t consider a hinderance. Unnecessary pain that we’d never otherwise experience outside of a few circumstances isn’t something that necessarily builds strength. What is quite empowering, though, is hopping into my car without my Klonopin and without my phone, saying out loud to pounding heart, “I am not afraid of you.” This belief is further cemented in continuous efforts toward proving the fear wrong.
After creating a list of safety behaviors we use, we must become aware of what occurs mentally and even physically when the urge to engage in such behavior arises. What sorts of situations set these urges off? Are there times when intensity is higher than others? If so, is there a pattern between these higher-intensity moments? Who is around, and what is being demanded of me in these situations? These situations are not only ones we can expose ourselves to gradually and continually, with a similar end goal: to dampen our knee-jerk reactions and prove to ourselves the strength of our coping abilities in the face of distress.
With The Great Urge Surf, we can benefit from delaying and distracting. When the urge arises, how can we distract ourselves from engaging in a safety behavior for a long enough period of time for the intensity in the emotion to drop? This may involve developing a competing response, or a behavior that directly contradicts or is incompatible with the urge itself. For example, if our urge is typically to grab our phone and call someone to talk, our competing response may be a brisk walk or high-intensity, fast burst of exercise that leaves us too out or breath to carry on conversation. If our urge is to take Klonopin when we’re fearful we may have a panic attack, perhaps we leave Klonopin in the trunk of our car and park the car away from our home, so a walk and a good distance is required to obtain it. Make a note of whether or not the intensity of your urges changed as a result of this technique. How did they change? Did your thoughts and emotions change, as well? How or how not?
RADICAL ACCEPTANCE
These multisyllabic words sound hokey. I realize this whenever I say them, which is why I often interchange them with things like resilience or, the more popular, “figure that shit out”. While more nuanced than simply rubbing dirt in it, radical acceptance requires us to almost become confidently passive in our recognition that many things are outside of our control. It relies heavily on some aspects of Buddhism or the straightforward realities of being alive: much of what we experience is outside of our control, and thrashing to dig our heels in often exacerbates our stress around an inability to manage our emotions. Gaining control over aspects of our lives, particularly for those prone to helplessness and hyper-dependence on others, is a critical piece of developing emotional regulation and self-management. In tandem with identifying what we can control, it’s worth it to create another column emphasizing the many things entirely foreign to our controlling efforts: we cannot control the weather, traffic, how other people respond, or what people will do. To build fortitude gradually in the face of uncontrollable circumstances, I suggest the following, easy-to-implement strategies:
1. Listen to a webinar, a YouTube video, or podcast episode from someone whose views you disagree with. When listening, catch yourself every time you’re tempted to be critical of the person or the material. Make a tally, but do not respond to it. Remain as neutral as you can, and nip judgments in the bud.
2. When stuck in traffic, instead of aiming to call everyone a motherfucker and honk at those we believe to be responsible for our increasingly sour mood, simply sit. Say nothing. Similar to above, catch yourself when you’re recognizing an urge to yell or ask someone why the hell they’re on the road, but don’t follow through with it.
3. Read an article with a view you strongly disagree with and try to not only remain neutral, but aim to find common ground. Again, you cannot change the nature of the article, the words written, or even another person’s viewpoint… but you can change how you respond.
To cement these forms of acceptance is a more active form of cognitive restructuring: changing critical or judgmental statements into those more balanced. It can become our knee-jerk reaction to find problems in most everything others do, specifically if we’ve targeted certain individuals as bearing the primary brunt of our emotional wrath. This activity, provided below, forces you to not only provide your initial reaction and urge, but develop a kinder, more nuanced explanation or statement as an alternative. In doing so, we humanize the other person we claim to despise, hopefully creating a habit out of acceptance and patience.
ACTIVE LISTENING
Nonverbal behavior and analyzing body language have become amateur side hobbies for the millennial chick. This includes myself, as my fascination with crime dovetails nicely with how detectives identify who is lying, who is hiding pertinent information, and who sliced their girlfriend to bits in the dilapidated shed in the backyard. Hostage negotiations are similar: we’re enthralled with the idea of negotiating with a terrorist and hopefully guiding them into a more peaceful resolve. As it relates to real life, many of us will unfortunately never find ourselves in these situations, but only benign renditions of them.
Any hostage negotiator will inform you that the most crucial aspect of hostage negotiation is empathic and active listening. We often expect that there’s a specific art to negotiating and managing conversation with someone like Osama Bin Laden, and there certainly is… but it’s not the magic formula we may expect. There’s a heavy emphasis on building connection with an individual even if we find them repugnant, as well as demonstrating our listening abilities by paraphrasing their words in the most charitable way. For example, should we be sitting across from a terrorist at a picnic table, it may not be in our best interest to respond to most every statement with, “So what you’re saying is you’re a terrorist, and you’re a terrible person, and what makes you think you deserve anything at all because of how cruel you are?” This is a form of active destructive listening: we not only deliberately derail a conversation with our verbal behavior, but we are motivated to dismiss and even denigrate our conversational partner. This, while it may feel like a “mic-drop-moment” worthy of virality on social media, closes collaboration and guarantees close-mindedness.
Active Constructive Responding, or ACR, involves asking thoughtful follow-up questions as well as sharing the excitement of the individual speaking. Used primarily in reference to someone sharing positive aspects of themselves or their lives, it’s a wildly effective technique in letting others know we’re available to listen and we’re also relishing in their joy. Using the table below, let’s compare the different types of conversational styles and how they’re either hijacking connection or building it.
It's worth it, then, to identify what type of responding you engage in and modify your behavior appropriately. It’s quite easy to alter our behavior to something more adaptive when we’re engaging with people we know or with people we like. The real challenge becomes that of applying these same tactics to individuals we’ve clashed with previously, or to individuals endorsing ideas we cannot possibly imagining ourselves finding common ground with. Despite our standing on various issues, whether they’re related to politics, work, or sports, it is both the speaker and the listener’s responsibility to hold the other person in the highest regard. We can disagree with someone’s ideas while respecting them, and we can respect a person’s ideas if we dislike their character.
MOST GENEROUS INTERPRETATION (MGI)
MGI is analogous to the benefit of the doubt. We’ve largely lost the ability to not only allow people to save face, but to assume they had the best intention despite hurt feelings or offense. Conditioned into hyper-alertness because of, perhaps, our own inability to tolerate disappointment or discomfort, we are given a litany of reasons as to why others are the problem and we are the ones preserved as vulnerable victims. Not only does this sort of resentment destroy relationships and shut down any communicative efforts, it lessens our confidence in managing issues and only places us in greater need of outside events to regulate our emotions. Emotions requiring others behaving in a certain manner? This is narcissism to a T. While this isn’t to say we cannot assert our needs, as this is equally vital to our social relationships, it’s important to recognize that our most polite, goodhearted efforts can still be met with rejection.
This said, assume the best. When you’re tempted to assume a specific statement was geared towards you with the hope of making you angry, what other alternatives can you come up with that may better explain the issue? A spouse forgetting to text you at an agreed-upon time doesn’t have to mean they’ve devised a calculated plan to passive-aggressively test your patience only to prove your emotional outbursts: it could simply mean they got caught up during the day and forgot. It’s arguably more difficult to defend others, especially if we’ve contacted negative consequences with these others in the past. But I challenge you to promote tolerance and open mindedness by demonstrating it yourself.
If we find ourselves chronically irritated by how sensitive people are, it’s worth analyzing: are we the problem?
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