Intolerance of Uncertainty and Managing Emotions

Week 7: Helping others manage emotions

So this was a tough one. And I feel a little weepy.

I think the first is really understanding about emotional co-regulation when interacting with others. It's not something I've really thought about - but I'm realising how quick I am to react to someone's emotional state without pausing to check in with myself first. There's a colleague at work who I get on really well with, but can also be a bit stressy. I've noticed how, if I'm not careful, I can get drawn into a conversation and have my feelings run away with theirs. It's occurred to me I don't manage my conversations particularly well. If it's to do a task - then no problem, that sits into my "everyone is a widgit to accomplish this goal" mentality. Outside of that, when the conversation isn't "organised" (i.e. not a task-based work one) I struggle to function in it. I mean I can, I can go on autopilot if I'm on the right mood, but I seem to lose awareness of my emotional state. There's been more than one occasion where I've come out of a conversation exhausted and thought how I should have wrapped it up 20 minutes ago. It's almost like I don't give myself permission to do it - even though I should... and I can.

I do get drawn into things, and sometimes I can lose myself without regulating myself healthily. To go off topic, I'm a sucker for 4x strategy games. I remember firing one up yesterday - for a few minutes - and then getting sucked into the gameplay. The problem was that it got to a point *hours* later where I was mindlessly clicking the mouse button like a zombie. The game had stagnated and yet I was still going for the one-more-turn. One more turn ----- FOR WHAT? I'd forgotten to eat (not good) and both my brain and eyes were telling me I'd been staring at the screen for too long. I've disciplined myself today - stayed off the gaming and managed to do other, more productive stuff, but I can't grasp why I can't just disengage when my entire being is telling me I've had enough.

Actually that's not true. I know exactly why. The first is that gaming allows a distraction from life. Sometimes I don't do it because I enjoy it, I do it to escape from something that's bugging me. Or I do it to work out an obsession about which is the best experience - I flit from one game to another (it takes me weeks to decide on which mobile phone to upgrade to, in my price bracket, for what I use it for, they're pretty much all the same). But the other reason, is that it's a means by which I managed my misery as a kid. Because my folks were unavailable most of the time I'd retreat into a gaming world - and I do it anytime I feel overloaded, stressed or in a position I don't know what to do. It's my hiding place. The problem is - is that it numbs me. I switch off from emotional awareness and my thinking is cloudy. I used to set an alarm for two hours and then stop. Since I stopped doing that I don't stop. And then I feel guilty that I've allowed myself to get sucked into 7-8 hours of doing basically nothing (apart from clicking a mouse and getting dazzled by shiny graphics and epic music). The problem is - is that I lose a sense of intention in daily life which then becomes a series of things I have to "do" and get through, rather than opening up and living it.

Damn. Why am I making this so difficult for myself?

I think what upset me is the realisation, and I may have written this before, is that I was never taught how to regulate emotions in the family- and co-regulation was not a thing. When I read the question on the course about whether there had been an adult in my life who was curious and accepting of my emotions my heart sank (in other words, co-regulating). The answer was no. And it didn't matter how I tried to get through to them I couldn't do it. They'd just shut me out, close down the conversation and then wonder why, months down the line, I'd be unable to function. It was all my fault - apparently. I should have worked normally straight out of the box (or womb). Although it was a different era but I suspect that they'd carried unresolved issues all through their life and adopted an unhealthy relationship of co-dependency. I don't think I was planned. Although they'd never have admitted to that.

Then there's the realisation that I'm shockingly bad at difficult conversations. Take the project. There's two conversations which I probably could have had - it wouldn't have made things any better but the way I've dealt with things by *not* having those conversations has been completely dysfunctional. Just thinking about having them I feel sick - I feel exposed - and it's because I'm putting myself "on the line" so to speak. In job roles it's never been a problem because I can get the job role mindset - there's an expectation, a knowledge about what I can and can't do, and I know what resources are available. In other words, I can provide a top notch answer, and my get-out is when the situation falls outside of that remit. But when I'm putting *myself* forward, when it's about my needs then it's like a voyage into the unknown. And so I fall back on that safe-space of outrage behind the scenes - and completing the thing I'm being asked to do with a sense of weary resignation. It's all very well disclosing when things are going well, it's when things aren't. And I think I still lack the confidence in a work situation to put myself forward and say what things aren't working for me. Some things are unavoidable. I get that. But others --- others could be managed a lot better.

I need to learn how to have that conversation. I always want to take something away to come up with "the answer". But some conversations won't have that definitive answer - they'll be unpredictable. There will be an outcome, maybe, which I'm not comfortable with. And that scares me. What scares me even more is that I don't know what conversations to have. Which do I pick up and see through, which do I leave and put down. Sometimes staying quiet has allowed me to observe and learn about the dynamics of people. That "eager to please" thing that I have (manifested in delivering a high quality product) carries me only so far. And the painful rejection of what I thought was an honest, reasonable conversation still sits with me - because I still don't know how to respond when people are emotional in their perspectives or decision-making. I can see it when it happens to someone else, but when it happens to me, I can't disentangle the feelings about the experience from feeling about myself. 

So it was twofold this week. The first is the realisation that I'm only going be able to manage my stimulus-response approach to certain stressors by self-talk and treating myself as the course advises to treat students. Get past that initial reaction, actively manage it, connect with feelings, explore the story and reinforce the growth mindset (something else that makes me feel wobbly when I think of dealing honestly with other people about how I feel).

The second is that re-engagement in intentional, conscious living. Mindfulness. It is difficult and easy to slip out of practice. I engage really well with it on my walks - and I've kept making excuses about my walks for ages. Anytime I seem to get into something which is good for me, I encounter a stressful moment or situation, and then stop doing the very thing that is helping me stay focused and grounded. I'm not saying the last few months has been a total disaster - but it could be better. Again, I think this is childhood patterns reasserting themselves. I've noticed recently that in the last few days (before taking my leave) that I was switching the works PC on before completing the morning routine. It's not an arduous routine - shower, breakfast and 10-15 minutes of Qi-Gong or Tai Chi. And yet I seem to not want to give myself that time. Is it because I see work as more important or is it because I'm switching off to the necessity of my own self-care - in that I say to myself "I'm fine" when really I could be doing something where I could be more than fine. 

It's probably both.

Thinking about unpleasant feelings - I had a moment of confusion - sometimes I want to get drawn into this battle with myself about how I'm feeling (a fools errand according to Russ Harris). It's almost as if I'm saying to myself "Should I accept and explore this feeling?" or "Should I try and overcome it?". I know the first answer is the right one, but why am I struggling to disregard the second one?

But there were two quotes I took away...

"Helping one person may not change the world, but it could change the world for one person" - I like that one.

"In these times of great uncertainty and stress - we may want to be intentional more often throughout the day to help bring positive emotions into balance even in small ways". - This I need to remember. Sometimes I forget intentional living. It's easy when not working - there's the time and space to think, plan and motivate myself. When at work, even though I do work remotely (which I never thought I'd take to) that intentionality slips. 

But perhaps this is part of another discussion about the kind of job I ought to be doing. I need to give this role a try (when I get back to it) because it's a small team and I'm working with really good people but I think I'm missing it somewhere. 

That buzz I had, when I was researching intolerance of uncertainty after my meltdown episode when the project went sideways. I still get the vibe thinking about it. That was the time I was in that "flow state" - lively, focused, motivated, enthusiastic (reads off mood chart). There is something about discovery that excites me. I need to find a thing to discover - not always, as work demands, something I need to fix.

As always my emotions are mixed. I remember starting the course tonight feeling uneasy and a bit irritated - I've finished feeling at ease and settled. Writing about it helps. On some level, this process helps me organise my thoughts - and I think nudges me a little further in the right direction.

One more week to go. I may well tackle it tomorrow. 

Week 7: Helping others manage emotions

So this was a tough one. And I feel a little weepy.

I think the first is really understanding about emotional co-regulation when interacting with others. It's not something I've really thought about - but I'm realising how quick I am to react to someone's emotional state without pausing to check in with myself first. There's a colleague at work who I get on really well with, but can also be a bit stressy. I've noticed how, if I'm not careful, I can get drawn into a conversation and have my feelings run away with theirs. It's occurred to me I don't manage my conversations particularly well. If it's to do a task - then no problem, that sits into my "everyone is a widgit to accomplish this goal" mentality. Outside of that, when the conversation isn't "organised" (i.e. not a task-based work one) I struggle to function in it. I mean I can, I can go on autopilot if I'm on the right mood, but I seem to lose awareness of my emotional state. There's been more than one occasion where I've come out of a conversation exhausted and thought how I should have wrapped it up 20 minutes ago. It's almost like I don't give myself permission to do it - even though I should... and I can.

I do get drawn into things, and sometimes I can lose myself without regulating myself healthily. To go off topic, I'm a sucker for 4x strategy games. I remember firing one up yesterday - for a few minutes - and then getting sucked into the gameplay. The problem was that it got to a point *hours* later where I was mindlessly clicking the mouse button like a zombie. The game had stagnated and yet I was still going for the one-more-turn. One more turn ----- FOR WHAT? I'd forgotten to eat (not good) and both my brain and eyes were telling me I'd been staring at the screen for too long. I've disciplined myself today - stayed off the gaming and managed to do other, more productive stuff, but I can't grasp why I can't just disengage when my entire being is telling me I've had enough.

Actually that's not true. I know exactly why. The first is that gaming allows a distraction from life. Sometimes I don't do it because I enjoy it, I do it to escape from something that's bugging me. Or I do it to work out an obsession about which is the best experience - I flit from one game to another (it takes me weeks to decide on which mobile phone to upgrade to, in my price bracket, for what I use it for, they're pretty much all the same). But the other reason, is that it's a means by which I managed my misery as a kid. Because my folks were unavailable most of the time I'd retreat into a gaming world - and I do it anytime I feel overloaded, stressed or in a position I don't know what to do. It's my hiding place. The problem is - is that it numbs me. I switch off from emotional awareness and my thinking is cloudy. I used to set an alarm for two hours and then stop. Since I stopped doing that I don't stop. And then I feel guilty that I've allowed myself to get sucked into 7-8 hours of doing basically nothing (apart from clicking a mouse and getting dazzled by shiny graphics and epic music). The problem is - is that I lose a sense of intention in daily life which then becomes a series of things I have to "do" and get through, rather than opening up and living it.

Damn. Why am I making this so difficult for myself?

I think what upset me is the realisation, and I may have written this before, is that I was never taught how to regulate emotions in the family- and co-regulation was not a thing. When I read the question on the course about whether there had been an adult in my life who was curious and accepting of my emotions my heart sank (in other words, co-regulating). The answer was no. And it didn't matter how I tried to get through to them I couldn't do it. They'd just shut me out, close down the conversation and then wonder why, months down the line, I'd be unable to function. It was all my fault - apparently. I should have worked normally straight out of the box (or womb). Although it was a different era but I suspect that they'd carried unresolved issues all through their life and adopted an unhealthy relationship of co-dependency. I don't think I was planned. Although they'd never have admitted to that.

Then there's the realisation that I'm shockingly bad at difficult conversations. Take the project. There's two conversations which I probably could have had - it wouldn't have made things any better but the way I've dealt with things by *not* having those conversations has been completely dysfunctional. Just thinking about having them I feel sick - I feel exposed - and it's because I'm putting myself "on the line" so to speak. In job roles it's never been a problem because I can get the job role mindset - there's an expectation, a knowledge about what I can and can't do, and I know what resources are available. In other words, I can provide a top notch answer, and my get-out is when the situation falls outside of that remit. But when I'm putting *myself* forward, when it's about my needs then it's like a voyage into the unknown. And so I fall back on that safe-space of outrage behind the scenes - and completing the thing I'm being asked to do with a sense of weary resignation. It's all very well disclosing when things are going well, it's when things aren't. And I think I still lack the confidence in a work situation to put myself forward and say what things aren't working for me. Some things are unavoidable. I get that. But others --- others could be managed a lot better.

I need to learn how to have that conversation. I always want to take something away to come up with "the answer". But some conversations won't have that definitive answer - they'll be unpredictable. There will be an outcome, maybe, which I'm not comfortable with. And that scares me. What scares me even more is that I don't know what conversations to have. Which do I pick up and see through, which do I leave and put down. Sometimes staying quiet has allowed me to observe and learn about the dynamics of people. That "eager to please" thing that I have (manifested in delivering a high quality product) carries me only so far. And the painful rejection of what I thought was an honest, reasonable conversation still sits with me - because I still don't know how to respond when people are emotional in their perspectives or decision-making. I can see it when it happens to someone else, but when it happens to me, I can't disentangle the feelings about the experience from feeling about myself. 

So it was twofold this week. The first is the realisation that I'm only going be able to manage my stimulus-response approach to certain stressors by self-talk and treating myself as the course advises to treat students. Get past that initial reaction, actively manage it, connect with feelings, explore the story and reinforce the growth mindset (something else that makes me feel wobbly when I think of dealing honestly with other people about how I feel).

The second is that re-engagement in intentional, conscious living. Mindfulness. It is difficult and easy to slip out of practice. I engage really well with it on my walks - and I've kept making excuses about my walks for ages. Anytime I seem to get into something which is good for me, I encounter a stressful moment or situation, and then stop doing the very thing that is helping me stay focused and grounded. I'm not saying the last few months has been a total disaster - but it could be better. Again, I think this is childhood patterns reasserting themselves. I've noticed recently that in the last few days (before taking my leave) that I was switching the works PC on before completing the morning routine. It's not an arduous routine - shower, breakfast and 10-15 minutes of Qi-Gong or Tai Chi. And yet I seem to not want to give myself that time. Is it because I see work as more important or is it because I'm switching off to the necessity of my own self-care - in that I say to myself "I'm fine" when really I could be doing something where I could be more than fine. 

It's probably both.

Thinking about unpleasant feelings - I had a moment of confusion - sometimes I want to get drawn into this battle with myself about how I'm feeling (a fools errand according to Russ Harris). It's almost as if I'm saying to myself "Should I accept and explore this feeling?" or "Should I try and overcome it?". I know the first answer is the right one, but why am I struggling to disregard the second one?

But there were two quotes I took away...

"Helping one person may not change the world, but it could change the world for one person" - I like that one.

"In these times of great uncertainty and stress - we may want to be intentional more often throughout the day to help bring positive emotions into balance even in small ways". - This I need to remember. Sometimes I forget intentional living. It's easy when not working - there's the time and space to think, plan and motivate myself. When at work, even though I do work remotely (which I never thought I'd take to) that intentionality slips. 

But perhaps this is part of another discussion about the kind of job I ought to be doing. I need to give this role a try (when I get back to it) because it's a small team and I'm working with really good people but I think I'm missing it somewhere. 

That buzz I had, when I was researching intolerance of uncertainty after my meltdown episode when the project went sideways. I still get the vibe thinking about it. That was the time I was in that "flow state" - lively, focused, motivated, enthusiastic (reads off mood chart). There is something about discovery that excites me. I need to find a thing to discover - not always, as work demands, something I need to fix.

As always my emotions are mixed. I remember starting the course tonight feeling uneasy and a bit irritated - I've finished feeling at ease and settled. Writing about it helps. On some level, this process helps me organise my thoughts - and I think nudges me a little further in the right direction.

One more week to go. I may well tackle it tomorrow. 

Totally get this. What I've learned during all this covid thing is that despite having learned much intellectually and having had more awareness successes, there are still old reactions/responses/feelings stored in my body repeating themselves. Old patterns that seem to stick a spanner in the works like I've been ambushed and sabotaged along the road of progress. I've noticed it can happen with old friends or family members, where I seem to get sucked into some kind of magnetic vortex and before I know it, I'm either being triggered emotionally or I seem to slip into conversation patterns from the past that I've tried to avoid doing more recently. Feels like I've been hooked & reeled in by a fishing rod and then I get upset afterwards for not being more aware. I guess I'm getting better though otherwise I wouldn't be aware of it at all which I must continue to remind myself is progress.

The worst is when I get overwhelmed by going too far into things too quickly or all at once, that I must have unconsciously told myself at some point ; the more digging I do or the more hard work or study I put in, the more success or progress I will make and one day I will wake-up completely ' cured '. When I overload myself like this of course, I seem to achieve the opposite and the old, destructive patterns of escape are presenting themselves like honey to a Bee. The old, overwhelm - escape pattern that has been so much of struggle and part of my unconsciousness for so long has been exposed and the spotlight shone on it. Now I have to try to break this destructive cycle by bringing more awareness to overloading myself with too much, too fast and learn to pace myself and to structure-in more healthy pursuits of escape, and in turn, change the word escape to leisure-time or relaxation or something.

Although still undiagnosed, I have heard recommendations for the book ' The body keeps the score ' and although I haven't read it yet, somehow, the title is enough for me to know that despite all the spade-work I have done intellectually or from awareness practice, that it may very well be, my body is still carrying around a lot of sticky residue that needs dislodged. Having read interviews with the author and some of his patients, I am determined to exercise more and once possible, enroll in some kind of rehabilitation Yoga suitable for trauma or PTSD which I believe I am symptomatic of from childhood and also having stored-up everything by myself with no meaningful release mechanisms. 

Yes - work / technical conversations have no emotional requirement - it's a data transfer between brains.

Anything else is incredibly risky - who knows where it could go and there are always so many exposed nerves that can be accidentally tweaked to trigger all sorts of random emotions.