Navigating Emotional Landmines
Throughout the calendar year people experience a natural ebb and flow of emotions. During the bright sunny days of spring we feel energized and reborn. During the season of grey skies we often become so introspective that the over examined life brings on bought of self-doubt and down right emotional despair.
These are natural and to be expected. The surprising, even shocking, aspect is that most are unaware of the continuum of emotional distress that develops during the down cycles of these events. And the disastrous repetition of the cycles that can occur when those susceptible to the extremes of these cycles are unaware of how they develop and repeat in ever more emotional extreme pinnacles and depths.
However, forearmed with knowledge of development of these cycles provides us with a means of control.
The continuum follows the following pattern in all people and even though we may more readily recognize it in others, it is identical in ourselves and thus responsive to the same interventions.
ANXIETY
This is the initial level and is market by a change in behavior. Any change in behavior. For example, a typically subdued person who begins to display highly social and interactive behaviors is no less impacted by anxiety than the highly social person who becomes withdrawn and sulky.
The intervention at this early stage is acknowledgement of the behavior and controlled redirection to deliberately move back to a more “normal” persona.
DEFENSIVE
At the onset of this stage a beginning of a loss of rationality ensues. Often a tell tale sign of questions designed to challenge rather than seek information are characteristic at this stage. An examples might be, “why do you say that?” or “so, what?” The questions become more inflammatory from this point.
Proactive techniques would be an awareness of the developing stage and a firm plan of defectiveness and action programed to implement.
OUTBURST
Whenever you see an adult display such an explosive behavior that you find yourself saying, “I just seen an adult throw a temper tantrum.” you will now you have just seen an emotional outburst. Extremes of the behavior may even become physical in nature.
If you find you are the individual exhibiting the behavior, your best course of action is to find your self a safe environment in which to experience the outburst and process throughout. If you find you are observing the behavior, do everything you can to remove the audience and insulate the individual from interaction with others.
EMOTIONAL BANKRUPTSY
If you find that you are the person experiencing the cycle you will easily recognize it. After all the withdrawals you have been make on your emotional bank you will find you have completely spent your resource. A sense of emptiness and remorse may be characteristic. Some may feel remorseful, apologetic or in the worst case scenario, resentful. Missing the opportunity at this tension reduction stage will often reset the entire cycle back to the anxiety stage.
If you are the individual experiencing this roller-coaster this is the time for reflection and building a positive approach to address your next cycle of anxiety. If you are observing the behavior this is an excellent time to build a rapport with the individual through which you may be able to defuse later incidents.
However, extreme care must be taken at this stage to insure you do not make excuses for your behavior, or ignore the maladaptive behavior of others thus enabling them to repeat the cycle without consequence.
Next we’ll take a look at how each temperament might experience and relate to each of these stages.