I’m a long time fan of The Ladies’ #1 Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. It is set in Botswana and to read any book in this series feels like a brief vacation to an exotic locale every time. At the same time, the characters feel familiar and neighborly so it is a win-win. I bring this up only to say, writing this column monthly always challenges me to come up with another way to say much the same thing: Take care of yourself so you can be fully present to take care of the others with whom you share your life. Why? Because according to Dr. Bruce Perry, our history of connections is a better prediction of our future than our history of adversity. It is in this spirit that I reflect again.
I got very angry at my grand daughter yesterday when her tone of voice was what I perceived as disrespectful. Very angry. I’m relieved to report that I walked away to cool off before returning to tell her how I felt. For the past 24 hours I have replied to any repeat of that moment with, “I’ll ask you to say that again.” This morning it took 3 tries for her to generate something that didn’t make my blood boil.
Three lessons here:
- Cool off/regulate first.
- Find a strategy that respects the developmental level of the person speaking/behaving.
- Recognize and respect what has been triggered; what button has been pushed, and what is behind it.
In the spirit of permission to be human, I’m going to list a few of the buttons that have been pushed in the last few days and what I understand about them. I’m not apologizing, not justifying, not even excusing them. I’ve earned these buttons honestly and my emotional responses are mine to own.
Button #1: Passively tolerating a 10 year old to speak disrespectfully to me would do her a great disservice. I am not a perfect human being, but I am a pretty decent example of one. I strive to be fair, kind, informed, and responsible for the space I take up in the world. To let her think that her mimicry of what she has heard on TV or the schoolyard is acceptable in the world at large sets her up for conflict in the future. To respond in kind, though I am perfectly capable of an impressively withering comeback, does not set the kind of example I want to give her. The only way I can resist, however, is to be honest about how annoyed I am and to reflect on what I want for her. In the moment, I was back in the schoolyard with her and very tempted to dish out what I’d “taken”. She had pushed a button labeled “You are not worthy of my respect.” I’m 73, she is 10. Just that fact is enough to deserve her respect. I won’t bore you or her with the rest of the journey that deserves it.
Button #2: I found myself weeping during a film about Ruth Bader Ginsberg called On the Basis of Sex. Though the movie was quite moving, the tears didn’t make sense at first. Then it dawned on me that the storyline was also an exploration of a conflict I had had with my mother many years ago. Justice Ginsberg was 11 years younger than my mother. She fought for a woman’s equal treatment under the law for her entire career. There was a scene in which her teenage daughter challenged her strategies in service to that end, however. Somewhere in here was when the tears came.
It wasn’t until her deathbed confession that I was privy to my mother’s resentment of my access to education, an opportunity out of her reach financially, for sure, but also simply not something she saw in her future. The world she knew just didn’t paint women into that picture when she was considering her options. When she was dying, she apologized for letting her jealousy of my chance to see a college education as a realistic goal for myself estrange us. My tears came before I could even tell you what buttons had been pushed in this story line. Different button, different emotional response.
I’m not just navel gazing here. In no way do I think these examples share anything with the sort of triggers your “children from hard places” (as Dr. Karyn Purvis called them) know. But, on the other hand, you enter this space with them with your own history, your own “buttons”. And, frankly, I’ve never known anyone better equipped to recognize the exact button to push to deflect attention from themselves and onto someone else’s emotional state than these same children. So, please, get yourself regulated and feeling safe again, use that beautiful cortex you’ve got to look hard at what exactly got you so worked up, and come up with a strategy that will protect your mental health as well as give these complicated little ones another chance to let you in a bit closer so they, too, get to feel safe, even for just a few minutes. Day in, day out, year in, year out, they, too, may come to know the blessings of being seen and heard, and these are the moments that can bring them closer to knowing how wonderful it is to be loved and respected by another human being. This is the core of being a decent human being, a human being who knows their responsibility for the space they take up in the world. Moral behavior can only follow when one has empathy for another’s pain. It’s the connecting that gets us there, not the threats, not the preaching, not the loss of privileges.
Peace,
Cathy
NEWS
- Check out the AZAFAP Event Calendar at https://azafap.gnosishosting.net/Events/Calendar.
- Our Friday night Happy Hour and Tuesday afternoon Coffee Chat continue. We’ve also added Wednesday R&R at 10 AM. Some find the facilitator (me or Michelle) and a single other participant; others find a conversation among 4 to 6 people. The topics range from the silly to what hobbies have us in their grip to what life has thrown in our path. If you ever find yourself wanting a bit of grown-up conversation, consider joining us (check your email for the unchanging link).
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