"The child must adapt to ensure the illusion of love, care, and kindness, but
the adult does not need this illusion to survive.... Both the depressive and the
grandiose person completely deny their childhood reality by living as
though the availability of the parents could still be salvaged: the grandiose
person through the illusion of achievement, and the depressive through his
constant fear of losing "love." Neither can accept the truth that this loss or
absence of love has already happened in the past, and that
no effort whatsoever can change this fact." [italics in
original]
- Alice Miller
(from Drama of the Gifted Child (location 628-630 on Kindle)
In other words, not only is the unconscious goal of perfection impossible and
thus dooms us before we ever begin anything, but this goal's ultimate purpose
(of "salvaging our parents' availability" and, consequently, our self-worth) is
itself an impossible fiction. Our minds can understand and accept this on an
intellectual level, a milestone of personal growth which is difficult enough to
attain. But an even more difficult challenge is getting our bodies to believe
and internalize it. This is how we truly, authentically change behavior and
address deep-seated anxiety: from the source of it.
As Bromberg (2011) explains: "A person's core self -- the self that is shaped by
early attachment patterns -- is defined by who the parental object both perceive
him to be and deny him to be...." In other words, the primary caregiver's
capacity to
attune to or match the entire relational dance of the child determines the child's sense of self and subsequent "affect regulation
capacities, procedural memory, and so much more" (Ogden, 2015).
This moment-to-moment dance happens over tens of thousands of interactions and
establishes "action sequences" that convey our "implicit predictions,
expectations, intentions, attitudes, emotions, and meanings" (Ogden, 2015).
Degree of attunement depends on many things out of the caregiver's control,
including but not limited to the caregiver's own early relational experiences
and the temperament of the child.
Whereas "fight" and "freeze/flag/feint" modes are most clearly identifiable,
"flight" mode triggers and reactions can be the most difficult and confusing to
identify and respond to. When we react to/in "flight" mode in particular, we
feed a seemingly unending loop of shame and frustration precisely because it may
be invisible. If we play the game of "salvaging our parents' availability", we
eventually discover that we can't stop playing even when we consciously want to
-- there is no "off" switch.
To this end, I have recently identified and come to use as a metaphor the
accidental tragedy of the Titanic. It has helped me understand and find my
unconscious "off" switch (maybe less an off switch than a dimmer).
Our Personal Titanic: Symbolism
We all know the tragedy of the Titanic. On April 14, 1912 (the day it hit the
iceberg), the Titanic cruised through the waters of the North Atlantic, a
beautiful, magnificent, new vessel. This ship may represent our True
Self (i.e., our self as it is). It moved freely in the ocean.
It began to pick up steam, to really open up. They said it was unsinkable, this
vessel on its nascent voyage. And, then, it happened. An iceberg dead ahead. It
was unavoidable -- there was nothing the ship, nothing the Captain (representing
our embodied mind) could do. The ship collided with the iceberg!
The caretaker of this vessel, the Captain, knew within minutes that the damage
was fatal, that the ship would sink without the ability to repair the breach.
Titanic carried life: there were 2,224 people on board. These people represent
the life of the True Self. Much of this life died, drowned or froze to death,
and lies at the bottom of the Atlantic still. Some life survived because the Captain deployed life boats (representing unconscious psychological defenses).
[This is important because it implies that the Captain, not the ocean, is
ultimately responsible for the vessel and the life it contains -- e.g., the
ocean has no control over the number of icebergs or warm, holding currents it
has, if a vessel runs into an iceberg, or how the Captain decides to protect
the life on the vessel.]
The ocean itself represents the primary caregiver as it contains not only
icebergs but also warm, *"holding" currents -- depending on the character
structure of the caregiver and innate temperament of the child, there may
be more likelihood of icebergs (or currents) by which the vessel may be hit (or
held).
*Note: includes both physical and psychological holding (i.e.,
seeing/accepting the vessel as it is).
The Titanic's 20 life boats held 705 survivors until a cruise liner (another
vessel -- representing False Self, i.e., Bromberg's core self above -- how
others need us to be) could reach them two hours after Titanic sunk. Some
life was protected by the Splitting life boat, other life was protected by
Idealizing/Devaluing, still other life was protected by Denial (of this and
other reality), Intellectualization, Projective Identification, etc.
In the False Self vessel, this surviving life remains separated in
those life boats (representing dissociated self-states), perhaps for the rest of
our lives unless something or someone intervenes to dissolve those walls and
integrate this life.
The iceberg in the Titanic metaphor represents a general relational pattern of mis-attunement (i.e., non-seeing/non-coordinating),
conditional love (and fear), power/control over, and moments of dis-integrated
stasis within a superficial flow. We can think of this as a relational dance set to the music of one reality:
the caregiver's reality.
A warm, "holding" current may represent a general relational pattern of
attunement (and repair), unconditional love (i.e., Linehan's "radical
acceptance"), mutual safety/respect/compassion, and integrated flow. This dance
is set to the different music of everyone's reality, where turn-taking becomes
imperative (e.g., A Day in the Life rise to G).
Both icebergs and currents can be personified: icebergs, like people, exist
mostly under the surface and people, like currents, have a flow that can be
respected or interrupted. To come full circle, our lifeboats then become the icebergs when we become
somebody else's ocean.
The function of the ocean vis-a-vis the vessel is to literally hold the vessel.
The ocean is one part of the vessel's external environment, but a critical one:
there may be sunny skies or storms or earthquakes (representing siblings or
other key people) that may directly affect the vessel, but these also feed back
into the ocean's calm or tumult.
???[In this way, experiencing "love" for a specific person may actually be each
person's respective lifeboats/icebergs and warm, holding currents corresponding
conversely rather than directly (i.e., there is a warm, holding current in the
ocean where you have a lifeboat/iceberg and vice-versa).]???
Unconscious Expedition/Salvage Mission and Pre-emptive Defense
When I engage now (2017) or even have the impulse to engage in *grandiose
(illusory achievement, "winning" conditional love), *depressive (fear of losing
conditional love), or other reactive behaviors, I travel through time both
to the past and to the future,
toggling back and forth between past and future in reactive mind.
*Note: I consider both behaviors to be in "flight" on the circle of
reactivity. Especially vis-a-vis fear of losing "love" (where "love" :=
favoritism, status, wealth, conditional safety), we can include impulses or
feelings of preoccupation, clinging, rumination, jealousy, competition,
pleasing, catastrophizing, and superego projections (i.e., imagining others are
judging us).
When I go to the past, I am going on an expedition and a salvage mission (see
below). When I go to the future, I perceive and predict a threat to False Self
(i.e., ego identity), against which I engage in a pre-emptive defense. It is the
past-orientation that I find so fascinating and challenging to understand, so I
will focus on that here. However, note that the "pre-emptive defense" IS the
expedition and salvage mission.
Expedition/Salvage Mission
The expedition is that I am trying in the here and now (2017) to change the
reality of the Titanic's iceberg to a then non-existent warm, "holding"
current/flow on April 14, 1912. In other words,
I am trying now to get my needs met back when I was an infant/child.
These grandiose or depressive behaviors (and other reactive behaviors) are my
locked safe (representing safety) that lies with the wreckage of the True Self
at the bottom of the ocean. I fully expect it to contain treasure (representing
self-worth derived from parental availability, attunement, and true love when I was an infant/child), even (emotional) life itself.
But when I salvage this safe from the vessel's wreckage and open it, like
Geraldo Rivera confidently opening Al Capone's vault on live TV, I shamefully
find nothing -- it is empty. The real treasure never existed,
not now or when I needed it all those years ago (i.e., when my needs
collided with the needs of my caregivers).
Yet I actively try to salvage this treasure from the wreckage over and over and
over again by pretending not only that 1) the iceberg was a warm, holding
current and 2) I can salvage the treasure today, but also by denying the
reality that it wasn't and I can't. Mis-attunement threatens self-worth because as children we (unconsciously)
equate mis-attunement to our not being worthy of being seen or accepted as we
are -- the wrongness in us is why we are not seen -- so we change ourselves to
be worthy.
By the way, others often conspire in this effort to maintain the myth of the
perfect or ideal caregiver, thereby creating a heart-breaking social environment
of denial and shame that functions both to obscure the true reality of the
tragedy and punish "heretical" attempts to acknowledge this reality.
The damage from the iceberg was done under the surface, out of sight. In
emotional life, there is no record, proof, or conscious memory that a Titanic
ever happened other than residual psychological (mind/body) effects that often
remain entirely visible. We only know of it because its traces appear in our
relationships to ourselves and others in the here and now, in our bodies (e.g.,
anxiety, attack self), defenses, beliefs, and reactive responses to perceived
threat, or even how we perceive threat. As such, claims of a Titanic are
easily deniable and dismissible and often are labeled as disloyal or ungrateful
or unloving or self-pitying in attempts to deny its truth in reality.
But, despite any denials the surviving life has already experienced this
destruction of the True Self and loss of much of its (emotional) life* -- it
literally saw/heard/felt life die and the vessel sink. This memory resides in
the unconscious mind/body and is triggered any time there is a
threat of death (i.e., threat of annihilation (or
dis-integration) of self) through either physical attack (e.g., pain or loss) or emotional
attack (e.g., shame or diminishment of self).
*Note: Not everyone experiences iceberg collisions
to the same degree. Depending largely on the extent of active repair
done by the caregiver or key others, some experience a full blown Titanic
while others emerge relatively unscathed with minimal loss of life and
relatively few abiding life boats. But, everyone experiences iceberg
collisions, loss of life, loss of vessel, and trauma to
some degree.
The "Off" Switch
"How many professional ball players do you know who are afraid of losing their
father's love every time they step up to the plate?"
"All of 'em!"
- from the movie "Searching for Bobby Fisher"
Just as I can immediately stop judging myself or others when I become aware I am
doing so and replace that voice with one of kindness and compassion (or just
awareness or breathing), so too can I immediately stop that expedition and
salvage mission and replace them with something else.
Reflecting a process moving from a state of clinging to False Self to one of
non-attachment, the following recitation can be the "off" switch:
- "I can see the relational dance of the iceberg. I want to dance in the
warm, "holding" current, where all are physically and emotionally safe,
respected, 'seen' and loved" (e.g., A Day in the Life rise to G)
[THIS IS STATING MY INTENTION]
- "There was/is an iceberg (from my perspective) AND a current (from theirs) => competing realities
(e.g., Venom/Spiderman 3 bell tower, 'the truth of my reality cannot depend on
their validation')" [b/c their mirror is clouded w/ projections of themselves -- via conditional
love I'm either pleasing them and reflecting their best selves back to them or
I'm not and they are projecting their worst selves onto me. Either way their
mirror (i.e., my reality according to them) is all about them!]
[THIS IDENTIFIES THE EXISTENCE OF CONFLICTING REALITIES, THE CHALLENGE OF
HOLDING ONTO MY REALITY/TRUTH, AND IMPOSED REALITY AS THE SOURCE OF THE
ICEBERG DANCE]
- "Much of my emotional life was lost to the iceberg and I experienced it --
that traumatic experience resides in my body/mind (e.g.,
lifeboats/defenses [idealizing/devaluing, splitting, denial],
faulty beliefs ['i am not capable of love', 'there never was an iceberg, only
a current' => 'titanic was my fault' => 'i am unworthy/worthless' => 'i deserve to be punished'], physical symptoms/cravings [anxiety/reflux, compulsively eating junk
food, nail-biting, teeth-clenching, body-tensing]" {these all are not random or independent but rather they inter-connect and work
together to serve one function: ignore/avoid/deny my feelings (and needs)/my
(lost) life* => my worth -- by redirecting attention away from my worth and
toward playing the expedition/salvage game -- and achieve one goal: preserve my
connection to them (e.g., by protecting their reality)}
[THIS DESCRIBES MY BEHAVIORS AS ORGANIZED STEPS IN THE ICEBERG DANCE, WHY I DO
THEM, AND THE ULTIMATE GOAL THAT POWERS THE ICEBERG DANCE]
- "There never was a treasure (i.e., Self-worth and emotional life) in that safe (i.e., preserving my connection to them/protecting their reality --> winning and fear of losing conditional love) -- it was never
there. But, there was variable Self-worth and, consequently, safety AND suffering (e.g., affect phobia, sugar or other chemicals as anxiety mgr -->
addiction/root canals/diabetes, muted or faux/scripted life, deadness)"
[THIS HELPS ME DISTANCE FROM THE ICEBERG DANCE]
- "We most react to cumulative attack (including stress, fatigue, hunger,
illness, injury, expectation of attack, etc in addition to
psychological diminishment), not to threat itself. However, emotional dying and death do not kill us -- we are always
whole no matter what life was lost => we can make death and dying our partner
-- we can seek out and proactively want the struggle (i.e.,
emotional dying and death) for learning and growth (e.g., send ki forward,
extend ki)
[THIS TURNS TOWARD MY INTENTION -- TO DANCE IN THE CURRENT -- BY UNDERSTANDING
THE NATURE OF REACTION AND LIMITS OF ATTACK/THREAT ON INTEGRITY OF SELF AND
SUBSEQUENT WORTH]
- "I have constant and universal worth and I never was "unworthy" or "worthless" -- "Titanic" was not my fault nor was anyone
to blame (e.g., 'Fearless' toolbox/retaining wall) -- There was an iceberg -- Love is
available to me (though it wasn't in the past). Nothing that happens in my inner or outer worlds can affect
Self-worth -- its value is constant across time and space and living beings
=> 'take Self to zero' (Gandhi) -- disappear --> TAtR/Respond/Dance in the Current"
[THIS FULLY EMBRACES MY INTENTION BY UNDERSTANDING IMMUTABLE INTRINSIC WORTH
ENABLES ME TO 'TAKE SELF TO ZERO' AND DANCE IN THE CURRENT]
*Note: Life = breath = feelings and needs -- if we have physical life we have
feelings and needs. Lost life is those moments that we ignore, avoid, or deny
our feelings and needs.
Emotional threat and attack may be real, both today and in the past. There is
real, tangible diminishment of self that we can experience today. There is real,
tangible apathy, disinterest, and being taken apart from others and oneself that
we can experience today. But, there is something not real, that does not exist:
past attack and threat brought forward (in our minds) to the here-and-now. But,
however real the threat and attack may be, emotional death and dying do not kill
me!
There was real threat. There was real death. There
was real fear. But they happened in the ancient past. My situation
then, as a child, is completely different than it is now, as an adult. For
example, I was alone then to confront those very real dangers and
losses. But, I am not alone now. True love was not available to me then but it is now, no matter what I or others do. My need to be "held" and my needs for
survival/life, love, safety/security, dignity/respect, and belonging were real,
as was my complete dependence on my parents and others to meet those needs.
And, I have those same needs now, among others. But, I have different agency now
to meet my needs -- I am not now the completely dependent child I was then.
I have different agency now to not only stop recalibrating my worth but
also cultivate my intrinsic value that was there all along.
Conclusion
If life boats represent reactive defenses that function (later as
character/personality structure) to save/protect early life, and the effects of
these defenses (e.g., grandiose/depressive "flight" behaviors that we often
think of as "living") in later life are no longer life-promoting, then how do we
square this dichotomy? It is this paradox that is so confusing and
difficult to deal with in real-time and illustrates the idea that our survival
strategies as infants/children become maladaptive over time.
We are literally doing opposite things at the same time: we "brace ourselves" or
"batten down the hatches" when we clench teeth or cast eyes downward or hunch
shoulders or otherwise close or tense our bodies to expected attack (i.e., punishment) -- this
continually tells us that the iceberg (and accidental tragedy) did in fact
exist.
Meanwhile, at the very same time we engage in grandiose or depressive (or other,
such as attack self) "flight" behaviors designed to deny this reality and help
others do the same. For example, in my experience clenching teeth both
braces/protects AND attacks/hurts self (i.e., safety AND suffering). Again, it's
the maladaptive nature of defenses that originate to protect but evolve into
suffering.
We can be aware of the overall dynamic so we are 1) not left in emotional
turmoil before, during, and after every interaction with people who trigger us,
and 2) able to participate without suffering, even with people who are
difficult for us to be around.
In fact, we can better tolerate our own anxieties and be more present with
others at the edge of their tolerance range if we can understand the true
nature of any danger (i.e., true or "false" alarms) we may experience.
We can also see when others adopt grandiose or depressive behaviors or play on
these impulses in us -- we can understand their purpose (e.g., seek the
"treasure", "flip" to regain their own "perfection equilibrium", etc), see their
suffering, and not take it personally.
Next...
I think I may post some songs I wrote a few years ago that have been resurfacing
in my mind lately. Several are about immigrant torture survivors seeking asylum
in America. I wrote them to make sense of my year-long social work experience
with them. I've always recognized that these songs are eerily reflective of much
of these relational dynamics, but never knew why. Maybe because of the trauma
connection (i.e., big T and little t traumas)? Stay tuned!
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Putting it all together: Mapping Connection, Feelings, Defenses, and Behaviors to Biological Threat Responses
This is a LOT of information and out loud thinking. You have been forewarned. :-)
First, some terms:
- *Emotional/Relational Death := annihilation or destruction or dis-integration of self; indifference/end-state of lost love
- **Shame := diminishment of self. Shame takes many forms: not being seen/being invisible, not of interest/worth/value; being "exposed" or judged as fraud, incompetent, ugly/unattractive, failure, stupid, powerless, loser, less than, not doing enough, not being enough, foolish, wrong, weak, waster/squanderer, ungrateful, disloyal, friendless, bum, imperfect, etc
*The danger or threat (i.e., death) from shame may not be real. This may be the primary learning our bodies are alerting us to when we perceive danger in a shame experience. It may have been real at one time but cannot in reality affect our integrity of self today as it once could. This is how our relational rules become maladaptive over time.
**Even a small diminishment of self increases the probability of complete diminishment of self, which is annihilation (dis-integration) or death. In this way shame gets associated with death in our minds so that any threat of shame can become an existential threat almost instantaneously. This link resides in our minds and bodies at an often unconscious, symbolic level that is accessible not through words but through bodily "felt sense" and other subtle sensorimotor actions.
- Universal Connection := state of unity or oneness with external and internal environment, including other people, oneself, and everything else in the universe
(Curtiss Sensei -- 1/14/17 Aikido seminar)
- Social Engagement (Porges: "Connectedness") := ability to co- or mutually regulate (synchronously and reciprocally) physiological and behavioral state
(Porges Ppt slide -- 12/10/16 ICP&P conference)
- *Conditional Love := Overall quality or rules of relationship that forces one to avoid, ignore, or deny his/her feelings and needs (and thus lose emotional life) -- that forces one to do particular things (as defined by whatever wins or loses caregiver's "love") and thus be someone other than who he/she is in order to get love (affection, attention, warmth, caring, interest, connection, etc)
- *Unconditional Love := Overall quality or rules of relationship that accepts one for whoever he/she is -- one has to do no particular thing to get love
Still thinking through this one: [*Note: People can act w/ conditional love while intending and believing their behavior is unconditional love. It's an example of behaviors (i.e., reactions) not aligning w/ intentions, values, or beliefs. This is the iceberg. To say there was an iceberg is to say the caregiver acted w/ conditional love and impaired attunement. Caregiver's intention may be to love but may not know how to do it, perhaps confusing conditional love for love.]
Next, THE question: When 7th sense is impaired, how does unpredictableness of other and/or self threaten the self? What is the threat? What is the attack? And, what is the trigger?
After much thought, angst, and trial-and-error, here's my answer:
I think the threat boils down to death: experiencing physical (i.e., cessation of bodily functioning, including heart and brain -- the loss of our physical selves or any one or thing we care about) or emotional/relational death (i.e., the presumed consequences of shame/disconnection). This threat can be triggered internally (e.g., with a thought) or externally (e.g., our or another's behavior), but the intensity of perceived threat (and subsequent reaction) always depends on our own unconsciously perceived capacity to tolerate or hold the threatening experience, which itself grows out of our state of universal connection in that moment.
In other words, when we are universally disconnected, we are only one body holding experience, but when we are universally connected, we are the entire universe (or ocean, sky, etc) holding experience. Therefore, the probability of responding to danger increases with universal connection and the probability of reacting to danger increases with universal disconnection. And, when we react it may be a sign that we were disconnected before the trigger ever occurred.
The "attack" then is anything that increases the probability we will experience physical or emotional/relational death vis a vis ourselves or anyone or anything we care about. Relational "attacks" may just be our own artificial, fluctuating assessment of self-worth -- they may be self-inflicted. We react not only to attack, but to expectation or ↑ likelihood of attack (e.g., (un)consciously perceived dying/diminishment/devaluing/loss [of love]/iceberg as attack, slippery slope/tipping point).
An attack can be any physical pain or hurt with respect to physical state or any situation or interaction that gets associated with shame from an emotional perspective (which then, in our minds, could lead to death -- dis-integration/apathy/end-state of lost love).
A trigger is any neutral stimulus that gets associated in our brains with early relational trauma, or "Titanic" (i.e., shame) experiences.
Threat, then, is death (e.g., indifference/end-state of lost love, dis-integration) -- the early (past) trauma or death experience, likely (future) trauma or death experience, and spontaneous (present) self-devaluation of worth.
Reaction is "flipping".
If this is the nature of threat, then why would our automatic reactions directly lead to the very thing we fear (i.e., shame/disconnection)? It makes no logical sense, though it is a fact that our minds sometimes seem to work counter-intuitively. For example, to avoid death we may be "playing dead" by reacting, with increased passivity or "deadness" as we move from fight to flight to freeze to faint. Likewise, we often follow strategies consciously meant to increase connection but that result in disconnection, like being the "star" in sports, singing, family, or whatever. Why would we do this? Surely our brains are smart enough to know this will happen?!
Could it be because any "attack" (i.e., ↑ probability of death) is experienced as an existential threat to some degree (see fight/flight/freeze analysis below) and our reactions are meant to preserve "life", or what we unconsciously think of as "living"? Our defenses were strategies our embodied minds employed when we were infants/children precisely to save life (see "Titanic" post for further clarity). For instance, taking the example of being the "star", the real goal of this "perfection" strategy when we were children was to maintain closeness with our primary caregiver -- we were being the person they wanted us to be (to reduce the probability of their own experience of shame) and hence preserved that connection and our real life. This is how we learned to connect and be in relationship!
It's just that it becomes maladaptive as we grow and apply it to other people/relationships, so now it impedes connection. To engage with the world means to increase opportunities for shame (i.e., ↑ probability of death), even though such experiences also increase opportunities for learning, growth, and connection -- this dichotomy represents our need for threat.
But, even when we experience shame and are disconnected from others or ourselves, we are still connecting to our primary caregiver and preserving that relationship by running this implicit script. So, our minds think "Mission accomplished!" and we have a temporary (false) sense of safety and security that does not reflect reality beyond that moment. Most importantly, because we think "Mission accomplished!" we don't learn from it.
According to Aikido master Curtiss sensei, reactivity is an outgrowth or manifestation of universal disconnection, and love is an outgrowth or manifestation of universal connection. i.e., Our state of universal connection determines how we perceive a trigger and subsequently respond or react -- we can perceive danger and respond to it.
This may be folly, but here is my attempt to integrate all the moving parts of the Reactivity dynamic. See illustration below if this is too much information:
CONNECTION --> Response --> Environment (internal and/or external) = Safety
---> Behaviors: hyperactive/over-doing, addictions, compulsive habits (e.g., nail-biting), lying, running/hiding (incl. passive-aggressive attack other), looking away, rumination, pleasing/placating
---> Primary Defenses: *Repressive Defenses, Regressive Defenses (e.g., dissociation, splitting, projection, compliance, helplessness, weepiness, slowing down)
---> Behaviors: withdrawal, isolation/hiding, hypoactive (slowing, sleepy)
*NOTE: Repressive Defenses (e.g., reaction formation, denial, intellectualization, rationalization, minimization, avoidance, instant repression, slowing down, isolation of affect, etc) function to distance oneself from one's own feelings, a goal of reaction. As such, they may be seen in all or any specific reactive state (e.g., denial in "flight" or rationalization in "fight" or slowing down in "freeze"). This deserves further thought.
First, some terms:
- *Emotional/Relational Death := annihilation or destruction or dis-integration of self; indifference/end-state of lost love
- **Shame := diminishment of self. Shame takes many forms: not being seen/being invisible, not of interest/worth/value; being "exposed" or judged as fraud, incompetent, ugly/unattractive, failure, stupid, powerless, loser, less than, not doing enough, not being enough, foolish, wrong, weak, waster/squanderer, ungrateful, disloyal, friendless, bum, imperfect, etc
*The danger or threat (i.e., death) from shame may not be real. This may be the primary learning our bodies are alerting us to when we perceive danger in a shame experience. It may have been real at one time but cannot in reality affect our integrity of self today as it once could. This is how our relational rules become maladaptive over time.
**Even a small diminishment of self increases the probability of complete diminishment of self, which is annihilation (dis-integration) or death. In this way shame gets associated with death in our minds so that any threat of shame can become an existential threat almost instantaneously. This link resides in our minds and bodies at an often unconscious, symbolic level that is accessible not through words but through bodily "felt sense" and other subtle sensorimotor actions.
- Universal Connection := state of unity or oneness with external and internal environment, including other people, oneself, and everything else in the universe
(Curtiss Sensei -- 1/14/17 Aikido seminar)
- Social Engagement (Porges: "Connectedness") := ability to co- or mutually regulate (synchronously and reciprocally) physiological and behavioral state
(Porges Ppt slide -- 12/10/16 ICP&P conference)
- *Conditional Love := Overall quality or rules of relationship that forces one to avoid, ignore, or deny his/her feelings and needs (and thus lose emotional life) -- that forces one to do particular things (as defined by whatever wins or loses caregiver's "love") and thus be someone other than who he/she is in order to get love (affection, attention, warmth, caring, interest, connection, etc)
- *Unconditional Love := Overall quality or rules of relationship that accepts one for whoever he/she is -- one has to do no particular thing to get love
Still thinking through this one: [*Note: People can act w/ conditional love while intending and believing their behavior is unconditional love. It's an example of behaviors (i.e., reactions) not aligning w/ intentions, values, or beliefs. This is the iceberg. To say there was an iceberg is to say the caregiver acted w/ conditional love and impaired attunement. Caregiver's intention may be to love but may not know how to do it, perhaps confusing conditional love for love.]
Next, THE question: When 7th sense is impaired, how does unpredictableness of other and/or self threaten the self? What is the threat? What is the attack? And, what is the trigger?
After much thought, angst, and trial-and-error, here's my answer:
I think the threat boils down to death: experiencing physical (i.e., cessation of bodily functioning, including heart and brain -- the loss of our physical selves or any one or thing we care about) or emotional/relational death (i.e., the presumed consequences of shame/disconnection). This threat can be triggered internally (e.g., with a thought) or externally (e.g., our or another's behavior), but the intensity of perceived threat (and subsequent reaction) always depends on our own unconsciously perceived capacity to tolerate or hold the threatening experience, which itself grows out of our state of universal connection in that moment.
In other words, when we are universally disconnected, we are only one body holding experience, but when we are universally connected, we are the entire universe (or ocean, sky, etc) holding experience. Therefore, the probability of responding to danger increases with universal connection and the probability of reacting to danger increases with universal disconnection. And, when we react it may be a sign that we were disconnected before the trigger ever occurred.
The "attack" then is anything that increases the probability we will experience physical or emotional/relational death vis a vis ourselves or anyone or anything we care about. Relational "attacks" may just be our own artificial, fluctuating assessment of self-worth -- they may be self-inflicted. We react not only to attack, but to expectation or ↑ likelihood of attack (e.g., (un)consciously perceived dying/diminishment/devaluing/loss [of love]/iceberg as attack, slippery slope/tipping point).
An attack can be any physical pain or hurt with respect to physical state or any situation or interaction that gets associated with shame from an emotional perspective (which then, in our minds, could lead to death -- dis-integration/apathy/end-state of lost love).
A trigger is any neutral stimulus that gets associated in our brains with early relational trauma, or "Titanic" (i.e., shame) experiences.
Threat, then, is death (e.g., indifference/end-state of lost love, dis-integration) -- the early (past) trauma or death experience, likely (future) trauma or death experience, and spontaneous (present) self-devaluation of worth.
Reaction is "flipping".
If this is the nature of threat, then why would our automatic reactions directly lead to the very thing we fear (i.e., shame/disconnection)? It makes no logical sense, though it is a fact that our minds sometimes seem to work counter-intuitively. For example, to avoid death we may be "playing dead" by reacting, with increased passivity or "deadness" as we move from fight to flight to freeze to faint. Likewise, we often follow strategies consciously meant to increase connection but that result in disconnection, like being the "star" in sports, singing, family, or whatever. Why would we do this? Surely our brains are smart enough to know this will happen?!
Could it be because any "attack" (i.e., ↑ probability of death) is experienced as an existential threat to some degree (see fight/flight/freeze analysis below) and our reactions are meant to preserve "life", or what we unconsciously think of as "living"? Our defenses were strategies our embodied minds employed when we were infants/children precisely to save life (see "Titanic" post for further clarity). For instance, taking the example of being the "star", the real goal of this "perfection" strategy when we were children was to maintain closeness with our primary caregiver -- we were being the person they wanted us to be (to reduce the probability of their own experience of shame) and hence preserved that connection and our real life. This is how we learned to connect and be in relationship!
It's just that it becomes maladaptive as we grow and apply it to other people/relationships, so now it impedes connection. To engage with the world means to increase opportunities for shame (i.e., ↑ probability of death), even though such experiences also increase opportunities for learning, growth, and connection -- this dichotomy represents our need for threat.
But, even when we experience shame and are disconnected from others or ourselves, we are still connecting to our primary caregiver and preserving that relationship by running this implicit script. So, our minds think "Mission accomplished!" and we have a temporary (false) sense of safety and security that does not reflect reality beyond that moment. Most importantly, because we think "Mission accomplished!" we don't learn from it.
According to Aikido master Curtiss sensei, reactivity is an outgrowth or manifestation of universal disconnection, and love is an outgrowth or manifestation of universal connection. i.e., Our state of universal connection determines how we perceive a trigger and subsequently respond or react -- we can perceive danger and respond to it.
This may be folly, but here is my attempt to integrate all the moving parts of the Reactivity dynamic. See illustration below if this is too much information:
CONNECTION --> Response --> Environment (internal and/or external) = Safety
---> Polyvagal: Social Engagement/Mobilize without fear
---> Purpose of Response: Maintain "true" equilibrium/safety
---> Behaviors: love, friendship, laughter, flow
---> Purpose of Response: Maintain "true" equilibrium/safety
---> Physical Distancing: Optimal distance from/connection to other
---> Emotional Distancing: Optimal distance from/connection to own feelings and other self
---> Strategy: Mutual regulation of physical/psychological state
---> Typical Attachment Style: Secure
---> Primary Feelings: interest-excitement, enjoyment-joy
---> Defenses: none---> Emotional Distancing: Optimal distance from/connection to own feelings and other self
---> Strategy: Mutual regulation of physical/psychological state
---> Typical Attachment Style: Secure
---> Primary Feelings: interest-excitement, enjoyment-joy
---> Behaviors: love, friendship, laughter, flow
DISCONNECTION --> Reaction --> Environment (int and/or ext) = Threat/Danger
---> Polyvagal: Fight/Mobilize with fear
---> Compass of Shame: Attack other
---> Purpose of Reaction: Restore "false" equilibrium/safety by "flipping"
---> Physical Distancing: Eliminate distance from other
---> Emotional Distancing: Create distance from own feelings/needs AND create distance with other
---> Compass of Shame: Attack other
---> Purpose of Reaction: Restore "false" equilibrium/safety by "flipping"
---> Physical Distancing: Eliminate distance from other
---> Emotional Distancing: Create distance from own feelings/needs AND create distance with other
---> Strategy: Mobilize for self-regulation to push other away while distancing from self
---> Typical Attachment Style: Dismissive/Avoidant
---> Primary Feelings: disgust-dissmell (including contempt), anger-rage
---> Typical Attachment Style: Dismissive/Avoidant
---> Primary Feelings: disgust-dissmell (including contempt), anger-rage
---> Primary Defenses: Tactical Defenses (verbal and nonverbal), *Repressive Defenses, Transference Resistance (e.g., idealizing self/devaluing other), Regressive Defenses (e.g., acting out, contempt, sarcasm)
---> Behaviors: physical, verbal, or emotional attacks (e.g., hitting, kicking, biting, pinching, spitting, yelling, sneering, ignoring, dismissing, belittling, judging/criticizing, blaming, "shaming")
---> Behaviors: physical, verbal, or emotional attacks (e.g., hitting, kicking, biting, pinching, spitting, yelling, sneering, ignoring, dismissing, belittling, judging/criticizing, blaming, "shaming")
---> Polyvagal: Flight/Mobilize with fear
---> Compass of Shame: Avoidance, Attack self
---> Purpose of Reaction: Restore "false" equilibrium/safety by "flipping"
---> Physical Distancing: Create space from other AND eliminate space with other (push/pull)
---> Emotional Distancing: Create distance from own feelings/needs AND create distance with other AND/OR eliminate space with other (push/pull with other)
---> Strategy: Mobilize for self- and mutual regulation to ambivalently keep connection w/ other by bringing close and pushing away while distancing from self
---> Typical Attachment Style: Disorganized or Anxious/Preoccupied
---> Primary Feelings: boredom (existential angst)-existential terror or panic
---> Primary Defenses: Tactical Defenses (verbal and nonverbal), *Repressive Defenses, Character Defenses (e.g., ignoring, dismissing, neglecting own needs/feelings -- idealizing other/devaluing self)---> Purpose of Reaction: Restore "false" equilibrium/safety by "flipping"
---> Physical Distancing: Create space from other AND eliminate space with other (push/pull)
---> Emotional Distancing: Create distance from own feelings/needs AND create distance with other AND/OR eliminate space with other (push/pull with other)
---> Strategy: Mobilize for self- and mutual regulation to ambivalently keep connection w/ other by bringing close and pushing away while distancing from self
---> Typical Attachment Style: Disorganized or Anxious/Preoccupied
---> Primary Feelings: boredom (existential angst)-existential terror or panic
---> Behaviors: hyperactive/over-doing, addictions, compulsive habits (e.g., nail-biting), lying, running/hiding (incl. passive-aggressive attack other), looking away, rumination, pleasing/placating
DISCONNECTION --> Reaction --> Environment (int and/or ext) = Overwhelming Threat
---> Polyvagal: Freeze/Flag/Faint/Immobilize with fear
---> Compass of Shame: Withdrawal
---> Purpose of Reaction: Restore "false" equilibrium/safety by "flipping"
---> Physical Distancing: Eliminate space with other
---> Emotional Distancing: Create distance/disconnection from own feelings/needs AND eliminate space with other
---> Strategy: Immobilize for mutual regulation to bring other closer while distancing from self
---> Typical Attachment Style: Fearful/Avoidant
---> Primary Feelings: distress-anguish (including sadness, depression)
---> Purpose of Reaction: Restore "false" equilibrium/safety by "flipping"
---> Physical Distancing: Eliminate space with other
---> Emotional Distancing: Create distance/disconnection from own feelings/needs AND eliminate space with other
---> Strategy: Immobilize for mutual regulation to bring other closer while distancing from self
---> Typical Attachment Style: Fearful/Avoidant
---> Primary Feelings: distress-anguish (including sadness, depression)
---> Behaviors: withdrawal, isolation/hiding, hypoactive (slowing, sleepy)
*NOTE: Repressive Defenses (e.g., reaction formation, denial, intellectualization, rationalization, minimization, avoidance, instant repression, slowing down, isolation of affect, etc) function to distance oneself from one's own feelings, a goal of reaction. As such, they may be seen in all or any specific reactive state (e.g., denial in "flight" or rationalization in "fight" or slowing down in "freeze"). This deserves further thought.
Shame-Humiliation/Fear/Anxiety underlies and connects all nodes of Reaction. The bridge back to Social Engagement from Reaction is (self-)compassion, holding/acceptance, and learning.
Our "choices" between 2a, 2b, and 3 are mostly made out of awareness, as are the constant threat evaluations our central nervous system is making, including whether or not we can "win" or flee against a particular threat or threats.
This also represents a slight departure from the Polyvagal Theory. Specifically, Porges defines life threat only in the "immobilized/freeze" reaction. I call this "overwhelming threat" instead of "life threat", and posit that the same threat (i.e., ↑ probability of death) exists in each of fight, flight, and freeze -- it is just in different intensities and quantities. This would explain his finding that babies did not exhibit "life threat" (which he associates with only "freeze") reactions when encountering disconnection from a caregiver. Moreover, based on direct experience and observation, I conceptualize "flight" on a continuum of what Irvin Yalom called "death anxiety". And, of course, experiencing any attack but certainly physical attack that evokes a "fight" reaction can easily be understood as an existential threat. Therefore, the only "life threat" is not in the "freeze" state.
The middle of the circle represents our experience, both in #1 and in #2a, 2b, and 3. The red represents our experience both when an other is reacting AND when we are reacting.
Our ability to respond depends on whether or not we conflate experience with self. If we do, then we (our self) will be embedded in experience when reaction happens and red will be our experience AND our self -- there will be no "us" to see things as they are and choose understanding or empathy or trust. If we don't, then we (our self) will see our experience and others' experience as separate from our selves and then be able to choose RHEST. It depends on understanding that our experience is NOT the same as our self, that our experiences are separate from our self. This is an important example of reality-checking.
We (our self) can then always pivot around shame to connection, using the energy from shame or threat of shame to connect and be safe through (self-) compassion, holding/acceptance, and learning.
***I have come to see that when we are in any reactive mode, whether or not we are intentionally trying to hurt others, reactive behaviors will trigger others' reactivity (i.e., "flip it" or put them down b/c the probability of shame/death increases) UNLESS they can actively see and understand our behaviors in the context of the circle of reactivity.***
Our "choices" between 2a, 2b, and 3 are mostly made out of awareness, as are the constant threat evaluations our central nervous system is making, including whether or not we can "win" or flee against a particular threat or threats.
This also represents a slight departure from the Polyvagal Theory. Specifically, Porges defines life threat only in the "immobilized/freeze" reaction. I call this "overwhelming threat" instead of "life threat", and posit that the same threat (i.e., ↑ probability of death) exists in each of fight, flight, and freeze -- it is just in different intensities and quantities. This would explain his finding that babies did not exhibit "life threat" (which he associates with only "freeze") reactions when encountering disconnection from a caregiver. Moreover, based on direct experience and observation, I conceptualize "flight" on a continuum of what Irvin Yalom called "death anxiety". And, of course, experiencing any attack but certainly physical attack that evokes a "fight" reaction can easily be understood as an existential threat. Therefore, the only "life threat" is not in the "freeze" state.
The middle of the circle represents our experience, both in #1 and in #2a, 2b, and 3. The red represents our experience both when an other is reacting AND when we are reacting.
Our ability to respond depends on whether or not we conflate experience with self. If we do, then we (our self) will be embedded in experience when reaction happens and red will be our experience AND our self -- there will be no "us" to see things as they are and choose understanding or empathy or trust. If we don't, then we (our self) will see our experience and others' experience as separate from our selves and then be able to choose RHEST. It depends on understanding that our experience is NOT the same as our self, that our experiences are separate from our self. This is an important example of reality-checking.
We (our self) can then always pivot around shame to connection, using the energy from shame or threat of shame to connect and be safe through (self-) compassion, holding/acceptance, and learning.
***I have come to see that when we are in any reactive mode, whether or not we are intentionally trying to hurt others, reactive behaviors will trigger others' reactivity (i.e., "flip it" or put them down b/c the probability of shame/death increases) UNLESS they can actively see and understand our behaviors in the context of the circle of reactivity.***
Sunday, April 3, 2016
"Perfection" as Equilibrium
The intersection of equilibrium and self-esteem may be a convergence of nature AND nurture: how we are "wired" (e.g., temperament, Autonomic Nervous System, universal emotions, unconscious brain and body processes) AND the ways we learned how relationships work (i.e., how we learned to be in relationship). In short, to be safe we had to be “perfect” -- not cause anxiety or uncomfortable feelings for our primary caregiver(s). But, it is this false sense of “perfection” that we later confuse to be our true equilibrium state.
How did that happen? Consider the physical ways we unconsciously maintain equilibrium. We breathe to maintain the right amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in our blood stream. Our hearts beat in such a way as to ensure our brain, organs, muscles, and extremities are all nourished with this blood as much as they need. We have automatic temperature control that keeps us at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When we are too cold we sneeze or chill to warm us up, and when we are too hot we sweat or chill to cool down. When we need food or water or sleep, our bodies tell us.
Now imagine an infant whose physical and emotional survival depends on her primary caregiver. That relationship literally becomes as important as air or food or water. If that relationship is threatened, then the child's very life is in jeopardy. It is in this context the child determines she has to be "perfect" to preserve this relationship, and this becomes the basis for all relationships. In this way, she unconsciously continues to ensure her "life" by enacting these early relational rules to some extent throughout her lifespan, even when literal survival no longer depends on preservation of any relationship. We unconsciously do this, just as our bodies maintain oxygen levels or body temperature throughout our lives.
“True” equilibrium then, instead of being dependent on the perceptions of an outside other, is rather based on an intrinsic sense of personal dignity and self-worth, a felt sense of internal and external wholeness that balances internal and external realities. It is rooted in valuing the simple fact of existence and therefore valuing everyone equally. In theory, if we functioned only from a “true” sense of self, we may never respond with shame reactions though we may feel shame or any other uncomfortable emotion. But, we don't function that way. In fact, we are wired to unconsciously detect danger and react. It is how we work with that reaction that determines the extent of our suffering.
How did that happen? Consider the physical ways we unconsciously maintain equilibrium. We breathe to maintain the right amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in our blood stream. Our hearts beat in such a way as to ensure our brain, organs, muscles, and extremities are all nourished with this blood as much as they need. We have automatic temperature control that keeps us at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When we are too cold we sneeze or chill to warm us up, and when we are too hot we sweat or chill to cool down. When we need food or water or sleep, our bodies tell us.
Now imagine an infant whose physical and emotional survival depends on her primary caregiver. That relationship literally becomes as important as air or food or water. If that relationship is threatened, then the child's very life is in jeopardy. It is in this context the child determines she has to be "perfect" to preserve this relationship, and this becomes the basis for all relationships. In this way, she unconsciously continues to ensure her "life" by enacting these early relational rules to some extent throughout her lifespan, even when literal survival no longer depends on preservation of any relationship. We unconsciously do this, just as our bodies maintain oxygen levels or body temperature throughout our lives.
“True” equilibrium then, instead of being dependent on the perceptions of an outside other, is rather based on an intrinsic sense of personal dignity and self-worth, a felt sense of internal and external wholeness that balances internal and external realities. It is rooted in valuing the simple fact of existence and therefore valuing everyone equally. In theory, if we functioned only from a “true” sense of self, we may never respond with shame reactions though we may feel shame or any other uncomfortable emotion. But, we don't function that way. In fact, we are wired to unconsciously detect danger and react. It is how we work with that reaction that determines the extent of our suffering.
The meaning of “perfection” may lie on a continuum ranging from not upsetting anyone, to dominion and purity, to absolute control. Anything associated with perfection in our minds means life and worthiness, and anything counter, like disrespect, subservience, incompetence, contamination, or weakness, means imperfection and death.
When we react, we are doing so because something in our internal or external environment is perceived as dangerous and has pushed us beyond that tolerable range of “perfection” equilibrium (e.g., when someone "puts us down" or "disrespects" us). And, so we “flip” it to get ourselves to what we think is the surface, though it is a false one. It’s like we are all constantly playing the game King of the Mountain, but not only where the opponents are us and another person (attack other), but also us and ourselves (attack self, withdrawal, avoidance). There is a pressure or urge to “flip”, like a ball on a hill that “must” roll down to rest on the flat ground. Or, a metal spring that, once compressed, “has to” expand. Or, the flow of electricity across a battery. Or, a kickboard that is pushed under the water that “must” pop back up to the surface. We do this in big ways and small, all the time. We treat others and ourselves as objects to do this. It is ubiquitous in our worlds, especially in a society that places such emphasis on winning, status, strength, beauty, etc.
When we react, we are doing so because something in our internal or external environment is perceived as dangerous and has pushed us beyond that tolerable range of “perfection” equilibrium (e.g., when someone "puts us down" or "disrespects" us). And, so we “flip” it to get ourselves to what we think is the surface, though it is a false one. It’s like we are all constantly playing the game King of the Mountain, but not only where the opponents are us and another person (attack other), but also us and ourselves (attack self, withdrawal, avoidance). There is a pressure or urge to “flip”, like a ball on a hill that “must” roll down to rest on the flat ground. Or, a metal spring that, once compressed, “has to” expand. Or, the flow of electricity across a battery. Or, a kickboard that is pushed under the water that “must” pop back up to the surface. We do this in big ways and small, all the time. We treat others and ourselves as objects to do this. It is ubiquitous in our worlds, especially in a society that places such emphasis on winning, status, strength, beauty, etc.
I think a helpful visual of "flipping" is the kick board in a pool:
In future posts I will expound on the various elements in this picture.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Voting for Trump and Obama
There is no difference between Barack Obama and Donald Trump. To be more precise: there is no difference between our motivations for voting for Obama in 2008 and for Trump now.
It’s 2008. The Great Recession. Global financial system teetering. Al Qaeda. Wars. Katrina. Unemployment. Fear. Chronic struggle and feeling of mediocrity. A palpable sentiment that we need someone who can save us from the abyss -- we need Abraham Lincoln. Enter Barack Obama. “Save us!” we cry. “Use your Harvard Law degree and experience as a successful law partner to work your magic. Use your amazingly articulate and resonant oratory skills to inspire us like Martin Luther King, Jr. Use your superior intelligence to solve our problems. What? You’re also African American? We can realize MLK’s dream and the promise of America and our individual potential by voting for the first African American president? Perfect!”
Barack Obama was idealized in many ways, and when we identified with him we unconsciously idealized ourselves. Barack Obama won largely because of our self-worth.
Flash forward to today. Aftermath of the Great Recession. Zero accountability for credit crisis. 1% get richer. ISIS. Islamophobia. Fear. Congress clearly stuck and cannot work. A palpable helplessness to change the corrupt and broken systems. Struggle and mediocrity? Still there. It’s almost as if we need one of the super-rich on our side to move mountains -- a man of action: Superman. Enter Donald Trump. “Save us!” we cry. “Use your Wharton education and business expertise to negotiate us out of this. Use your apparent power and strength to vanquish, belittle, and fire the people who need to go. Use the language of winners and losers, us and them to simplify the game of leadership and speak truth. Use the absence of ulterior motives resulting from your incredible wealth to remain untouchable and impenetrable from those who would try to corrupt and influence you. Hold on. You’re also white? We can return home if we vote for you? Perfect!”
As with Barack Obama, Donald Trump embodies certain ideals. A part of us unconsciously wants to believe the myth and identify with him. Yes, there are policies, issues, and our general discernment that also motivate us on the conscious, rational end of the spectrum, and these conscious/unconscious motives may even conflict. Many factors determine which gets expressed, but often times our unconscious motives win out.
The mechanism driving our actions is the unconscious maintenance of our personal, life-sustaining equilibrium. The problem is that we [the ego minds] unconsciously confuse and conflate preserving our idealized self or sense of “perfection” [ego, or 100% form identity] with preserving safety and equilibrium. We do this largely because of how we learned, from birth, to be in relationship with self and others.
So, when we experience “imperfection” or diminishment (of ego), our threat-conditioned tendency is to act by what I call “flipping” it, putting down others or ourselves so we, in whole or in part, are “perfect” again and a sense of equilibrium, even though false (i.e., supremacy), is restored temporarily. This process works together with neuro-biological factors (e.g., genes, autonomic nervous system, temperament, etc).
In other words, ego tries to sustain equilibrium. Ego just gets it wrong and confuses everything because it is a product of shame and shame evokes confusion -- it intercedes and creates what it thinks is an equilibrium state as defined by its own survival. Essence lets go and gradually takes ego to zero, thereby uncovering the unconditional equilibrium of natural life processes already present as a result of Earth's perfect proximity to the intense energy of the sun. This is the paradox of the false "perfection equilibrium" because it denies the natural equilibrium that already exists based on our perfect place in the solar system. So, when we are in a reactive state, we can see it as ego trying to get to its "perfection equilibrium" state, we can know the ego's equilibrium state is qualitatively different from that of essence, and we can choose which place we want to go: essence or ego "equilibrium."
So, when we experience “imperfection” or diminishment (of ego), our threat-conditioned tendency is to act by what I call “flipping” it, putting down others or ourselves so we, in whole or in part, are “perfect” again and a sense of equilibrium, even though false (i.e., supremacy), is restored temporarily. This process works together with neuro-biological factors (e.g., genes, autonomic nervous system, temperament, etc).
In other words, ego tries to sustain equilibrium. Ego just gets it wrong and confuses everything because it is a product of shame and shame evokes confusion -- it intercedes and creates what it thinks is an equilibrium state as defined by its own survival. Essence lets go and gradually takes ego to zero, thereby uncovering the unconditional equilibrium of natural life processes already present as a result of Earth's perfect proximity to the intense energy of the sun. This is the paradox of the false "perfection equilibrium" because it denies the natural equilibrium that already exists based on our perfect place in the solar system. So, when we are in a reactive state, we can see it as ego trying to get to its "perfection equilibrium" state, we can know the ego's equilibrium state is qualitatively different from that of essence, and we can choose which place we want to go: essence or ego "equilibrium."
The meaning of “perfection” may lie on a continuum ranging from pleasing or not upsetting anyone to dominion and purity to absolute control. Anything associated with perfection in our minds means worth and life -- anything counter, like disrespect, subservience, incompetence, contamination, or weakness, means imperfection and, ultimately, death. Paradoxically, “perfection” may seem human and have a real, concrete quality -- one can see how we could believe this myth. Themes of ascendency, unlimited possibility, freedom, safety, mastery, and independence in the American Dream echo elements of “perfection”. However, the chronic shame of not reaching these supposedly universally achievable goals inevitably leads to “flipping”. Our leaders or potential leaders may even use this connection to their advantage.
Hillary Clinton’s “make America whole again” directly, if unwittingly, speaks to the psychic dynamics here. It is precisely because our sense of self is fragmented that we use and put down others to attain “perfection” and false equilibrium. We do this with others because we learned to do it within ourselves. This is our understanding of what it means to be in relationship. We behave as if we are not one entity, a whole person. We behave as if we are not all inter-connected, a whole community.
“Flipping” happens universally, in small and large ways both subtle and obvious. So, it is an opportunity for compassion for self and others -- those who identify with Trump are operating in the same way as those who identified with Obama. We are all one, individually and collectively, and I hope understanding this will help us to make clearer choices.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Reactivity: The What
So, most people think of reactivity as yelling or some other angry expression. But, it is SO much more than that! In fact, it is often subtle to the point where you may not even realize you are reacting at all. That's because most people don't think about behavior in terms of shame.
The first thing to know about shame is that it works in the shadows and in plain sight. It is this paradox that often makes it so confusing and difficult to identify. In terms of affect theory, shame is the abrupt cessation or sudden absence of positive affect (enjoyment/joy, interest/excitement). It is, by nature, hard to know what's happening when it is "shaming."
It is very helpful to view behavior in terms of Donald Nathanson's Compass of Shame (from his book Shame and Pride), wherein he outlines four points of reactivity:
- Attack Other (aka "fight"): "turning the tables", lashing out verbally or physically, establishing self as powerful or competent while diminishing other, sadism
- Attack Self (aka "flight"): demeaning/belittling self while establishing other as powerful and valued, self-criticism and put-down, masochism
- Avoidance (aka "flight"): denial, passive-aggressive attack other, abusing drugs/alcohol, addictive/habitual behaviors, distraction through thrill-seeking, over-doing, over-striving, machismo, running and hiding
- Withdrawal (aka "freeze"/"flag"/"faint"): isolating oneself, shrinking, classic shame response (slumped shoulders, depressed, humiliated)
When you see a behavior in one of these quadrants, you can bet that it is probably a reaction to a perceived threat trigger! Awareness of this alone will set you on a different path, one of exploration and understanding. I will go into detail of how to identify these points in a later post.
Threat Trigger ----> Pre-, Sub-, or Unconscious Experience ----> Shame Reaction
We can break this down a little further:
--> Threat Trigger (neutral/lacking specific meaning)
--> Implicit association w/ "Titanic" memory: gives trigger meaning: trauma/death (threat)
--> Re-experience attachment trauma: past shame/physical pain (attack)*
--> Expectation of additional trauma: future shame/physical pain (attack)*
--> Self-worth schema: current shame/sense-making, emotions
dangerous/not allowed, "happening b/c I am unworthy" (attack)
--> Increased likelihood of death (threat)
--> Anxiety
--> Reaction: "Perfection" --> Expedition/Salvage Mission;
Flight/Fight/Freeze (strategy)
*Note: we experience the attack of dying (and threat of death) when we remember trauma and feel/expect shame or physical pain -- direct and overwhelming threat and attack. Most if not all of this happens unconsciously.
The difference between this dying and the normal, moment-to-moment dying inherent to existence is that this dying suddenly exceeds a sort of tipping point of critical mass whereby mostly unconscious death cues exceed life cues. In the latter, life cues exceed death cues.
Reaction often occurs very quickly, sometimes within milliseconds. In our conscious experience, we may just see the trigger and reaction -- we are not fully aware of the feelings, thoughts, memories, and body sensations we experience. Nor are we aware of the function the trigger and reaction serve: to keep feeling out of conscious awareness.
Often we will react (even if just reactive thoughts or impulses) because that is how our brains and bodies are wired. But, even after a reaction we can work with it and dramatically reduce the time it takes to recover our "upstairs" thinking brain and repair the relationship we may have just ruptured. This involves the absolutely essential practices of (self-) compassion and mindfulness, among others. Other aspects of Response include:
The first thing to know about shame is that it works in the shadows and in plain sight. It is this paradox that often makes it so confusing and difficult to identify. In terms of affect theory, shame is the abrupt cessation or sudden absence of positive affect (enjoyment/joy, interest/excitement). It is, by nature, hard to know what's happening when it is "shaming."
It is very helpful to view behavior in terms of Donald Nathanson's Compass of Shame (from his book Shame and Pride), wherein he outlines four points of reactivity:
- Attack Other (aka "fight"): "turning the tables", lashing out verbally or physically, establishing self as powerful or competent while diminishing other, sadism
- Attack Self (aka "flight"): demeaning/belittling self while establishing other as powerful and valued, self-criticism and put-down, masochism
- Avoidance (aka "flight"): denial, passive-aggressive attack other, abusing drugs/alcohol, addictive/habitual behaviors, distraction through thrill-seeking, over-doing, over-striving, machismo, running and hiding
- Withdrawal (aka "freeze"/"flag"/"faint"): isolating oneself, shrinking, classic shame response (slumped shoulders, depressed, humiliated)
Experience of Reactivity
Here's a way of thinking about the flow of reactivity:Threat Trigger ----> Pre-, Sub-, or Unconscious Experience ----> Shame Reaction
We can break this down a little further:
--> Threat Trigger (neutral/lacking specific meaning)
--> Implicit association w/ "Titanic" memory: gives trigger meaning: trauma/death (threat)
--> Re-experience attachment trauma: past shame/physical pain (attack)*
--> Expectation of additional trauma: future shame/physical pain (attack)*
--> Self-worth schema: current shame/sense-making, emotions
dangerous/not allowed, "happening b/c I am unworthy" (attack)
--> Increased likelihood of death (threat)
--> Anxiety
--> Reaction: "Perfection" --> Expedition/Salvage Mission;
Flight/Fight/Freeze (strategy)
*Note: we experience the attack of dying (and threat of death) when we remember trauma and feel/expect shame or physical pain -- direct and overwhelming threat and attack. Most if not all of this happens unconsciously.
The difference between this dying and the normal, moment-to-moment dying inherent to existence is that this dying suddenly exceeds a sort of tipping point of critical mass whereby mostly unconscious death cues exceed life cues. In the latter, life cues exceed death cues.
Reaction often occurs very quickly, sometimes within milliseconds. In our conscious experience, we may just see the trigger and reaction -- we are not fully aware of the feelings, thoughts, memories, and body sensations we experience. Nor are we aware of the function the trigger and reaction serve: to keep feeling out of conscious awareness.
Often we will react (even if just reactive thoughts or impulses) because that is how our brains and bodies are wired. But, even after a reaction we can work with it and dramatically reduce the time it takes to recover our "upstairs" thinking brain and repair the relationship we may have just ruptured. This involves the absolutely essential practices of (self-) compassion and mindfulness, among others. Other aspects of Response include:
- Recognize expectation that past trauma WILL repeat in future
- Recognize thinking we have same agency to meet needs as we did as infants/children
- Recognize expectation that unmet past needs can be met in present
- Recognize perceived threat may be from the past
- Recognize there may be no real threat of death in present
- Recognize True Self and lost life are already gone forever
Tragedy and Theory: Some Basic Why's and How's of Reactivity
“I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing -- his sense of personal dignity.”
The tragedy in the above quote is the often unseen or unknown reality that every person possesses personal dignity and worth -- it's not something we can earn or lose, be given or have taken away. It is always there by virtue of our existence. But, many of us forget this (or never knew it in the first place). Instead, we pin our self-worth and value on external opinions or personal achievements or the temporary benefits we get from reacting, and we neglect to integrate ourselves internally or externally. It is this "dis-ease" of self that is at the core of reactivity.
Theory
So, how is this tragedy related to reactivity? The answer lies in our early development, as understood through empirically supported theories such as Object Relations, Self Psychology, and Attachment. For example, the mother-infant microanalysis research by Beebe and others supports a focus on bi-directional impacts of early relationships throughout the lifespan (i.e., how caregiver and infant mutually influence each other).
This mutuality cannot be understated. Though the caregiver has a special responsibility to "hold" both the child's and the caregiver's experiences and initiate repair of any ruptures in the relationship, early developmental processes may be derailed just as easily by the child as by the caregiver. For instance, a child may have a temperament or personality or biology that inhibits attunement with and by a capable caregiver. Or, the same may be true of a caregiver with a capable child. Or, there could be varying degrees of inhibitory traits in both people.
However it happens, the important point is that this disruption is a critical part of early (object) relational processes (i.e., evolving notions of self and other) whereby connection is thwarted. When connection is thwarted, shame gets evoked and associated with perceived threat (from the disconnection) and, by extension, biological fight/flight/freeze/feint reactions to perceived threat. These associations between (dis)connection, shame, perceived threat, and threat reactions continue to operate unconsciously throughout our lives and subsequent relationships.
***These moments of disconnection are critical for and contribute to healthy development if and only if the caregiver repairs the ruptures (because the child can't do it yet) by empathically joining the child's mental state and then shifting them both to a more tolerable state. This repair process continues the critical (object-) relational processes. That is how the child develops a healthy sense of self and other (i.e., boundaries of internal vs external reality), learns to tolerate or "hold" experience, and learns that feelings, needs, relationships, and people are not dangerous. This is how the child learns how to repair and thus be in relationship.
Everyone experiences absence of repair to some degree. If lack of repair occurs on a consistent basis, these moments of disconnection may chronically destabilize a child's sense of self, agency, and corresponding equilibrium, thus unconsciously perpetuating fear, fear reactions and, by association, shame. Moreover, this may interrupt what Winnicott called the Transitional Process whereby we learn to see others primarily as they objectively are (warts and all), not primarily as our subjective, idealized projections. This process of building the ability to objectively see and know others is the developmental basis for attunement.***
Universality of the Theory
I think of disconnection as momentary impairments in the capacity to attune to others and ourselves: to see and know and therefore be able to predict the behavior of others and ourselves. I call this capacity our 7th sense. The loss of this sense makes us relationally deaf, dumb, and blind and therefore may be terrifying. In any case, loss of this 7th sense unconsciously activates implicit memories of fear/shame states from early development.
In my view, since no parent/child dyad perfectly attune and repair all the time (caregivers of securely attached children attune ~ 30% of the time), everyone is confronted with mis-attunement and lack of repair to some degree and so as infants and children must derive alternative strategies to maintain connection with the caregiver. Therefore, there exists a continuum of attachment trauma, depending on the quality and consistency of repair and the frequency and severity of the mis-attunement.
Reactive Relational Rules
These strategies included various ways to ignore or dismiss our own feelings and needs so as not to threaten this vital connection. We may have learned that:
Connection to Shame
Which brings us to shame. Shame is the relational “water” in which we swim: shame can be understood socially as inequality in relationships, one person "up" or idealized (e.g., caregiver) while the other is "down" or devalued (e.g., child). This false idealization or devaluation literally diminishes our sense of self on the level of form (i.e., ego) no matter which side we are on, thereby representing a threat and unconsciously evoking those reactive relational rules.
Shame is attack on self. The unconscious innate and learned reaction to shame is to “flip” the “up/down” positions, thus avoiding “dangerous” feeling, temporarily gaining pride, safety, or other positive benefits, and preserving relationship (in our minds). Our natural tendency is to "flip" when our ego self has been diminished (i.e., attacked) in some way.
This is the go-to psychological defense that characterizes those people who may struggle with the aforementioned "dis-ease" of self. However, it may also be unconsciously employed by anyone encountering a threat trigger they unconsciously associate with shame. Our different tendencies to employ reactive behaviors (as opposed to responsive ones) are mitigated by our unique environments, temperaments, relational/developmental histories, and our individual abilities to cope with stress in any given moment.
Another way to understand this is through affect theory. Shame affect is defined as the sudden interruption of positive affect, or disconnection. The times our caregiver(s) mis-attuned to us or failed to mirror us and repair relational ruptures over hundreds of thousands of interactions (i.e., attachment trauma) evoked the shame affect (and threat perception) in us each time (as it did in them when we did not attune). Eventually, we learned to make sense of this and insure our survival by splitting (i.e., keeping the caregiver "good" and devaluing ourselves) or employing some other defense strategy.
In other words, we (our feelings and needs, our very Self) were what was "wrong" with the relationship and what threatened it. We learned to perceive reality through our caregiver's eyes and change ourselves so as not to evoke their anxieties and thus threaten the connection, a state of "perfection" that was unconsciously encoded into our relational rules. As a result, we associate threat triggers today -- the sudden halt to our own internal sense of safety or "perfection" -- with those early shame experiences and tend to react by "flipping", as we did as infants and children.
Summary
So, very early on, we may have learned that to be in relationship means one person is valued while the other is devalued. Now that we know this on a conscious level, we can have "equal" relationships and talk about our painful feelings (shame, anger, sadness, fear), right? Not so fast. It’s hard! It’s hard to create the space to do this, especially if we or others around us have never done it and don't know how to do it.
And, if we don't create the space to hold these feelings and process experience, then it’s hard not to take things personally, react, and trigger people. And, then it’s just this never-ending cycle of chain reactions, constantly putting each other (or ourselves) down to reap temporary gains, and never getting to what’s really going on (i.e., our feelings and needs). How can trust survive in that environment? I believe this is the tragedy of American family life and relationships in general, as depicted in heartbreaking plays such as A Long Day's Journey Into Night and Death of a Salesman.
But, there is a way to live life without suffering, which I will talk about in future posts.
Here are some visuals that illustrate how I think about reactivity:
-- Arthur Miller, Tragedy and The Common Man (from Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic by James Gilligan)
The tragedy in the above quote is the often unseen or unknown reality that every person possesses personal dignity and worth -- it's not something we can earn or lose, be given or have taken away. It is always there by virtue of our existence. But, many of us forget this (or never knew it in the first place). Instead, we pin our self-worth and value on external opinions or personal achievements or the temporary benefits we get from reacting, and we neglect to integrate ourselves internally or externally. It is this "dis-ease" of self that is at the core of reactivity.
Theory
So, how is this tragedy related to reactivity? The answer lies in our early development, as understood through empirically supported theories such as Object Relations, Self Psychology, and Attachment. For example, the mother-infant microanalysis research by Beebe and others supports a focus on bi-directional impacts of early relationships throughout the lifespan (i.e., how caregiver and infant mutually influence each other).
This mutuality cannot be understated. Though the caregiver has a special responsibility to "hold" both the child's and the caregiver's experiences and initiate repair of any ruptures in the relationship, early developmental processes may be derailed just as easily by the child as by the caregiver. For instance, a child may have a temperament or personality or biology that inhibits attunement with and by a capable caregiver. Or, the same may be true of a caregiver with a capable child. Or, there could be varying degrees of inhibitory traits in both people.
However it happens, the important point is that this disruption is a critical part of early (object) relational processes (i.e., evolving notions of self and other) whereby connection is thwarted. When connection is thwarted, shame gets evoked and associated with perceived threat (from the disconnection) and, by extension, biological fight/flight/freeze/feint reactions to perceived threat. These associations between (dis)connection, shame, perceived threat, and threat reactions continue to operate unconsciously throughout our lives and subsequent relationships.
***These moments of disconnection are critical for and contribute to healthy development if and only if the caregiver repairs the ruptures (because the child can't do it yet) by empathically joining the child's mental state and then shifting them both to a more tolerable state. This repair process continues the critical (object-) relational processes. That is how the child develops a healthy sense of self and other (i.e., boundaries of internal vs external reality), learns to tolerate or "hold" experience, and learns that feelings, needs, relationships, and people are not dangerous. This is how the child learns how to repair and thus be in relationship.
Everyone experiences absence of repair to some degree. If lack of repair occurs on a consistent basis, these moments of disconnection may chronically destabilize a child's sense of self, agency, and corresponding equilibrium, thus unconsciously perpetuating fear, fear reactions and, by association, shame. Moreover, this may interrupt what Winnicott called the Transitional Process whereby we learn to see others primarily as they objectively are (warts and all), not primarily as our subjective, idealized projections. This process of building the ability to objectively see and know others is the developmental basis for attunement.***
Universality of the Theory
I think of disconnection as momentary impairments in the capacity to attune to others and ourselves: to see and know and therefore be able to predict the behavior of others and ourselves. I call this capacity our 7th sense. The loss of this sense makes us relationally deaf, dumb, and blind and therefore may be terrifying. In any case, loss of this 7th sense unconsciously activates implicit memories of fear/shame states from early development.
In my view, since no parent/child dyad perfectly attune and repair all the time (caregivers of securely attached children attune ~ 30% of the time), everyone is confronted with mis-attunement and lack of repair to some degree and so as infants and children must derive alternative strategies to maintain connection with the caregiver. Therefore, there exists a continuum of attachment trauma, depending on the quality and consistency of repair and the frequency and severity of the mis-attunement.
Reactive Relational Rules
These strategies included various ways to ignore or dismiss our own feelings and needs so as not to threaten this vital connection. We may have learned that:
- *our feelings and needs are dangerous and are therefore not allowed
- *we have to be different from how we are
- we have to be "perfect" (from the caregiver's perspective)
- people are objects to be used to manage self-esteem, as we were ourselves objects used to manage our caregiver's self-esteem
Connection to Shame
Which brings us to shame. Shame is the relational “water” in which we swim: shame can be understood socially as inequality in relationships, one person "up" or idealized (e.g., caregiver) while the other is "down" or devalued (e.g., child). This false idealization or devaluation literally diminishes our sense of self on the level of form (i.e., ego) no matter which side we are on, thereby representing a threat and unconsciously evoking those reactive relational rules.
Shame is attack on self. The unconscious innate and learned reaction to shame is to “flip” the “up/down” positions, thus avoiding “dangerous” feeling, temporarily gaining pride, safety, or other positive benefits, and preserving relationship (in our minds). Our natural tendency is to "flip" when our ego self has been diminished (i.e., attacked) in some way.
This is the go-to psychological defense that characterizes those people who may struggle with the aforementioned "dis-ease" of self. However, it may also be unconsciously employed by anyone encountering a threat trigger they unconsciously associate with shame. Our different tendencies to employ reactive behaviors (as opposed to responsive ones) are mitigated by our unique environments, temperaments, relational/developmental histories, and our individual abilities to cope with stress in any given moment.
Another way to understand this is through affect theory. Shame affect is defined as the sudden interruption of positive affect, or disconnection. The times our caregiver(s) mis-attuned to us or failed to mirror us and repair relational ruptures over hundreds of thousands of interactions (i.e., attachment trauma) evoked the shame affect (and threat perception) in us each time (as it did in them when we did not attune). Eventually, we learned to make sense of this and insure our survival by splitting (i.e., keeping the caregiver "good" and devaluing ourselves) or employing some other defense strategy.
In other words, we (our feelings and needs, our very Self) were what was "wrong" with the relationship and what threatened it. We learned to perceive reality through our caregiver's eyes and change ourselves so as not to evoke their anxieties and thus threaten the connection, a state of "perfection" that was unconsciously encoded into our relational rules. As a result, we associate threat triggers today -- the sudden halt to our own internal sense of safety or "perfection" -- with those early shame experiences and tend to react by "flipping", as we did as infants and children.
Summary
So, very early on, we may have learned that to be in relationship means one person is valued while the other is devalued. Now that we know this on a conscious level, we can have "equal" relationships and talk about our painful feelings (shame, anger, sadness, fear), right? Not so fast. It’s hard! It’s hard to create the space to do this, especially if we or others around us have never done it and don't know how to do it.
And, if we don't create the space to hold these feelings and process experience, then it’s hard not to take things personally, react, and trigger people. And, then it’s just this never-ending cycle of chain reactions, constantly putting each other (or ourselves) down to reap temporary gains, and never getting to what’s really going on (i.e., our feelings and needs). How can trust survive in that environment? I believe this is the tragedy of American family life and relationships in general, as depicted in heartbreaking plays such as A Long Day's Journey Into Night and Death of a Salesman.
But, there is a way to live life without suffering, which I will talk about in future posts.
Here are some visuals that illustrate how I think about reactivity:
Friday, October 2, 2015
Introduction
Agency := The capacity of an individual to act in any given environment; the capacity of individuals to act independently and make their own free choices.
- Are you interested in reducing your own reactivity? For example, do you want alternatives to attacking yourself or others? Do you want to limit “filling” emotional space with food, shopping, tv/internet/movies, PDA, alcohol/drugs, or sex? Do you want to extinguish patterns of depression, hiding, and isolation?
This blog is intended to provide a framework for understanding and working with reactivity. It will teach you how to identify and respond to internal or external triggers and deepen connection with yourself and others.
I called it "Agency" because it will enable you to act in situations marked by confusion, anger, and shame; to respond where the current situation and way forward are often very difficult to perceive and patterns of habitual backsliding are all too easy to enact.
Through real-life anecdotes, psychological theory, and observations of fictional and nonfictional accounts, I will provide a way for you to learn how to participate in life without causing yourself or others needless suffering.
So, let's dive in! First, STOP!! AND, ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FOR YOURSELF:
I called it "Agency" because it will enable you to act in situations marked by confusion, anger, and shame; to respond where the current situation and way forward are often very difficult to perceive and patterns of habitual backsliding are all too easy to enact.
Through real-life anecdotes, psychological theory, and observations of fictional and nonfictional accounts, I will provide a way for you to learn how to participate in life without causing yourself or others needless suffering.
So, let's dive in! First, STOP!! AND, ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FOR YOURSELF:
- Are you interested in reducing your own reactivity? For example, do you want alternatives to attacking yourself or others? Do you want to limit “filling” emotional space with food, shopping, tv/internet/movies, PDA, alcohol/drugs, or sex? Do you want to extinguish patterns of depression, hiding, and isolation?
- Are you interested in learning how to deal with others’ reactivity? Do you want to participate in life and relationships without cowing to debilitating fear and suffering?
- Do you want relationships based on empathy, trust, and honesty rather than coercion, control, and habitual tendencies?
- Do you want to cultivate self-connection and intrinsic self-worth?
- Do you want to improve your performance and ability to learn?
- Do you want to understand the biological, psychological, and relational dynamics of reactivity?
- Do you want to improve your performance and ability to learn?
- Do you want to understand the biological, psychological, and relational dynamics of reactivity?
If the answer is YES to any of these questions, then keep reading this blog.
If the answer is NO, then please stop here and go no further. If the answer ever changes, then this will be available to you at that time. Thank you!
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