BEING A HUMAN IS HARD. We're so COMPLICATED…

We're fragile and vulnerable creatures, aren't we..? We find ourselves susceptible to a whole range of emotional and behavioral ailments, specifically under stress (for any and all definitions of stress!). I’m actually writing this article NOW, because I find myself quite SAD and DEFLATED today… And I thought it might be useful to write it up, for YOU, as food for thought.

On this platform I’ve created, as “The Shrink On Your Couch”, I do believe there’s immense value in sharing, when personal experience illustrates academic and professional truths, in psychology.

Keeping Big Feelings Inside, Rather Than Becoming an Arsonist in Life!

I encountered a person yesterday who truly upset me. More so, I find, than I even initially realized. I won’t get into too many nuts and bolts, but essentially our dog had managed to get out of our property. She had seemingly set out to help the animal, but, in the process, decided all sorts of heinous and hurtful things about US, as the owners, and our care of the Houdini-esque pet. But not even THAT was the issue - she’s MOST entitled to her own OPINION. And her OPINION will be a composite of her OWN life, lifestyle, history, psychology, assumptions, sensitivities, etcetera. I have no problem with this. Oh! That we may all be ENTITLED to our thoughts, feelings and beliefs, in this ever sensitive and over-insulted world! Oh, that we may REALIZE that people’s opinions are about THEM, and not about US. She’s WELCOME, on that level. Truly, and utterly WELCOME!

HOWEVER, what she did - her corresponding ACTION - was, and remains, truly upsetting. She arrived on our doorstep FIGHTING; swearing, cursing, and blaspheming. RAILING first at my housekeeper, and then at me. She even STOMPED HER FEET and bent herself DOUBLE as she bellowed her abuse!! Her entire (possibly 65-year old) physicality was embroiled and consumed by this drama she felt compelled to enact. To FORCE upon us, as we were going about the demands of our own days. We’ve never even met! But boy, were Khanyi and I the beneficiaries of a rage second to none.

All she actually WANTED was to RAGE! She didn’t WANT to fix, resolve or repair… She refused every offer of ASSISTANCE, which had been INSTANTLY forthcoming - basically, “let’s just go and get the dog”… Because she so needed to discharge onto us all of her pent-up anger and fury, which clearly was beyond the bounds of the relatively simple situation at hand.

Here was a person not remotely in control of her faculties.

Here was a person wholly unable to keep her “big feelings” inside her.  At least in this particular moment...

You're Entitled to your Big Feelings, But You're Not Entitled to Disrespectful Discharge of Them.

Keeping feelings INSIDE, and nursing them THERE, is such a powerful life skill. To be able to HOLD anger, hurt, confusion, jealousy (etc) INSIDE, nurse and process it THERE, and then, later, if necessary, to express it in a way that it can be received by the other, is an art more precious than any.

As parents, we teach our children this, daily… “How do you feel? Why do you feel that way? What does it feel like to have that emotion? What does it make you want to do? What would happen if you did that?”… And then, eventually, decide on a course of action which is most effective, and respectful of both self and others. Were more people CAREFUL with their powerful feelings, I’m convinced we would have less war, crime and dis-ease in society…

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and How It Can Heal The World! (Said somewhat tongue-in-cheek!)

DBT is a therapeutic orientation that has significantly captivated my attention, in recent years. Simply put, it’s a treatment modality which has, at its very core, the vision of helping easily emotionally-triggered people learn to “turn down the volume” on very powerful and extreme emotional states. It essentially teaches them to “keep their feelings INSIDE”. Very strong, overwhelming emotions often BEG for release and discharge. They make the activated person feel almost COMPELLED to DO SOMETHING to get them OUT. And that ACTION is often impulsive and destructive, whether to self or others. This woman, yesterday, I’m sure found some RELIEF from her theatrics in my driveway. She was no doubt distressed and rattled TOO, but she had the benefit of DISCHARGE - of SPEWING all of that EMOTION and aggression onto myself and my housekeeper. Leaving US then feeling really unsettled, really rattled, really affected!

And how often do WE do this in the course of our daily lives..? This lady is not alone; she’s in good company! We ALL have moments and day where we are nowhere near the best, most effective versions of ourselves.

There are so many factors that make an otherwise sane and rational person have a transient melt-down, and there’s no judgement on THAT… We are ALL fallible humans. And we KNOW so well that certain factors - even PHYSIOLOGICAL factors - can predispose us to a really bad day with a really bad end. Think of how certain occupational hazards of being human can fray your nerves and make you a little more dangerous than you would be in the absence of these hazards - tiredness, hormonal fluctuations, hunger, pain, illness, etc.

Not Knowing How To Keep Emotions Inside Is More Destructive Thank Fire and Famine

This is obviously a relatively minor, and anecdotal parable, however. But, on larger, more pathological scales, people who are unable to keep their emotions inside them commit homicide, suicide, violence… They try to alter their feeling states by compulsive shopping, gambling, drugging… Often their only known mechanism to “turning down the volume” on big feelings is to divert it elsewhere, and to quell it with compulsive behaviours which end in misery - in their consequences - and the fallout from those legally, financially, and then, perhaps worst, in a negative and eroded self-esteem. In a sense of just not winning at life. Of just not mastering what is needed to get from birth to death, well and intact, in this life we all live.

So How Do You Do It?

The easy answer: YOU SLOW YOURSELF DOWN!

In my practice, I often tell people about the road-trip between Johannesburg and Durban, in South Africa. For those not in the know, Johannesburg is on the high veld… Durban at the coast. The drive is essentially downhill, for hundreds of kilometers. And, often, along the freeway routes, one will encounter “arrester beds”; gravelly, friction-inducing stretches of “emergency lane” for drivers of trucks and lorries in distress, whose brakes have failed or who have lost control of their vehicles. The idea is to get in there as quickly as possible, and enjoy the benefit and relief of a much slowed and hindered speed.

And THIS is what I suggest for ALL OF US, metaphorically, when we are emotionally charged, and have “lost our brakes”, feeling compulsive and out of control, and HURTLING ahead towards inevitable carnage and destruction.

Get into your ARRESTER BED. SLOW DOWN THE FEELINGS. DO NOT ACT. Keep the FEELINGS INSIDE until you can rationally, maturely and effectively navigate a solution.

What Do You Do When In Your Arrester Bed?

1. OBSERVE - just observe yourself. Just look at yourself, and your current experience. (This assists in moving from being a wholly and entirely EXPERIENCING organism - and the dangers inherent to this! - towards a person who has SIGHT of the issue, and perspective on it).
2. NAME YOUR FEELINGS - list them, out loud, for yourself. I guarantee you that this will SLOW THEIR PACE and CADENCE!  (It’s uncanny how this simple practice somehow builds a healthy distance between “you” and “your overwhelming feeling”, and starts to foster a sense of perspective on it).
3. BREATHE - now tune into the oxygen entering and leaving your body.  We know how ANXIETY and PANIC can be both created and exacerbated by a lack of oxygen in the blood. Oxygenate yourself to regulate you body, in order to have more access to a healthier position.
4. WATCH OUT FOR THE MONSTER OF SELF-JUDGEMENT - there is no VALUE to judging yourself for having a particular wave of emotion, at any intensity. Feelings are just impulses and responses, but they are not necessarily reflections of total fact.  Simply observe and label what you feel, and breathe, whilst trying to get some perspective on what behaviour (or non behaviour) would be most useful in response.
5. Much later, once feeling mostly yourself again, consider a course of action that would best serve the desired outcome of the problem at hand. Once calmer, it’s as simple as “what am I trying to achieve here? / what outcome do I need?”.  And how will each OPTION at my disposal most likely play out?

We are all fallible humans, doing the best we can, with all the challenges we face… But with knowledge, discipline and practice, there is always room to upskill, and in having a large skill repertoire, we have more tools to draw from in crisis, and in need.

I hope this has been useful, and I trust it can be readily and interesting applied to a range of factors in your own life!