What you can learn about yourself when you act without thought
Photo: Kevin Rosseel
During the week of August 4th, 2008, a man in Milwaukee, WI loaded his shotgun and shot his lawn mower because it wouldn’t start.
What brings someone to the point where he wants to shoot something, or smash it, or kick the stuffing out of it? When walking through Home Depot and coming upon a lawn mower, my sense is that you wouldn’t rush over to beat it senseless. When coming upon the words “fax machine” in a dictionary, you don’t immediately go into a tirade. These are simply inanimate objects. They have neither life nor consciousness.
So, what’s at play here? Nothing can make us feel what we don’t want to feel. This bears repeating. Nothing can make us feel what we don’t want to feel. While blaming and feeling the victim are an art form in our Western culture, this fact remains a fact—nothing can make us feel what we don’t want to feel.
William Shakespeare wrote: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Carl Jung said, ““Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” Let’s take the liberty of stretching this thought a bit: “Everything that irritates us about inanimate objects can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
Becoming reactive
To become reactive means to act without thinking, to respond instinctively and emotionally—even towards inanimate objects. That object didn’t cause your problem deliberately, nor can your emotional response cause it pain or lead it to repent. Those are human attributes only.
The stimulus for your reactivity may be an object or event. However, the true cause of it is inside you. It is all about you. Feeling the victim, out of control or put upon—whatever you feel—is something you are responsible for. Remember what Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Emotions don’t come from nowhere. They bubble up from inside ourselves. Our reactivity begins the instant we tell ourselves a story about an event. This is where the inanimate object becomes animate as we ascribe anthropomorphic qualities to it. We create a story in which the lawn mower, the fax machine, the elevator door takes on a personality. It’s making me uncomfortable; it’s ruining my day; it’s making me late; it’s out to get me and make my life miserable.
Everything that irritates us about inanimate objects can lead to an understanding of ourselves
When the event occurs and you feel yourself becoming reactive, the immediate question to ask is: “What’s going on with me, right here and right now? What am I feeling?”
It’s critical to be able to name what you’re feeling. If you can’t name it, then you can’t work with it. You’ll gain much more insight into yourself if you can be precise. You’ll see how your immediate reactivity is typically not about now—even though right now you think it is. It’s deeper.
If you didn’t have a history of beliefs, expectations, assumptions, and preconceptions about circumstances and events, you wouldn’t become reactive. You’d be able to see an event for what it is, simply an event, without needing to attach your history to it. That was then, this is now; there’s no connection. You would be able to cope with life’s misadventures and mis-steps without getting knocked sideways into becoming reactive.
Unconscious programming
When outer events spark a reaction, you need to look inside to explore what’s going on. You can only get clues about your unconscious programming if you consciously observe your reactions, feelings and thoughts about events (and other people). Until you take the time to look inside and explore the nature of your reactivity, you will continue to be tempted to play the victim and remain reactive.
Do you judge or stereotype events (or people)? What pushes your buttons? What makes you instantly angry or fearful or sad? Questions like these will support you to see what it is that you need to work on inside yourself that allows events continually to push your buttons.
It’s never about the lawn mower—never.
Here are some questions for self-reflection:
- What are your ‘lawn mowers’? How do you react to them? Why?
- What negative experiences or events do you have consistently or frequently? Explore them. See what you don’t recognize about yourself that is behind the way you react. Ask someone you trust to help you to see more clearly what you need to see.
- What personal qualities do you need to express that would remove the need for your reactivity (This exploration is about you, not about anyone or anything else)?
- What one or two baby steps can you take, in the next week or two, to become less reactive and more responsive when confronted with one of your ‘lawn mowers’?
Technorati Tags: reactivity, acting without thinking, emotional reactions, treating objects as people, letting events push your buttons, thoughtless actions, giving in to emotions
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September 27th, 2008 at 4:22 am
A very interesting post! One’s first reaction on reading the report about the man shooting his lawnmower is to think; “what an idiot!” Yet when one thinks about it, it is just an extreme instance of what we all do in one form every day, analagous to what is often jokingly referred to as “going home and kicking the dog!” This is itself an implicit justification for feeling angry and being entitled to take one’s feelings out on other things - animate or inanimate.
The “lawnmowers” that you refer to should thus not be taken to identify any specific things in our lives, but rather any - and all - events that make us angry or upset.
Thus your question, “What one or two baby steps can you take, in the next week or two, to become less reactive and more responsive when confronted with one of your ‘lawn mowers’?” is a very profound solution. The word react, taken literally means to act again; and repeating the act is never, ever going to make a situation better. Your words imply thus suggesting the solution is to respond, rather than react. That is to answer.
Interestingly respond means to anwer. It also has the same root as responsible, which implies an obligation to answer. It therefore appears that if we are to act as mature human beings we are obligated to act responsibly. This suggests that every “lawnmower” situation is a trial, and our progress depends on the way in which we respond. Maybe, if we respond instead of react we will find we actually encounter less of them.
Unfortunately, I cannot say I am there yet!
September 27th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Thanks for your insights, Bay. Your pointing to every situation as a trial is right on….another question we can ask in “lawnmower” situations is: “Why is this happening FOR me?” (instead of TO me). Asking the “for me” question takes us out of a “victim” consciousness state (where many folks like/prefer to live) and into a place of conscious self-responsibility where we look for lessons and learning so we can further our self-actualization and emotional growth.
It’s not about “being there”; life is not so much about a destination, rather a journey and learning along the way in every moment. So, step by step we grow and become more “conscious.” Thanks again for your thoughts.
September 29th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Reminds me of Pema Chodron’s line from When Things Fall Apart: “This very moment is the perfect teacher.” Thank you for this. Very timely for me.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Hi, Janet. Pema Chodron is one of my favorite teachers. Her focus on the now, the present moment, as a teaching tool is a very useful practice. I’m glad for the synchronicity of this reading for you. And, thank you for stopping by.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Our reaction to the inanimate truly shows our inner-reaction to a situation and we can mark it if we are careful and introspective as the inanimate object can not complicate it with additional reaction from its side.It is a test condition. It is difficult to gauge it from our reaction to animate beings as it becomes a complex model where they also react to our reaction in turn making us react to the reaction and so on. The lawnmower is a good mirror to reflect our inside and show it to us.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:17 am
Hi, Sambit,
Good point. I think your point about our reaction to an inanimate object can also apply to an animate object (person) IF we are in our experience as an observer or witness. If, while engaged in a conflict, for example, I can sense what I’m feeling, where my breath is - belly or throat- perhaps heat or cold, perhaps constriction or tightness in my jaw, neck, shoulders and see the beginning of my reactivity leading to anger, resentment, etc., and follow my thoughts that emanates from my sensate experience, I am then able to choose to diffuse the situation, to “cool down”, rather than allow it to escalate. People, too, can be a good mirror of who we are and how we are in the moment..and then we have a choice to de-escalate, look for the commonality, a solution without being reactive (emtional. Thanks for stopping by.