Why are we so reactive?
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Why are we so reactive?
Reaction is a feeling of tension in the body communicating that something is affronting to us. Our reactions can be fuelled by an underlying hurt that we don’t want to feel, Often we are not aware of the hurt and can only feel the upset, anger or frustration covering over the hurt. A reaction is often defensive because we are defending against feeling this hurt.
How do we do it?
We have different styles of reacting based on our adapted patterns of behaviour that we learned when we were young.
See which of the following options you recognise in yourself or others:
- arguing
- diminishing
- dismissing
- insulting
- annihilating
- withdrawing
- shutting down
- accommodating
- adapting
- acquiescing
When we find ourselves behaving in any of the above ways we can stop, look inwards, and ask ourselves if we expecting the other to be different to how they are in the moment – this is a great clue! When we communicate from our own hurt it is usually laced with an expectation that we would like them to be different. For example you could feel hurt because your friend forgot your birthday. This stops you from being close and connected to them because your hurt assumes they don’t care for you. After checking in with yourself and your friend you may find out that they had a lot going on for them and they do, in fact, still care for you.
When we stay in the emotional reaction we often don’t check in with ourselves or the other person and stay with the story made by our hurt. For example, have you ever had the experience of a friend saying something hurtful, and then you realise that you have distanced yourself, or avoided contact with them? This can occur unconsciously, but when you track back to the moment of disconnection you discover a hurt that has been buried or not attended to. It can be difficult to speak up and express when we have felt a hurt, and is usually easier to find yourself in one of the above defnensive reactions to protect the hurt. Yet what impact does this have on us and our relationships?
What would it be like to pause and check in with ourselves in the moment and be very honest about what it is we are reacting to?
Sometimes we can feel the reaction rising up in us or making us feel tight and contracted and it gets in the way of harmonious communication
- in our personal relationships
- at work
- with our families.
We have developed these styles based on our early environment and what we felt “worked” when we were growing up. This may now be outdated and no longer serving us in our current adult environment.
But how do we begin to change these patterns?
What if we could choose to respond rather than react?
Every time we feel frustrated or angry – there is usually a hurt behind that feeling. A response means expressing the way we truly feel, even sharing that we are hurt or harmed without the need for them to be different. It is about bringing your own and the other’s awareness to how you are truly feeling in that moment.
When we share our feeling with the other, especially the difficult feelings like anger and the hurt behind the anger, we provide an example of how to respond instead of react and we can all move to much more satisfying relationships. It helps if we can receive their hurt feelings the same way we would like ours to be received.
Filed under
Tension, Communication, Hurt, Behaviour, Relationships
