Communication skills

[alas]

My internet is supper slow, so that is all for now, but think more about emotions as a sign, that flashes “danger” but tells you zip about what, when, where, why is the danger. How can you know what is the danger with such a shitty road sign?

[Angel]

Hey, your feelings were not lies, just based on incorrect information. So, rather than distrusting your feelings, just keep searching for the best most accurate information.

They were lies:

Everything I felt good about, feelings of trust, feelings of comfort, love, safety - that "warm fuzzy" holy spirit - I used to think that feeling really was God saying this is true, these men have authority, this place is safe - those good feelings? Not truth. Not safe. Lies. Just herd bonding - elevation - just your brain feeding itself what it wants.

Everything bad - I used to feel uncomfortable around lgbtq, I used to feel other beliefs were wrong, - completely backwards of what the truth was.

Feelings are false. We can feel love for people who abuse. We can feel hate for people who are amazing and help us.

All the Mormon preaching about "trust your feelings" is wrong.

It is not good to trust feelings. Feelings lie.

Example of better metric - a friend was recently on dating site looking at possible matches. My advice - don't look at picture, look at data. How many times have they been previously married? What ended their previous marriage? Did they walk away from their own kids? If their previous wife is still alive - talk to the previous wife. - data. Gather data on how their relashionship with their kids, on their past relationships - use data.

A few of my best students are on the spectrum too. When forming teams, we talk about it. Their grade, and group work will be better if they can handle working with autistic ppl.

Smiling face, bribery, kind, compliment - those are the ##$ holes who do no work. (and I fail them).

Critical, blunt, not so kind - that is who gets work done and will push others in the group too.

We do have suicidal kids in college, often pressure from parents, in the wrong major. These kids - have to learn to tell their parents "no - this is not what I want to major in". Have to just get them into the right department - get them to admit what they really want. The suicidal depression goes away when they change majors, when they realize they can change, they are in control of their own life, they are their own authority, no need to listen to parents. No following anyone they do not agree with. I don't talk to them about feelings- we talk about what they want, and figure out how they can get what they want.

Yes, talking about what they want and figuring out how they can get it is *great.* No argument there. With students it might be the best approach. The fact that they are suicidal and told you is talking about feelings, and telling you that the parents are pressuring them is going into what caused the feelings, so you did in fact talk about feelings, at least enough to know there is a problem to solve and then you jump in to help them solve it.

Feelings are a road sign. Like physical pain they tell you about a problem, then you have to figure out the problem, then figure out a way to fix the problem. Feelings are not magical, and sometimes people spend too much time worrying about the feelings and never solve the problem. That is not good.

Now, I wrote up some more of my thought on the “feelings lie” subject, but since we are on line, not in person, I can’t judge whether to butt out or share more of what I have learned from not being able to trust my own feelings, and then learning to trust them again. So you are going to have to say you want more on the subject or want me to shut up my stupid mouth. I could sent what I wrote and deleted in a PM if you want.

Thanks alas, I know I'm still going through different stages or whatever you want to call it. Sooper busy with kids and work which is good - business is the best therapy for me, getting my mind of unhealthy ruminating, good feelings of being productive.

Can't find it now, but there is a great story on not ruminating on past pain - knowing to drop the feelings - when the fight is over, let it be over, reliving it, emotional pain does nothing to help. "This pain isn't real", nothing is currently wrong, I don't need to be triggered right now etc. I've learned to pull myself back to reality which means suppressing feelings - analyzing others around me for validation of danger, or "its all in your head, nothing is wrong".

Data. Gather data from multiple sources. Analyze everyone around, use everyone's input (not just your own) haha.

Would love to hear/read your thoughts - you seem further up the steps ladder than me

[Mayan_Elephant]

Feelings are a road sign.

I disagree - but please hear me out.

Like physical pain they tell you about a problem, then you have to figure out the problem, then figure out a way to fix the problem.


Feelings are not magical, and sometimes people spend too much time worrying about the feelings and never solve the problem. That is not good.

I sorta agree - again, please hear me out if you care to or not if you care not to.

Here is a quote from my book. Cynthia, a primary character in the book, lived in a home with a happy picture of her family and "House of the Lord" over the mantle. But, things were not right, not fair, not healthy, and not sustainable.

In her abusive marriage to Brett, Cynthia is constantly being triggered, but she’s never been taught that triggers are information—to her, from her, about her situation. At first, she thinks that the way to make herself and her children feel safer is to make Brett happy, to submissively meet him on his terms. She blames herself for not being happy with her apparently happy life. She’s been distanced from herself by a culture that taught her to be a good woman, to smile and go along with the program. In learning to listen to what her triggers are trying to tell her, her life changes; her reality changes. She begins to live her life firsthand, based on her own experience—from the inside out, instead of from the outside in.

It is important to understand the difference between triggers and emotions, feelings, and reactions. This is why I dislike the metaphor of our feelings or reactions being the road sign. In no way am I suggesting that feelings and reactions are not relevant or important - we all know that our reactions to threats are EVERYTHING in the moment and soothing our feelings or reactions is the biggest priority in any moment.

I want to distinguish between the actual road sign and feelings. Not a metaphorical sign - the damn sign. The thing, stuck to a pole or with flashing letters or a make shift sign leaning against a barricade. The sign and the words are JUST INFORMATION. They are not the feelings and the feelings are not the sign. The sign is a two dimensional rectangle with information on it. It is just information. It could be information that saves your life and keeps you safe - or - it could be information that something has changed and you are going to be late to the hospital and have a baby, or deliver a baby, on the side of the road. The sign is just information. Benign.

For Every Action, There Is a “F*** This”

Responses to triggers are based on history, temperament, and circumstances, but they all have the same goal: to stop uncomfortable feelings. I trip and fall; my friend laughs at me (trigger); I feel unbearable shame; I stand up; I push my friend down (reaction). My friend stops laughing, we’re both distracted from my shame, and I feel a little better. This happened to me when my friend and I were about four years old, but this process probably begins around the age of two. Endless variations on this theme play out for all of us. I ask Lauren to dance; she says no; she turns around and dances with Joe Yannotti instead; I don’t like what I’m feeling; I pretend I’m as cool and calm as Joe; I leave the dance; I walk home alone, in search of a way to soothe my feelings. We were all twelve. Since the age of twelve, I’ve hated dances—shocker. High school dances, dancing at weddings, any dancing—I’m a wallflower at best. To this day, I avoid dancing. This pattern started when Lauren said no to me and yes to Joe Yannotti. My priority was to feel better, and leaving the dance did make me feel better. From then on, I’ve just avoided asking anyone to dance. Disappointment avoided. Problem solved. Sorta.

Traffic is a tangible example of a trigger. Who likes traffic? Who looks forward to being in it? Creeping along the freeway, you’re probably mildly triggered. Annoyed. Sitting with all of the suckers, going nowhere. There’s usually a bit of tension, a few loud sighs, restlessness, slight irritation.

Hitting traffic when you have an important meeting, though, may be more of a trigger. Body temperature rises; heart rate increases. You may unconsciously grip the steering wheel and mutter curses at other drivers.

Add to this mix hunger, a shitty night’s sleep, bickering with your partner earlier that morning, and the guy in a Prius with the stupid “visualize whirled peas” bumper sticker in front of you letting everyone in, and bam, road rage! Stress hormones flood the nervous system; muscles grip painfully. You sweat through your clothes. More rage! Fight-or-flight survival fears activate. You pass people on the on-ramp, swear loudly, shoot the finger at cars with children in them, and obsess over possible worst-case scenarios.

We tend to think of our response to triggers as strictly emotional, but this understates the force of them. Information changes your physiology. Stress hormones prep the body for a fight-or-flight response by delivering energy-supplying glucose to your largest muscle groups. Cortisol, critical to coping with stress, floods your system. Your breathing gets shallow, your body temperature rises, and you begin to perspire. At the same time, your heart is thumping. Your shoulders, neck, and jaw tense. Your body is ready for action.

During this fight response, your thinking mind, the one that usually keeps your aggressive tendencies in check, becomes more agitated, less clear. In this moment, what you really need is for your mind to stay calm, but your mind wants to f--- something up. As your mind becomes muddled and agitated, it interprets events in skewed, unhelpful, reactive ways, often strengthening the trigger and the reaction. In this physical condition, assholery seems really damn inviting. F*** it—and f*** you! Ah, that feels so much better now. All of these basic—and rather primitive—reactions are evidence of the human animal taking over. This is our survival wiring coming into play.

While there are some commonalities in how our bodies react to triggers, the severity and duration of what we experience when triggered is unique. If you’re hungry or tired, for example, the trigger may affect you more deeply. The same holds true if you have trauma in your system, which we all do to varying degrees. You are more vulnerable to triggers if you’re already emotionally raw. If you’ve faced oppression because of your race, gender, sexuality, or zip code, you’ve been exposed to ongoing triggers. The degree to which you’re triggered depends on your overall history and your innate temperament. In short, triggers are subjective and based on many factors.

This example may highlight aggression as a reaction to triggers. Make no mistake here, we all have extreme reactions. We fake it, we submit, we play the victim card, we shut down and disappear. We build walls and isolate. We have coping mechanisms that go back as far as a middle school dance, trauma, or just regular old conditioning in a family. We have feelings and we think these feelings are the information to guide us. The feelings are our reactions and we can control them. And we should.

In communication with a partner, group or system, we need to recognize what is someone else's feelings and distinguish that from that actual information or trigger. Those are your feelings my friend. The information is simply that there is roadwork ahead.

[alas]

Mayan, you have steps that I was lumping together. Trigger, leads to emotion, leads to controlled or uncontrolled reaction. To try to keep things simpler, I was just looking at the set as a whole. Yes, in writing the whole book, you are correct. But for here, I am trying to cover lots of material in a few paragraphs that are easy to understand.

There is actually another step in there. I was going to save this for a bit, but both Mayan’s and Angel’s comments are getting to this.

Now, this is not what you do with other people’s feelings, only your own. So we started this whole conversation on listening to their people’s feelings, but let’s stop and look more at our own feelings.

So, since we are breaking this down, let’s break it all the way down

1. Something happens, trigger
2. We have a belief we see the trigger through
3. An emotion follows.
4. Behavioral reaction

So, an example.

Situation, I am meeting my friend for lunch. Trigger, The friend doesn’t show. Belief, I am worthless and my friends only pretend to like me. Emotion, I feel bad about myself, and it reinforces the worthlessness. Behavioral reaction, I ghost that friend.

This is an example from one of the books on Cognitive behavior therapy.

Personally, my belief would be something like car trouble or accident for one of my friends. But I had a friend who reacted just like this, even though we figured out the problem and eventually found each other, although late. That was the last contact I had with her because she ghosted me, and after two or three attempts to get back in touch, I just let the friendship go.

Now, if she had the CORRECT belief that alas is a scatterbrained flake when off my ADD meds and I am waiting in the wrong restaurant, because this is where we met last time and I totally spaced that we talked about a different restaurant. I get flaky like that and even telling people, hey, I am ADD and sometimes my brain short circuits, some people I guess don’t get it.

So, with a correct belief, let’s go through the example again. Trigger, friend doesn’t show up. Belief, my friend can get flaky, wonder what she did this time? Emotion, mild worry, rather than feeling like the friend doesn’t value the relationship. Behavior, call to check up on friend.

So, we are responsible for the emotion in the sense that if our belief is faulty, then our emotions may be out of touch with reality.

You can say that the emotion or feeling is then wrong, but feelings just are. Doesn’t do us any good to blame the feelings. It is the belief that led to them we need to correct.

Maybe tomorrow or the next day I will talk more to Angel about my situation of feeling like my feelings lied to me. Although her situation is more directly about the church and mine is just about my father, there are some similarities.

Angel, the healing process is slow when the betrayal is huge and there are stages. So, take things as you can deal with them. When it feels overwhelming, yes, what you are doing by backing off and putting the pain in the past is perfect. That is what keeps us alive through a crisis and it is what keeps f functioning through those stages f healing. Falling apart doesn’t help, and if you dwell too much in the pain as you figure how to keep going forward, it becomes too much and actually stops you from moving forward.

[Mayan_Elephant]

Great Stuff!!!!

Indeed you are correct that I am breaking the process into parts. I want to look at your distinct breakdown in more detail.

I think we agree on the trigger piece, though, I do enjoy talking more about that if we find that there are some differences in how we view triggers.

I think that triggers lead to reactions (innate and spontaneous) which include our feelings. How we get to that reaction has more nuances than our DNA. Professions are built on trying to figure that out. I like that exploration and adventure of figuring reactions out, particularly when it is personal.

Alas, I like the distinction of a response (controlled, aware, planned) versus a reaction (lizard-brained and dictated by the information not the choice). I wonder if your elements lie more in that distinction. Could be? Maybe?

[Mayan_Elephant]

there is a great story on not ruminating on past pain - knowing to drop the feelings - when the fight is over, let it be over, reliving it, emotional pain does nothing to help. "This pain isn't real", nothing is currently wrong, I don't need to be triggered right now etc. I've learned to pull myself back to reality which means suppressing feelings - analyzing others around me for validation of danger, or "its all in your head, nothing is wrong".

Angel, I have wondered how to respond to this. My first reaction was to not respond out of fear of unsettling you or the conversation. But, here I am. I do not agree with this "story". Perhaps that is too blunt. Perhaps I am missing something. The whole concept just does not sit well with me. It is likely I am missing something.

I see value in revisiting the past, including the pain, disappointment, betrayal and fear. I see value in forgiveness and redemption. I see value in improvement. Sometimes I wish all my scars were on my face and not in my heart and bones - so I could show people that I have lived and will do so again. I don't recommend wallowing. I don't recommend forgetting.

I think your solutions will not be the same as mine.

I like getting to a place where we can know the past and choose the future. That requires a metric shit ton of awareness, curiosity and experimentation, where shit tons are measured in tears and years. It starts, to me, with knowing the triggers and choosing my move.

[Angel]

there is a great story on not ruminating on past pain - knowing to drop the feelings - when the fight is over, let it be over, reliving it, emotional pain does nothing to help. "This pain isn't real", nothing is currently wrong, I don't need to be triggered right now etc. I've learned to pull myself back to reality which means suppressing feelings - analyzing others around me for validation of danger, or "its all in your head, nothing is wrong".

Angel, I have wondered how to respond to this. My first reaction was to not respond out of fear of unsettling you or the conversation. But, here I am. I do not agree with this "story". Perhaps that is too blunt. Perhaps I am missing something. The whole concept just does not sit well with me. It is likely I am missing something.

I see value in revisiting the past, including the pain, disappointment, betrayal and fear. I see value in forgiveness and redemption. I see value in improvement. Sometimes I wish all my scars were on my face and not in my heart and bones - so I could show people that I have lived and will do so again. I don't recommend wallowing. I don't recommend forgetting.

I think your solutions will not be the same as mine.

I like getting to a place where we can know the past and choose the future. That requires a metric shit ton of awareness, curiosity and experimentation, where shit tons are measured in tears and years. It starts, to me, with knowing the triggers and choosing my move.

Perhaps what upsets Mormons most is my conclusion that feelings cannot be trusted.

Consider the Placebo effect. People heal themselves based on a false belief that a pill filled with something like common flour is actually medicine - if our mind is confused over things like placebos, it is confused and convinced over other things too - like really confused, and really convinced.

If placebos work - and they do - if you can heal yourself with your mind, you can make yourself sick too.

I've chosen to ignore societies false ideas of morals - such as a rape victim is less-than - and replace it with understanding situations as "it is just the laws of nature", there is nothing wrong with a rape victim. By tossing out false beliefs, false conclusions-, life is better. No permanent physical damage = just fine, nothing more than a past fist fight.

Like all humans, I too am easily bamboozled- I was tricked by a false church with pedophile leaders. Fool me once, shame on them. Fool me twice? I'm avoiding falling into similar traps again by better learning how our minds work, and now knowing I don't need to worry over feelings which are often false.

Logical analysis is best. Data from many sources (not just my own - many sources), No fear mongering. No false panic or judgment or pain based on false social beliefs. Data and logic are best.

[Mayan_Elephant]

Reactions are real. They are also independent of the factss which are also real. The trigger is not the reaction. Though, reactions can be triggering.

[alas]

Both of you are thinking, which is good.

There is only benefit in revisiting the past if there is stuff we need to learn, or sort out, or figure out why it is still hurting us. Say, we learned some crap in our abusive childhood. Well, then there is a real advantage in looking at it and figuring out what things we learned are crap. Like, when I was doing counseling with rape victims. It was in their past, no physical harm done, or at least it has healed by now. 95% of the women I saw were 10+ years past the rape and still were not over it. The first reaction is one of shock and trauma, then outrage, then sometimes before they can even report it to police, usually within DAYS, they go into a stage that frustrates the hell out of the police trying to arrest the perpetrator. They want to “go on with life.” The attitude is not quite denial, more of it happened and I can’t change that, now I want to forget about it. If they did report it, then they stop cooperating with the police, they do not return to the counselor they were so anxious to see at first, they mentally shut down, and don’t want to think about it. Some even tell the police that “nothing happened” because they just can’t deal with it.

Then 10-30 years later, their life starts coming apart at the seams, and they are having nightmares, they are depressed, they can no longer keep it inside. Then it is time to revisit the past and figure out how it is impacting the present.

For other things, there is only the need to pull it up and look at the past occasionally. Sometimes it is even possible to put things all the way in the past and not revisit them.

But with the rape victims, most often they believed some version of it damaging them, or some version of victim blame. See, if the rape happened because I was wearing sexy clothing, well, I will wear gunny sacks and I won’t ever get raped again. So, I am perfectly happy to accept guilt in order to feel safe. Guilt is much easier to live with than terror.

So, in counseling we examine the self blame, the false safety, and how to actually be more safe, but still live with the real danger of bad things happen.

But during that stage of denial-like trauma reaction where the victim buries things, often they can look at the past in small bites at a time. So, you deal with it in small bites, with times of staying busy, controlled logic, and just getting through life, and other times of actively looking at it and working through issues, then bury things again for a while so you can survive. I did a lot of that. With a really big trauma, it s overwhelming if tackled all at once. So a person takes t a bit at a time. Grief is like that too. Some days you barely get by, some you cry a lot, and some you kind of put the grief up on the shelf so you can function and you can have some pretty good days that way, then it hits again and you have some really bad days.

[alas]

Back to the idea of feelings telling us stuff. First point is that like logic, emotions are only as accurate as the information they are based on. So, garbage in, garbage out.

The trigger may not be accurately interpreted. Or, you may have some faulty beliefs that lead to faulty feelings.

Now, some emotions don’t go through much of a process, for example. Trigger, you spot a snake. Before you brain even registers “snake” your brain/body has already gone into fear mode and is putting out fight or flight signals to the rest of your body. Your body starts moving you out of danger, before your brain even knows what’s going on.

There is some conscious override if you are in a zoo, or have a pet, but in the wild the trigger-response is pretty automatic.

For PTSD, there are triggers that are associated, but may be separate from the remembered trauma. These triggers work the same way. So, a car backfires, and the PTSD war vet goes into full panic before their brain can override and say, “that was just a car backfiring.”

Or the rape victim catches the smell of alcohol and it triggers panic because her rapist had been drinking. Or her husband tries to kiss her, and she goes into full panic because of the association with the rape. It can take years to get the person’s brain to stop automatically hitting the panic button.

So, in the case of the rattle snake, your automatic response could save your life, because you jerk back your leg before you even consciously register the snake.

But say our PTSD war vet is in traffic, bang, panic, and his car goes up of control into oncoming traffic. Not only are the triggered responses messing up his current life, but could actually be dangerous to himself and others. Or a cop with PTSD from having been shot sees someone reach for something in his pocket and shoots as an automatic response.

But for MOST of us, most of the time there is conscious thinking between trigger, emotion, and response.

So, it is like the example of waiting for someone who doesn’t show up. Say girl meets guy on line. They decide to meet in real life. Girl arranges to meet guy at X restaurant and he will know her because he will have on a red hat. So, she sits there and he is late. And she starts thinking “he changed his mind.” Or she thinks, he walked in, saw her, decided she was too fat, and left without saying anything. As she is waiting, she is telling herself stuff about why he isn’t there yet. She will start feeling an emotion that goes along with the stuff she is thinking. So, there is not really a straight line between “he is late” and that she is angry at him for standing her up.

Or the guy in heavy traffic. He’s stressed, he’s tired. Someone pulls too close in front of him and he hits the brake. There is your trigger. But then he tells himself something. “That a** cut me off!” And he’s angry, and into road rage. Then he can either act of his road rage, or control his temper.

But what if instead he tells himself, “good job self, you hit the brake in time to avoid an accident.” And instead of road rage, he feels relief.

This is what I am talking about with that step between the trigger and the emotion. It is what we are telling ourselves about the trigger.

Now, to apply this idea we have to learn to pay attention to the stuff we tell ourselves.

So, application. You come home from church. Something was said, again, about lazy learners and how people who are too lazy to learn and understand the doctrine are the ones who leave the church, and you are angry.

So, draw that line from the comment in church, to what you told yourself, that got you angry.

Someone be brave and figure out the kinds of things we think that make this comment so aggravating

[Angel]

Back to the idea of feelings telling us stuff. First point is that like logic, emotions are only as accurate as the information they are based on. So, garbage in, garbage out.

The trigger may not be accurately interpreted. Or, you may have some faulty beliefs that lead to faulty feelings.

Now, some emotions don’t go through much of a process, for example. Trigger, you spot a snake. Before you brain even registers “snake” your brain/body has already gone into fear mode and is putting out fight or flight signals to the rest of your body. Your body starts moving you out of danger, before your brain even knows what’s going on.

There is some conscious override if you are in a zoo, or have a pet, but in the wild the trigger-response is pretty automatic.

For PTSD, there are triggers that are associated, but may be separate from the remembered trauma. These triggers work the same way. So, a car backfires, and the PTSD war vet goes into full panic before their brain can override and say, “that was just a car backfiring.”

Or the rape victim catches the smell of alcohol and it triggers panic because her rapist had been drinking. Or her husband tries to kiss her, and she goes into full panic because of the association with the rape. It can take years to get the person’s brain to stop automatically hitting the panic button.

So, in the case of the rattle snake, your automatic response could save your life, because you jerk back your leg before you even consciously register the snake.

But say our PTSD war vet is in traffic, bang, panic, and his car goes up of control into oncoming traffic. Not only are the triggered responses messing up his current life, but could actually be dangerous to himself and others. Or a cop with PTSD from having been shot sees someone reach for something in his pocket and shoots as an automatic response.

But for MOST of us, most of the time there is conscious thinking between trigger, emotion, and response.

So, it is like the example of waiting for someone who doesn’t show up. Say girl meets guy on line. They decide to meet in real life. Girl arranges to meet guy at X restaurant and he will know her because he will have on a red hat. So, she sits there and he is late. And she starts thinking “he changed his mind.” Or she thinks, he walked in, saw her, decided she was too fat, and left without saying anything. As she is waiting, she is telling herself stuff about why he isn’t there yet. She will start feeling an emotion that goes along with the stuff she is thinking. So, there is not really a straight line between “he is late” and that she is angry at him for standing her up.

Or the guy in heavy traffic. He’s stressed, he’s tired. Someone pulls too close in front of him and he hits the brake. There is your trigger. But then he tells himself something. “That a** cut me off!” And he’s angry, and into road rage. Then he can either act of his road rage, or control his temper.

But what if instead he tells himself, “good job self, you hit the brake in time to avoid an accident.” And instead of road rage, he feels relief.

This is what I am talking about with that step between the trigger and the emotion. It is what we are telling ourselves about the trigger.

Now, to apply this idea we have to learn to pay attention to the stuff we tell ourselves.

So, application. You come home from church. Something was said, again, about lazy learners and how people who are too lazy to learn and understand the doctrine are the ones who leave the church, and you are angry.

So, draw that line from the comment in church, to what you told yourself, that got you angry.

Someone be brave and figure out the kinds of things we think that make this comment so aggravating

The thinking step between the trigger and the emotion:
car backfire vs. gun – backfire is not intentional, gun is.
Waiting for someone who does not show up – intentionally did not show up? Or no fault?
Bad driver in traffic – intentionally not driving well, or medical issue/emergency/not intentionally being a jerk.

A new level of response appears to be present with “intentional” .

To me, what if nothing is intentional. What if it is all just the laws of nature. All of it, nothing more than F = ma, V = i R, M = rF – just the laws of nature without any intention behind any of it.

https://wtf.tw/ref/nhat_hanh.html “…if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was, I would now be the pirate..” It was just their environment, it was just the laws of nature. No reason to get emotional over the laws of nature.

Just calculate what you need to do, and do it. No emotion. No feelings. No God. No intention behind any of it. Just calculations, and the laws of nature.

http://www.mindfulnext.org/mindfulness-and-empty-boats/
Many versions of empty boat.

Become the empty boat, no one gets angry at you.
See others as empty, no anger at others.
No feelings, no emotions, empty.
Don't yell at the other boats, don't get angry at them, just watch their motion, and move out of the way. Calculate what to do with observation and data.

Feelings, emotions - not helpful.
No highs, no lows, no feelings.
No hot, no cold, no burn, no freeze.
No right wing, no left wing - moderate, independent, free.
Free from God. Free from feelings. Free from burning or freezing or climbing or falling - just peace. easier to see things as they are. better choices. stable. Balanced. Peaceful.

[Mayan_Elephant]

I have a question. First a rant. But also a question.

I like that we are clearly splitting communication into parts. While we use the word and concept of a trigger, we are not doing so without explaining that it is an actual event or circumstance that is separate and unique from our emotion or reaction.

When communicating, metaphors are cute, but not always awesome - which - leads me to boundaries. I absolutely HATE (emotion ) the word boundaries when it is used about behavior. We are not nations or states. We do not have a geographical perimeter. There is not a blue line around us that lets us collect taxes and tolls from all who enter. There are no damn boundaries around us so why pretend?

What then, is anyone talking about when they set their so-called boundaries? There has to be better words a d ways without believing in fakes lines. This boundary thing is some bullshit.

I suggest we split the moves into definable parts. No more boundaries! I see choices, terms and conditions.

When i am asked to accept ridiculousness, I can accept or reject those terms. When I am ridiculous, others can accept my terms and conditions and meet me with exponential aggression, for example.

So what then? Let the communication begin by ditching conditions we dont accept and playing it out with facts not metaphors.

[Angel]

Boundaries - in NYC everyone learns to live in a crowd, limited personal space, rushed life, limited resources. NY'ers don't use fuzzy words like "please respect my boundaries". They say "No" haha. Direct, clear, you make deals with people, its businesses - this for that - consequences for actions. Lots of honking horns, every car has a dent - they will slowly drive through a crowd, push to what they need. Assertive, clear and concise, self-preservation - confident, walk quickly with purpose, order food quickly, no small talk, no emotion - everything as professional as possible.

Different cultures in different places. The big apple - a few things they have figured out well there.

Just as trees are connected through mycorrhizal networks, humans are connected through the air wr breathe, the shared water, gut bacteria, pathogens, shared resources - the NYers, one big family, connected like trees in the forest. All of us, connected.

[moksha]

Communication Skills in the Animal World

[Mayan_Elephant]

Communication Skills in the Animal World

Try not be egregiously homophonic.

[alas]

Mayan, you said that people don’t have physical borders. What do you think your skin is? And just like nations use space around them and over them where they are allowed to shoot down or sink any air plain or ship, and areas where it would cause a war, people have space where others are not allowed to intrude, and just like nations we have rules and spoken and unspoken laws between us.

We call the open space of ocean international waters, and maintain a perimeter around the physical boundary that we maintain the right to sink any ship that invades. Exactly like humans look at you all angry and may even shove you away if you get too close. Mostly they just back up when you invade their space, but if they can’t back up, they get nasty. Funny story about this. My mother was a middle aged housewife when she went back to college to get her masters. Her minor was communications. For her experiment, she purposely invaded people’s interpersonal space. Men either reacted aggressively, or they reacted sexually. Women, just tried to escape. After the fourth guy thought she was coming on to him, she just couldn’t do it with men anymore. Now, keep in mind, she is an overweight, middle aged, married woman on BYU campus, and most of her male victims were college students. Gives new meaning to the BYU mascot. Some of the men were offended that they thought she was coming on to them, but too many were responding by getting obviously sexual with her. So, anyway, we each maintain interpersonal space, just like the US maintains the right to sink any ship in “US waters”, or shoot down any thing in the air in US airspace.

There are also rules we set up. Rules can be different for different people, and yes, it is EXACTLY rules, behavior, reaction, and consequences. For example, my personal boundary with my father is zero over night visits or alone time with my small children. Your personal boundary with your father and his behavior around your children was probably different. I know mine was different with my in laws who were allowed overnight or one on one alone time with my kids. We have different rules for different people and different people have different rules. Also we can change the rules.

Just like maintaining the rules between the US and Mexico is part of maintaining healthy boundaries, so it is between people. So, “boundaries” between people is using the language we all understand between nations to describe the rules and space between people. We have a different boundary/border with Mexico than we do with Canada. In fact terrorists know this and come in through Canada. Tell that to Trump supporters. In Europe, the EU has kind of erased some of the boundaries. People could cross freely, they used the same money. Compared to other nations, this is a huge lack of boundaries. And Great Britain didn’t like it, thus Brexit. They reestablished boundaries by changing the rules.

So, “boundaries” is a term adopted from international interactions by the mental health people to describe a concept. And just like when lay people take other terms from mental health, they often misunderstand and misuse the terms. So, among normal day to day talk, you are going to hear lots of people using it when they don’t really understand it. Just like when the concept of assertiveness came out, people were using “assertive” to justify their own aggressive behavior. So, you are going to hear people telling others that displeasing them is a “boundary violation” as a weapon to try to control others. Like for example a husband telling his wife how she gets to wear her hair. Not a violation of his boundaries if she doesn’t obey. Now, if the husband was to say, cut the wife’s hair, that is a violation of boundaries. Just like, yes, Mexico’s lax drug laws affects US drug control. But we DON’T get to go into Mexico with US troops and destroy the drug cartels. That is a violation of Mexican sovereignty. But the US does get to take troops into Texas if they prevent the Border patrol from doing its job. Texas is not a sovereign nation. Texas also cannot build an impenetrable border with New Mexico. Against the rules. But the US can between US and Mexico. But Texas cannot.

Boundaries means I make rules for how you get to treat me if you want to be in a relationship with me. I don’t get to tell you how you treat your wife. Not my boundary to draw.

[deacon blues]

I personally feel we have boundaries. The old "Your right to swing your fist stops where my face begins" bears that out. Is there something about the word "boundaries" or the way people use it that bugs some people?
I'm remembering the grade school mantra about sticks and stones. Words can hurt and we should consider carefully how we use them. But there is a spectrum of how we use words from 'threatening to offensive to thoughtless to kind to empathetic.'
And what a person says in the "thoughtless' frame can be heard as 'offensive' and even 'threatening' by a listener. Both speaker and listener will hopefully learn to consider carefully how they communicate, and adjust to situations and individuals.
Marriages, friendships, communities, society, etc. all depend on us being responsible to learn to sift through feelings/emotions and communicate better than before.

[Mayan_Elephant]

Boundaries means I make rules for how you get to treat me if you want to be in a relationship with me. I don’t get to tell you how you treat your wife. Not my boundary to draw.

No. Yes. No I mean yes I mean no.

Boundaries means boundaries. What you are describing is a set of conditions or terms. These are the conditions. Accept them or reject them. If you decide that, but fail to communicate it, you have imagined something that doesn’t exist, except in your invisible bubble.

Asking someone not to approach you. Choosing not to go to disneyland with someone. These are the conditions you choose to interact or relate. Similarly, others have conditions for you and for themselves.


The distinction, to me, is that these yaba daba doo imaginary boundaries are useless if not counterproductive. Communicating terms and defining our terms and accepting and rejecting others’ terms is being healthy, assertive and normal. Having a boundary imagined in our head and then getting pissy when someone crosses a mote by accident is just self-fulfilling victimization.

So yeah. We agree. But we disagree too I guess.

[Mayan_Elephant]

I personally feel we have boundaries. The old "Your right to swing your fist stops where my face begins" bears that out. Is there something about the word "boundaries" or the way people use it that bugs some people?
I'm remembering the grade school mantra about sticks and stones. Words can hurt and we should consider carefully how we use them. But there is a spectrum of how we use words from 'threatening to offensive to thoughtless to kind to empathetic.'
And what a person says in the "thoughtless' frame can be heard as 'offensive' and even 'threatening' by a listener. Both speaker and listener will hopefully learn to consider carefully how they communicate, and adjust to situations and individuals.
Marriages, friendships, communities, society, etc. all depend on us being responsible to learn to sift through feelings/emotions and communicate better than before.

Sure. We are not walking around with a "don't punch me in the face" sign and we are not allowing people to punch us in the face if we do not have the OSHA-approved signage to not get face punched. On that we agree. In a relationship, do you think all your conditions or expectations are as obvious as not wanting to get punched in the face?

At what point does your imaginary boundary require looking into the process or terms in more detail? That's a real question. In real life - where is the gray zone for you where personal expectations require communications of YOUR terms in lieu of an imaginary border?

[Mayan_Elephant]

Is there something about the word "boundaries" or the way people use it that bugs some people?

Yes. I have already responded to your post but I wanted to explore this piece a bit further.

I asked a therapist about your question. I asked if a person came into their practice who was hungry, desperate, and struggling with basic human needs would you tell them to eat more and come back and see you after a few months of healthy eating? I asked if a person came in to see a therapist who was experiencing severe depression cycles related to their alcoholism, hangovers and drunken outbursts - would the therapist tell the person to stop drinking and things would get better?

My point is that in these scenarios, telling someone to eat when they are hungry and stop drinking if they are experiencing mental health issues when they drink, at least those are tangible remedies even if they are condescending and impractical. The therapist confirmed that those simple instructions would likely compound the problem.

So why in the ever-loving actual hell would a person or therapist tell a battered woman to set boundaries? Why would someone tell a woman with trauma to set boundaries and things would be better? Set what boundaries? Draw a line around themselves? I find the metaphor and instruction condescending as hell and ridiculous.

THERE IS NO BOUNDARY! An imaginary thing is faith in something that is not seen, often for imaginary soothing or for entertainment. This compounds the problem and does not improve it. When we are aware of the ACTUAL conditions or expectations, we can then be curious about solutions, causes and prevention. If we imagine that something exists that is not there, we can only pretend that the solution is there. This is why I hate the metaphor and concept of boundaries and find it offensively condescending.

Battered men and women need to understand and surrender (not submit) to the facts and address them specifically, not metaphorically. This can lead to establishing one's own terms and conditions that are safe, healthy, and healing. The same is true in less extreme conflicts, including everyday relationships. Resentment does not build between us and the guy who blocks the aisle on the plane. Resentment builds between us and people that we need and love because we imagine that they can see our terms - but they can't. Or, we imagine that we understand their terms, but we don't.

In this forum, we see spouses that have an imaginary boundary related to church participation or even belief. Unless and until the communication is specific, both sides will be disappointed in the crossing of the imaginary line that nobody sees. To hell with this boundary thing, it is a failed metaphor.