What is the best way to understand your own patterns in dealing with disruptions and problems? And how can we favour or accelerate a better handling of those?
First of all, it is important to understand and feel what actually happens in these moments in order to recognise typical patterns. To do this, one should first “deconstruct” the perceived problem in order to be able to understand it in all its dimensions. There are two ways to do this: Either you do it alone – ideally with the option of writing down the answers to the following questions, so that you can read them again at a later date – or by hiring a trusted person as an “interviewer” or “coach”. On this basis, the following exercise can then be carried out.
Whe doing this, it is important to understand that when a problem or symptom occurs, you are not simply experiencing it. Instead, you actually immediately begin to build a relationship with both the experience and yourself as you live through the problem. And that in turn has an effect on how this experience continues and what happens as a result.
The following exercise relates to the variant of self-reflection, because you can do this alone with yourself – but of course this has the disadvantage that you are always subject to the risk of bias if you “interview” yourself instead of using an independent “coach”:
- As a first step, write down how you experience and perceive the specific problem situation. To do this, you should answer the following questions:
– What exactly happens in this situation? What and how do you experience it?
– How do you behave? How do others behave, if at all?
– What are you thinking in this moment?
– What do you feel? And how do you judge your emotions for yourself?
– Is there a typical place or time for it happening?
– How often does the situation occur and how long does it last?
– How intense or “big” is the experience? How close or distant are you to it?
– How do you explain to yourself what is happening?
– How do you judge what is happening?
– What would you expect or wish for in the way you are dealing with this situation? What might others expect of you?
– What do you say? What do others say?
– How are you sitting/standing? What are your facial expressions/gestures? Can people tell what you think and/or feel?
– How does the experience feel physically? Is your blood pressure or pulse rising? How is your breathing?
– What inner dialogues, images or films occur?
– What types of solutions have you already tried? - It is now important for you to appreciate that your behaviour, your feelings, etc. all serve to deal with the problem in the best possible way, but that you have perhaps not yet fully succeeded in doing so. Therefore, you should also answer the following questions for yourself and write them down:
– How do you feel about the problem occurring repeatedly?
– How do you treat yourself as a result?
– How do you judge on yourself?
– How do you talk to yourself internally?
– And how does this affect your experience of the situation?If you find that dealing with yourself in this way has a negative or aggravating effect, you should not criticise or belittle yourself for it. After all, these are recognisable attempts at solutions that were certainly very well-intentioned, but unfortunately had an undesirable effect. It would therefore be worth considering whether there could be more favourable solutions – also in dealing with yourself. And perhaps there are already some beginnings …
- In the next step, you should therefore remember whether there have been situations in the past in which you have managed to deal with a similar problem better or at least differently. You should also deconstruct this situation again to find out what was different and how this led to a different result:
– What exactly was different in this situation? What and how did your experience differ?
– Did you behave differently? Did others behave differently?
– Did you think anything else at that moment?
– Did you feel differently? Have you judged your emotions differently for yourself?
– Did the experience take place in a different place or at a different time?
– Was the intensity of the experience different as a result? How close or distant did you feel?
– How do you explain why there was a different/better result?
– How do you judge what happened?
– Is that how you would like to deal with this situation? Did others expect something different?
– Did you say something different? Did others say something different?
– Did you sit/stand differently? What were your facial expressions/gestures like?
– How did the experience feel physically? How was your blood pressure or pulse? How your breathing?
– Did other inner dialogues, images or films occur? - However, since it is not to be expected that this different way of dealing with a problematic situation can be fully implemented or repeated the next time it occurs – as we know that the amygdala is very fast and excellent at putting us into a preventive self-hypnosis in no time at all – it makes sense to also think about how you want to deal with yourself differently in this (expected) case:
– What could be a more helpful way of dealing with yourself when you realise that you are experiencing a problem?
– Have there already been cases in which you have dealt with yourself in a more empathetic, compassionate and/or supportive way?
– What effect did it have on your experience?
– How would you deal with a good friend if they were in the same situation as you
when you experience the problem?
– What effect would it have on your experience if you were to encounter such a more helpful, understanding and
more supportive way of dealing with yourself?
By making these distinctions, it is relatively easy to develop hypotheses and solutions for a different and better way of dealing with stressful situations that would otherwise have led to considerable stress or even anxiety. As already mentioned in point four, it is important to avoid two types of self-deprecation:
- For not coming up with the solution earlier, as it now seems so obvious and simple
- For the fact that you don’t succeed in the next attempt
Because if it had been so easy to deal with those stressful situations in a better way, you would have done it long ago …!
