The worst thing about getting ‘The Look’ was that I was wearing the zebra onesie and a pair of cow slippers at the time. I’ve vowed never to drop the girls off to school in that kind of get up, but it was just one of those mornings… There I was, cheerfully cranking the stereo as I nosed out of my parking space in the drop-off zone, when she levelled me.
“Don’t make me kill you…” The Look clearly said. You know the one. And I wasn’t even close to her child at the time, honestly. But parents are parents everywhere and the mere whiff of a bumper bar in the vicinity of their precious offspring brings out the animal in them, right? “Put your foot back on the brake, don’t come within cooee of my daughter and you can return to the safety of your kitchen with all your organs intact. And what in the hell are you wearing, by the way?”
Some things bring out the most primitive emotions, don’t they? Situation develops out of our control and there we are, baring our fangs at an innocent woman in her sleepwear. We react. We’re gone for all money. We can’t help ourselves. And the bad feeling can continue to reverberate throughout the rest of the day. Funny thing is we feel like we had no choice in the matter… SHE MADE ME FURIOUS!
Last week I spent some time talking with sixteen year olds – young leaders from a nearby High School – about the whole idea of being proactive in response to everyday circumstances over which we have little control. Something happens and we can either blow up with the primal emotion or we can step back, pause and choose something else. It was a pretty good reminder for me that we might not be able to control every situation, but we CAN control our emotional response. That’s precisely what makes us human.
Things can go badly at work and I can feel angry and depressed or I can choose to cut my losses and move on. Someone can behave badly toward me in a relationship and I can choose to be angry and miserable or I can choose to forgive and not hold a grudge
As I reminded the little team of six last week, Abraham Lincoln famously said: “Most people are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
But this isn’t something that just happens. It takes practise. It’s a case of routinely learning not only to stop and pause in incendiary situations, but to work backwards from the feeling to the thoughts that take us to the more subtle bad places. Feeling grumpy? What’s the process of self-talk that landed us in that mood? Chances are we’ll hear lines like “I’m overworked; I can’t change this; it’s not fair; this is not my fault; I wish things were different; that cat is definitely plotting to ruin my life; this is awful; I’m no good at this…”
These are all lines where we’ve chosen to give power to something or someone outside of ourselves. We’ve chosen to simply react rather than take responsibility for our own response to a situation. This takes practise. Being proactive and learning to tame the inner animal becomes part of our character I guess, so that when we’re faced with a situation we respond with grace rather than flying off the handle or descending into a downward spiral.
Earlier this week Julia Gillard was confronted by what can only be described as radio shock- jock Howard Sattler in one of his most tool-like incarnations. He asked Gillard repeatedly whether her partner, Tim Matthieson, is gay. (He’s a hairdresser, right, so…?) Utterly idiotic, insulting, disrespectful questions. Under the circumstances, “Don’t make me kill you” would’ve been a reasonable response. But Gillard, remarkably, was incredibly cool. She held it together instead of telling Sattler exactly what he could do with his microphone. Couldn’t control the circumstances. Could – and did – control the emotional reaction. Kudos to her. Sattler has since been sacked.
That’s character. And you can bet it didn’t happen overnight.
So can you always choose to feel something different and take the high ground? I’d have to acknowledge that there are some primal emotions that are pretty hard to get a handle on. For a couple of years after Hugh’s death, there were days I’d be gripped by a fury so red and raging I wanted to kick down walls. One of my tactics was to fill my pockets with rocks and walk up the road to a lookout near our place where I’d spend some time flinging boulders into the gorge. (There was no one below… Well, not after I finished chucking the rocks, anyway.)
It looks frivolous on paper but it was a pretty deadly serious endeavour. It wasn’t an emotion I could make up my mind ‘not to feel’. It had to be felt. It had to be acted upon. Hopefully though it was acted upon in a way that didn’t take the feeling out on others. (Well. Usually.) Hopefully it was a proactive rather than a reactive way to deal with a situation I was reasonably powerless to change. There are other emotions like it. I’m sure you’ve felt them. Some of you may feel them for years.
But “Don’t make me kill you” puts the power in the hands of others.
Every single day, I’d rather be proactive wherever I can and be as responsible for as much as I can about how I react to what’s going on in my own life. Sure, I can’t change circumstances. But in many cases I can change my response.
A little taming of the inner animal…
(Not wearing the zebra suit to school drop-off again. Just in case….)