I’d like to make a space for reactivity – a big, welcoming invitation for it. It deserves a space.
So much of my personal and academic study has been focused on how to be responsive rather than reactive, to be consciously creative rather than unconsciously re-enacting the same repetitive story over and over. I still strongly believe in the power of waking up from reactive trance states and towards an awareness of how we are affected and the empowerment of choice. But, for this post I want to pause and just say I have a lot of new respect for reactivity.
About two weeks ago I caught some sort of virus, which expressed itself as a full-bodied case of something akin to hives. I wasn’t itchy really, rather my body was in a state of high alert panic, something like an allergic reaction – for two weeks.
The body panic translated into an intense emotional state of anxiety, panic and rigid thinking. Our physical state and our emotional state are linked together and I was like a frayed wire in a constant state of vulnerable emotionality. The everyday things that affect us, like a friend forgetting to call me back, or someone cutting me off on the road, were HUGE triggers! In fact, it seemed like everything was triggering me. The two weeks of body panic, the pile-up of triggers, plus processing my experience through the perceptual lens of panic resulted in a simultaneously chaotic and depressed state. It wasn’t pretty.
Now after two weeks of this agony I finally took an antihistamine. You might ask why I didn’t take it sooner. I’ve been asking myself the same question. But when you are in a state of reactivity you biologically lose connection with the part of your brain that helps you discern objectively and make decisions. I couldn’t see the most obvious solution to my discomfort.
While I didn’t enjoy the last two weeks, they did offer me a lot of insight – I try to use all my own personal experiences as a means of learning and deepening my understanding of the human experience and this one taught me a lot:
- Without access to our objective mind, which was impinged upon by the sympathetic nervous system reaction I was having (the automatic body reaction to threat), we are at the mercy of our animal reactions, physical/emotional.
- Our reactions are entirely dictated by our past programming. Our experience is limited and directed by our biography, by scripts that live in the nervous system. Mostly, this means that we are at the mercy of our child consciousness, beliefs that were locked-in when we were young, like, “I’m not safe, “ “I’m unlovable,” “Nobody sees me,” etc.
- When we are reactive, our normal strategies and defenses for keeping it together and remaining functionally competent are useless. But this is actually a good thing. Because when our defenses are down, then……
- Hidden, unlived parts of us make themselves known to us. Reactivity is one of the ways the split-off parts of us, those relegated to the shadow, can make their way into our awareness.
- When hidden, unlived parts express themselves through reactivity these parts seem ugly, weak, hairy, smelly, disgusting and embarrassing. They’ve been locked away for a long time, and when emotional states are penned up for centuries they get funky.
- Therefore, we must live through the initial experience of shame, vulnerability and suffer the embarrassing tantrum of reactivity to become more of who we are.
It’s not pretty, but it’s how we reach towards wholeness.
During my two-week physical and emotional tantrum some very core insecurities and deep-seated beliefs came up to the surface. Literally. While it was very uncomfortable to experience the pain and isolation of these inner children, it was really important that I recognize the truth of their experience, their needs and to learn how to love them.
Carl Jung asserts that in order to reach wholeness we need to access what he calls our inferior function, the aspect of ourselves that stands opposite of our most dominant function. Jung broke up the personality into thinking, feeling, intuition and sensate types. Thus for a dominantly thinking individual, the feeling aspect will be underdeveloped, operate autonomously, disconnected from the system, and gain a primitive, affect-laden quality. We can always tell when we are in the territory of our inferior function when we feel sensitive, inadequate or shaky.
My core defenses reside in the mind. I have developed a strong mind that can organize and strategize through life. The dominance of the mind was what I learned in my family and I learned to disconnect from emotions and the body. My two-week panic response shut down the strong capacity of my mind and I was taken into the wild, tumultuous journey of my less developed functions.
Daniel Siegel, neuroscientist and psychologist, looks at this process through the eyes of what he calls integration – the hallmark of well-being. From his perspective we are the most creative, grounded and responsive to life when we are in a state of integration. Two types of integration he highlights are: 1) vertical integration, where the mind up top and body/emotions down below are in full communication with each other, creating a state of passionate objectivity, and 2) horizontal integration, where the right and left sides of the brain/body are in dialogue with each other, where the symbolic and narrative aspects of the brain are working together to make coherent, interconnected meaning of our experience.
Conversely, when we are not integrated the nervous system ping-pongs back and forth between states of chaos, emotionality, and fragmentation to rigidity, depression and exhaustion.
Both of these theorist present us with the need for integration and the idea that there are parts of our body, experiences, memory and self that live autonomously outside of the system, and show up in chaotic, rigid, and primitive states – reactivity. When we are reactive, we are getting in touch with one of these exiled parts. Reactivity can look like a rigid way of thinking or an emotional outburst. Either way, this is a clue that one of these disconnected aspects has been triggered and wants to be seen, included, and folded into our conscious identity.
We have to turn towards the snotty, yelling, messy-haired, wild, rigid, stuck, arms crossed, I’m-not-going-to-budge part and say, “I am that, you are also a part of me.” Can you forgive, love and welcome the broken, inadequate, underdeveloped aspects of yourself into your heart?
Exercise
I welcome you to greet your next experience of reactivity with compassion and curiosity. What is being evoked? What little one is coming up to the surface? Then start with your body. Breath calmly. Exhaling is a natural way to slow down the flight or fight response in the nervous system, it initiates the parasympathetic response, which helps to calm and soothe your nervous system.
Breathe warm, nurturing energy into every part of your body, especially the parts that are tightening or expressing in some way. Or imagine the feeling of being held when you are upset, or the feeling of someone really being present, but giving you the space to feel what you are feeling. Imagine that the tantrum, or large emotional response you are having is a part of you that wants to come to the surface, wants to make itself heard and seen so s/he can receive more love, more attention, and an invitation to be a part of your life.
Upcoming Workshop
Laura Tabet is offering a class entitled, “I Am Home” for six consecutive Tuesday nights starting in October from 7-9:30pm. This class is dedicated to living a more embodied, creative, intuitive, inspired, authentic and community-filled life. Come learn energy work, the intuitive arts, engage in creative and transformative practices such as shamanic journeying, writing poetry, guided meditation, and much, much, more. For details email Laura or call 510-484-7899.
Resources
Daniel Siegel, Mindsight
New York Association for Analytical Psychology
Images
1) Volcano, unknown 2) Love Yourself by Laura Tabet