Know Your Management Strategies and Interrupt the Pattern

Apr 01, 2020

Know Your Management Strategies and Interrupt the Pattern

I’m wondering how you all are doing?  Sequestered in our homes, so many of our daily routines have been interrupted.  We’re not gathering with friends, going out to work, going to the cinema, or dropping in at our favourite coffee shop.  The daily rhythm and pace of our lives have changed dramatically.

I’m hearing some people love the disruption and others are chafing at the restrictions, really missing the pace of daily life they had come to know and love.  Perhaps this is a reflection on whether you’re a person who thrives on structure, and the familiar daily routines or you’re the kind who likes each day to be unique and spontaneous. 

I’m finding this a great time for self-reflection on the advantages of both approaches.  I’m observing how flexible and adaptable I can be.  But also noticing I had gotten into some routines that were just ruts.  Now that the patterns have been interrupted, in this spaciousness, I get to see what was it about my old life that kept me vital, and what was just keeping me in place?

Appreciating the slower pace

So many people are commenting on the slower pace, appreciating their more spacious days.  They are wondering, “How did I manage to pack all that activity into a day?”  I think we’re all aware that the busyness had gotten out of hand.  We were suffering from a first world problem – too many good options of places to go, things to do, things to buy, chasing that optimal life that was perhaps often just slightly out of reach! 

So that’s the outer experience, and what about our inner experience? The busyness is a prime distraction to the inner life.  By the inner life, I mean connecting with yourself – awareness of the thoughts that float through the mind, and your feeling self, both on the emotional level and the physical level. And being in touch with your body, noticing sensations, noticing comfort and discomfort, noticing the connection between your emotional states and your physical responses to those states.  This is all part of the inner experience, as well as that sense of connection or quality of relationship with the world around you and inside – that sense that could be called a spiritual connection. 

How has the shift in your outer life allowed space for more inner connection?  And do you notice you feel drawn inward or does the possibility of this make you nervous?

The events of these days can trigger a stress response – fear, anger, grief.  These are stressful times.  A sense of threat is in the air – literally and figuratively! You get to notice how you manage your responses and reactions, some days in technicolour.  This is also part of the inner life. 

Management strategies

We all develop what is called “management strategies” for emotional turmoil.  These are subtle or not so subtle ways we try to subdue our emotional responses.  Sadly, our culture is not comfortable with emotions.  The general message is emotions are somehow dangerous and to be avoided.  They are inappropriate.  Much of my hours as a psychotherapist were spent supporting people to recognize their feelings, accept their emotional responses and to learn how to express them effectively.  A good outcome of any therapy is that the client feels more at home in themselves, more connected to how they feel and with an increased capacity to negotiate their inner and outer terrains. 

To get there, we have to address “the management strategies.”  All those habitual patterns that keep us separate from ourselves, that keeps the lid on all those potentially messy, inappropriate feelings, and that ultimately also keep us alienated from one’s self. 

Management strategies can be thoughts - all the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and others, and the life around us.  The inner voice of self-correction – “You shouldn’t feel that way.” Management strategies can be a way of holding your body that blocks a deeper breath or stifles sensations and feelings – the tight belly, the perpetually raised shoulders, the locked jaw.  Management strategies are also behaviours – emotional eating, the glass of wine that just takes the edge off, zoning out on Netflix, busyness, and even includes what might appear to be healthy – a stringent routine of exercise. 

In a time like this, the feelings and reactions can, in moments, be intensified, but also offer an opportunity.  You get the chance to really notice those management strategies.  All the ways you’ve learned to keep the lid on, to take the edge off of the potential intensity.  But what if instead you practiced slowing down and listening to what’s really going on?  In the spaciousness of these days, to take time to connect with yourself? 

Interrupt the Pattern

Instead of reaching for the management strategy – interrupt the pattern.  It’s a time of patterns being interrupted; change is in the air.  On the inner level, it means going toward the discomfort versus tuning it out.  Slowing down and staying with what’s arising; taking it in small doses so as not to overwhelm yourself; alternating your attention to the discomfort and then to what’s supportive and soothing in your environment.  Back and forth all the while building your capacity to be with what is messy or easeful, painful or pleasant, intense or calm – the full range of your humanity. 

Crisis, as well as disruptive, also brings with it opportunity.  One prime opportunity is the potential for emotional growth.  Building greater capacity for adversity and joy.  We can emerge from this crisis stronger, healthier, and more connected.  This is a way to make this crisis worth it.  How will you make this crisis worth it? 

Next entry: Be in the world, but not of the world.

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