THE COST OF REACTIVITY

Everyone at some point says "why did I react that way?!"

Something hits us the wrong way, we had a long day, nothing worked when it was supposed to, the best-laid plans fall to pieces, and then on top of all that - then WHAM! Our kids throw another curveball at us.  

We snap and run down the list of everything we never wanted to say or act out. Whether it's yelling, harsh words, or cold distancing - you lost it and lost it bad. Whatever way you react, when the heat has cooled you will sit with yourself and say "why did I react that way?!"   

Disappointment and pain are the cost of reactivity. Familiar pain to us is now pain passed on to others: usually the ones we love most. 

Viktor Frankl was a renowned psychologist and a holocaust survivor. Between 1942 and 1945 he was in 4 different Nazi death camps including Auschwitz. He watched his parents, pregnant wife, and brother die horribly while in the camps. One of his many 'jobs' was to stack the dead bodies and clean the ashes from the human furnaces. He was tortured every day, starved, beaten, mentally abused in ways unimaginable to most of us. What I’m trying to make clear is Frankl knew more about Trauma and pain than most would even be able to fathom. He was not in control of his external world, so he turned inward.

His book is titled "Man's search for meaning." He outlines clearly the universal truth that "we cannot always avoid what happens to us but we have complete control over how we cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with purpose." 

Frankl's theory is known as Logo-therapy (obviously logo from logos meaning = meaning - so literally "Meaning Therapy") The primary point of Logo-Therapy is that our primary drive in life is not for pleasure (or better defined any form of satisfaction) but it is the discovery and pursuit of what is meaningful that is ultimately the most important.   

What does this have to do with snapping on our kids or wife?!   

Hold tight it all comes together I swear!

Let's talk about Steven Covey. No doubt most people have heard or read something by this man. If you haven't read his books directly you most certainly have indirectly read some of the research he used to build his book "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". His work is so well researched that it is taught at almost every university in the United States in some capacity, in either business or psychology Covey does a killer job of breaking down 'what goes wrong and why' in life, then he gives a strategic approach to developing "How do you make things go right - and then how to repeat this again and again." Simplified, but that's the book in a nutshell. 

The first (and arguably most important) rule is Be Proactive (and not reactive). This first rule is almost exclusively based on Frankl's life work.  

See we are getting there! Starting to pull it all together now.

What is Proactive, and why is it the first step. Proactive, defined by Covey, is more than taking the initiative. It means that we are responsible for our own lives and that we need to first be self-aware of this fact.  

"Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen."

Sheeeeeeeeeeez. Give that one more read. Did you feel it? That twinge, that immediate kickback of "but...(insert defensive response). Yeah, it's ok - we all feel that at some point.  

Proactive is being self-aware of our ABILITY to RESPOND (RESPONSIBILITY) to life and all it has to offer. Proactive is setting your house in order and placing your goals on values that will keep you moving forward towards a meaningful life and not subject to the wind like a leaf at the end of a branch.  

Said another way "Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values-carefully thought about, selected, and internalized values... proactive people are still influenced by external stimuli (we all are) ... but their response to the stimuli... is a value-based choice".  - 'Covey, Seven Habits.'  

Respond or React. These are our two choices. Yes, you were tired. Yes, you were raised poorly. Yes, you have had horrible things happen in your life, yes you're going at parenting alone, yes your support system is nonexistent -but- you are the captain of your ship. No one took Viktor Frankl's ability to respond in over four years spent in the death camps; what could exist that can take yours away from you?

Now, will you be able to wake up each morning with this proactive mindset and bat a thousand, reach every goal, shake the grief and never again feel depressed - nope. But it means you have admitted that you CAN face the right direction and take a few steps. After a few steps, you will realize distance has been covered, and you are now closer than you were to a better self than you were before.  

For over 13 years I worked in a therapeutic clinical setting for children and adolescents going through a time of crisis and suffering from many disorders. These children; nearly all of them, had experienced trauma of some kind and came from just about every background of neglect you could list. So naturally, they were almost all stuck in the circle of reacting. This was almost entirely because they came from an environment that was just as reactive. They were in a state of constant alert, constant crisis, and unfortunately, constant fear of their world.  

The treatment plans made for each child were always proactive based. The first was goal setting; after we determined the most impactful external sources of their situation. Then we would help them develop a playbook of sorts for them to use when they went back home. We would work with them intensely on these; helping them layout as many scenarios as possible to walk through and come up with contingency behavior plans. Then we would have each child clearly define what their core values are, we would have them think about what is truly important to them. Lastly, we helped them come up with a plan to fiercely defend those values by understanding what Frankl and Covey outlined in their books; "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday."  They couldn't control who their family was, and they sure as heck were not responsible for the abuse they went through. Giving them the tools to be aware of the things they can change and affect was the only way to improve their situations. 

As parents when we snap, it's not the external that we need to react to; it's our internal that needs the attention. Frankl found something in those camps that is an inescapable truth. One I think is summed up best by Nietzsche famously. "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How."

If we find out Why we live, How we live changes. So to go back to the beginning, Reactive minds are subject to their environment - Proactive minds are only subject to their values.

We react when tied to our emotions and environment, we respond when anchored to solid values.