FUNDAMENTAL PRACTICES

 

Personal hygiene, good sleeping habits, nutrition and exercise, these are all the basic and essential practices we all learn from a young age.  The key word is learn.  These are things that have to be taught to us and if we don't, we suffer the natural consequences.  We'll cover some of these fundamental practices that everyone should learn in life.  To learn more or to take some proactive steps to get some help learning these skills, feel free to reach out so we can help.

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EMOTIONAL HYGIENIC PRACTICES

 

The following are just a few practices or learned skills that help to keep us emotionally healthy and hygienic. In many respects, it’s helpful to think of these practices as core "emotion muscles" that make life and connecting with others easier and more manageable. 

 

Silencing (quieting one's mind, to be still and introspective in the moment)

We live in a world full of distractions.  Many of them are a result of poor boundaries on our part.  It’s all about making time and carving out margin in our daily lives.  Imagine saying you don’t have time shower and brush your teeth everyday.  You make the time to do those things because you know if you don’t your social life takes a hit.  Consider it the same for your emotional hygiene.

 

Start making it a common practice to set aside ten or fifteen minutes a day to quiet yourself.  Be still and sit in silence.  Allow the time and space to become mindful of what’s going on within your emotional state.  You might find that’s it’s hard to be still and to focus on your emotions for long.  Most people who are unpracticed in this find themselves wandering off in their thoughts.  But practice makes perfect. The more you do this, the less time it should take to dig down deep. 

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Pressing (leaning into pain and emotional discomfort rather than avoid it)

If you’re doing it right, sitting in the silence will allow the space for discomfort and even pain to arise.  This is part of the reason why most people don’t sit still and end up conjuring up distractions.  The distractions help to avoid pain.  When this happens the next practice is to learn to press into the pain.  Muscles only get stronger by first being broken down and enduring pain.  At first you might not be able to endure as much for very long, but continued practice of engaging the discomfort will allow you stay in the pain for longer periods of time.  

 

As always, there is purpose to the pain.  As you press into it, you’ll begin to learn more about yourself.  Engaging in pain has a way of forcing you to see things differently and more clearly.  But clarity only happens when you dive deep.  

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Anchoring (grounding oneself back into truth when faulty thinking overwhelms)

The reason why pain is so hard to engage isn’t just because it hurts, it’s because it’s often accompanied by a sense of hopelessness.  Most people can endure incredible amounts of pain if they know there is a purpose or a way out of it.  Engaging pain is like letting a tidal wave of emotions push you out into a deep sea.  You’ll learn a lot more about yourself beneath the surface, but it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and lost as well.  

 

Life feels normal and stable because we have certain anchors that hold us steady.  But when we create the space and engage the pain, when we let those waves push us out into the depths, those anchors break.  So every time we engage in this activity, even if its just a small amount of discomfort, we have to re-anchor ourselves again.  

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So what does it mean to anchor yourself?  In a nutshell it’s wrestling with what is true and what is not.  What is true and untrue about who you are?  What is true and untrue about your relationships and those you love?  You might find it interesting when you press into the pain, how much your emotions are driven by thoughts that are untrue.  Anchoring yourself means to plant yourself firmly into what it is you believe regardless of your circumstances.  

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Discovering (being curious and introspective while experiencing emotional distress)

Discovering is just another way to say processing.  When confronted with new information, a flood of pain and other emotions, there are a lot of things to figure out.  Imagine dumping pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on a table.  Initially it can feel overwhelming, but slowly you’ll start to sort it out and put it together.  The good news is the more you do it, the easier it becomes to develop a method or process for figuring out all the confusion. 

 

The point here in this practice is to not just engage pain for the sake of feeling it, but to start learning more about yourself and how you perceive the world around you.  Why do you feel the way that you do?  What does that feeling say about how you see yourself or others around you?  When else have you felt that way and is there perhaps a theme throughout your life when it comes to this feeling?  There are plenty of things to discover and plenty of things to learn.  
 

Expressing (verbalizing with great accuracy one’s emotions and insight)

This is the last practice that is a culmination of all the others.  Something incredibly healing happens when you simply talk about what you've learned and discovered.  As though it cements it into your reality.  It can be a frightening act to put into words what you think and feel, but it is a critical part of the emotionally hygienic process.

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Take fifteen minutes a day to quiet yourself.  Allow yourself to move into the painful places of life.  Process new insights and discoveries that might surface.  Challenge your thought process and what you believe to be true.  And finally express what you learn.  Journal some of your discoveries. Talk with a loved one or close friend.  Talk to your counselor.  Just put your thoughts into words.  The act of expression helps with the growth process.

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RELATIONAL HYGIENIC PRACTICES
 

Healthy boundaries are a fundamental aspect of good relationships.  But there are many facets and dimensions to what constitutes a good boundary.  Here are a few that cover some of the broader strokes of what these boundaries look like.

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Spacing (creating emotional space for difficult emotions to be felt and expressed)

We call it “differentiating” but essentially it’s just knowing how to space well with other people.  On one end of the extreme is being enmeshed or being overly involved in what others feel.  On the other extreme is detached or being emotionally apathetic and numb to others.  Somewhere between is the sweet spot with just the right kind of “spacing”.  Not too close.  Not too far.  Just right.  

 

This is most difficult when negative emotions are involved, when someone close to you is feel hard and painful emotions, possibly even emotions that are directed toward you.  Feeling overly concerned about how others deal with their emotions, trying to deflect or fix it, taking on those feelings yourself, these are all examples of getting too close or enmeshed.  Shutting down, distancing, minimizing, these are all ways we get too far and detached.  

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Somewhere in between is just the right space.  This means remaining present and connected without trying to manage the thoughts and feelings of another person.

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Resilience (expanding one’s tolerance to perceived attacks and uncomfortable emotions)

Some plants can survive in the desert because of their resilience to scorching heat and scarce water.  Resilience is the strength to withstand uncomfortable or unfavorable conditions for long period of time.  And as it is with any muscle, strength is something that can grow with time and practice.  In terms of relationships, there are some things we’re all exposed to at some point when the connections go deep enough and become personal enough.  It’s inevitable to experience feelings of shame, guilt, blame, injustice, mischaracterizations, etc.  No relationship can survive a diet of only these experiences, but relationships become far easier to manage if you can learn to tolerate an exposure to these things for a prolonged period of time.  

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The reasoning is simple.  Most of what people communicate in conflict is laced with these uncomfortable or even hurtful emotions.  Having the ability to withstand the experience buys more time for the communicator to fully express themselves.  Fuller expression leads to a better and clearer understanding of what’s truly being communicated.  So the more resilient and tolerant a person is, the more likely it is to gain understanding.  

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The temptation is to engage in poor spacing.  Either to move in too closely to defend or fix, or to move too far away by shutting down or avoiding. So the more resilient you can be, the more understanding you can gain with others, and the more you can improve your spacing to remain connected but not enmeshed.

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Consolidating (focusing control on oneself rather than on others)

This one’s all about where you focus your power and control.  If you try to control or manage how people think, feel or behave around you, then your focus is externalized.  Conversely, if you focus on managing how you think, feel, and behave then your focus is internalized.  

 

Consolidating is really about focusing your control and power internally as opposed to spreading your power out externally, and in order to do that it helps to make a distinction between internal and external boundaries.  Having strong internal boundaries means having a strong sense of self and not allowing the thoughts, feeling and actions of others to define how you think and feel about yourself.  When these internal boundaries are weak and your self-esteem is affected by others, the human tendency is to spend energy and time on trying to adjust people’s thoughts, feelings and actions (external boundaries) instead of solidifying your sense of self (internal boundaries).  It requires great strength and discipline to focus on your internal boundaries, but when you do, having strong external boundaries is no longer as necessary.

One tell tale sign of someone who struggles with this is if you ask them how they feel or to focus on themselves, their answer will often focus back on others or their feelings are determined by how and what others are doing.  A good practice to develop this skillset is to take notice of the times you find yourself thinking about what others are thinking, feeling, or doing.  When you do, ask yourself why it matters to you and why you feel the way you do about it.  

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Adulting (remaining composed and mature when confronted with parental or child like behavior)

Power dynamics are a part of every relationship.  Transactional Analysis theory tells us that we are constantly operating in one of three roles (Parent, Adult, or Child) with everyone around us operating in one of the same three roles.  

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Ever talk to someone that comes across as controlling or “shame-y”?  Like everything they’re saying is really communicating “what’s wrong with you?”  This person is interacting in a “parental” role toward you in a “child” role.  Ever feel the urge to push back and put them in their place?  Like all you want to do is say, “what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?”  That’s you repositioning yourself in the “parental” role with them in the “child” role.  That’s how conflicts get out of hand.  It goes back and forth, each person vying for power until someone gets tired of the game play.  

 

Adulting stops the cycle by reseting the power dynamics.  Instead of trying to set a boundary by using a parental voice and focusing on what the other person is doing or needs to do different, an adult sets boundaries by communicating their own thoughts, feelings and needs with clarity and composure.  

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Ask yourself if you use any of these parental plays:

• Shaming or Guilting

• Accusing or Blaming

• Controlling or Managing

 

Or any of these child plays:

• Passive Agression

• Manipulation 

• Anger Episodes

 

 

Surrendering (relinquishing one’s rights to fairness and sacrificing one’s own needs)

Typically when we think of the concept of boundaries, we think of standing up for ourselves and fighting for what’s right and just.  But again, if our internal boundaries are strong, we don’t have to rely as much on the external ones.  That means we’re strong enough to relinquish or surrender certain rights when faced with offenses and injustices.  

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A lot of brokenness in relationships can be healed.  Trust can be restored and with some work things can be made right again.  But there are times that nothing will ever truly make things right and okay.  In these situations the ability to surrender your rights, as legitimate and reasonable as they might be, is what’s needed to be made whole again.  What we’re talking about is the ability to forgive debts that can’t be paid back.  When you surrender your claim on someone’s debt against you, you effectively forgive them.  

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The person who hurt you may never acknowledge it, let alone ask for forgiveness.  But surrendering this right doesn’t mean everything is made right in the relationship.  Forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things.  Surrendering your right to an apology and acknowledgment of a wrong at the very least frees you from the burden of resentment.  You might not ever have a relationship with that person again, but forgiving allows you to release the debt and be made whole on your own terms.  

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This practice probably doesn’t have to be used with many of your relationships, as there are probably only a few relationships this would apply to. But for these relationships you’ll have to use this practice and use it often if they are still in your life somehow.  
 

 

Holding (delaying or suspending instinctual reactions like defensiveness or fixing)

Holding is both incredibly valuable and yet difficult to exercise because it addresses one of our most fundamental needs in any relationship, the need to feel understood.  Much of what drives problematic relationships is misunderstands or mischaracterizations.  When we feel improperly judged, characterized, or accused of something wrong, there’s a natural compulsion to defend and correct the other person’s perception.  To hold in these situations means to suspend the need to be understood fairly and to instead focus on understanding what the other person is truly trying to say.  

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So really it’s placing the understanding of others as a higher priority than being understood yourself.  What makes this practice incredibly difficult is that it requires you to expose yourself to offense and insult, while at the same time caring enough about the person hurling insults at you to help them clarify and dig down deep to what they’re trying to convey.  Most of the time people communicate their own pain and anxiety by projecting out blame, anger and contempt.  (i.e. people utilize external boundaries instead of strong internal ones).  Holding allows you enough time to dig past the anger and to gain that understanding.

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This doesn’t mean your need to be understood is unimportant or forgotten.  You’re simply putting it on hold for a moment in an effort to gain understanding.  Think of it as a courtesy, like holding the door open for a person to walk through first before you enter yourself.  Except in these situations, it’s likely that person is punching you in the face while you’re holding that door open.  

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You can probably tell by now that none of these practices are developed in a vacuum.  In order to hold well, it helps to be highly resilient, have good spacing, and have good adult posture.  These skills and practices feed off of one another so it’s important to learn how to gradually improve on all of these areas.  
 

 

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