There are two groups of people in the world.
There are the conscious.
And there are the unconscious.
Unconscious people canNOT see what I currently see. I do not mean that in a condescending way whatsoever. I was unconscious for 47 years. I had no idea I was unconscious. And if you have told me I was, I would have told you I wasn't.
I paid attention. I am pretty smart. I went to college. I listened to people. I thought I listened to my own body. I felt that I was introspective and aware.
I
was
none
of
those
things.
I can say it now, but I was absolutely, one million percent, unconscious. I had no idea what I was feeling. I had no idea what anxiety was. I had no idea what emotions were. I couldn't see my own coping skills. I didn't recognize that the moment I thought someone was upset at me, I compulsively began participating in behaviors to settle my nervous system. I did not understand that my need to text someone back right away was about my own nervous system. I didn't get it AT ALL. I didn't see that my busyness and helping of people was designed to make me feel better and keep me safe. Nothing. Nada. Didn't get it.
I decided to think about the things I have worked on in my life that are making me conscious. I didn't get this list from anywhere. I just came up with it myself. No research went into it. It's just stuff I started thinking about.
Here's how you know if you are conscious. Here's how you know if someone you are speaking to is conscious.
- Can they look at their behaviors and actually see what they are doing? Are they coping, numbing, avoiding? If so, they may not have fixed the behavior yet, but they definitely know that they are doing it.
- Can they look at their behaviors and recognize why they are doing what they are doing? We cope, numb, avoid for a reason. Do you know what the reason is?
- Are they actively working to learn and stop behaviors that are counter-productive. An example. I used to raise my voice with my kids. I rarely do that know. I know why I used to do it and am actively working to change it. It is never the child's fault that I raised my voice. It is always mine. Am I aware, when I slip up, what happened to cause me to slip into old ways?
- If they are triggered (this often results in subtle body movements like bristling, eye-rolling, huffing, frustration, anger) do they understand why they are triggered? If someone reacts when someone says something, it has nothing to do with the person who said it. Do they know this? Do they understand that the reaction is because of past memories being "ignited" inside of them. They might need to put up a boundary or confront a behavior. Or they simply may need to recognize that whatever this person is triggering in them is about their own past. Not the person "causing" the trigger to be ignited.
- They are able to understand that if they are triggered, it is has NOTHING to do with the other person. It is 100% about what is inside them! (WOAH!) (I know this was a bit repetitive, but I wanted to emphasize it.)
- They are able to feel things in their body and know when something is too much. For example, a friend wants to talk to me about something. As they are talking to me, I can feel in my body that this conversation is too deep for me to handle. I recognize my limits. And I stop the conversation and say, "I've reached my limit."
- Can you analyze what events from your childhood are being "rubbed on" when you respond the way you do? (And if you don't have any or many memories, do you know why?) For example, one night one of my children spoke up in the car and told me that something I had said in public had embarrassed them. I immediately got upset and defensive. It took me a few minutes, but I was finally able to understand why that would "rile me up" so much.
These are just a few things I am thinking of right now. I am sure more will come to me. But this is the type of deep, introspective work that I am doing. It is deep. It is hard. But it is making me a completely different and better human -- particularly in my role as friend, mother, and wife!
