Image by Feodora Chiosea - Getty Images
Anger management illustration
Routinely, when Andrew walks into his house, one of his “hot buttons” activates, leaving him fuming. That term—hot button—refers to something inside us that, when triggered, results in emotional hijacking. We lose it.
“Before I walk in, I tell myself to just let it go and keep cool,” he explained. “It doesn’t work.”
What triggers him? “The whole place is a hot mess,” he continued. “Dirty dishes in the sink, clothes thrown everywhere, tables piled high with junk mail. Everywhere you look, it’s chaos.”
Susan, who finds herself in a similar conundrum but with a different trigger, feels equally challenged by her knee-jerk emotional reactivity.
“I work closely with a team, and one of my male colleagues consistently mansplains to us women, many who have more experience and are better performers,” she explained.
Pulling Triggers
So-called hot button triggers, whether from a person or a situation, can elicit a powerful emotional reaction, and very abruptly. In the brain, this stimulus-response occurs in less than one-hundredth of a second. What’s more, once it manifests, the so-called rational, thinking brain (prefrontal cortex) goes offline. The emotional brain has the steering wheel.
Now, while virtually all of us have hot buttons, the intensity of our reactions often leaves us bewildered. “Why is this such a big deal?” we may wonder. Well, core values, things we believe are important, are integral facets of one’s identity, so when others act in ways that undermine or ignore them, it can feel like callous indifference, at best, and a mental slap in the face, at worst.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
In Andrew’s case, he places a high value on order and cleanliness, but what really adds fuel to his inner fire is his belief that being messy is discourteous toward others.
“My family knows I like things squared away, and I work long hours at a stressful job, so I see their sloppiness as a lack of respect,” he elaborated. To him, being orderly is also being considerate of others.
Core Values
Similarly, Susan feels dissed when a colleague disrespects her and other women by acting as if he is intellectually superior. When people disregard this value of hers (gender equality), she finds it sexist and outright rude.
Usually, we regard core values as positive influences, as moral and behavioral guidelines shaping our actions. However, when we assume others can or should endorse these same values, emotional eruptions can occur. In many hot button scenarios, the triggering goes like this: (1) someone violates one of our core values, (2) does so in a way that feels insensitive or disrespectful, and (3) we feel they should embrace that same value.
“I’ve always reacted negatively to sexism in our culture at large,” Susan explained. “But when people who know me ignore that aspect of who I am, it feels like they’re disparaging me as a person.”
Folks most prone to hot button eruptions harbor a strong set of values that drive expectations toward others (what they should or shouldn’t do). So, to avoid emotional hijacking, should we look the other way or repress our feelings? Neither. There is a middle ground. Learning to regulate our feelings, rather than ignore or stifle them, helps us express them in a modulated fashion rather than a helter-skelter one. For example, by avoiding emotional dysregulation, Susan can confront her sexist colleague but in a respectful, measured way, which also increases the odds her message will sink in rather than bounce off.
How to do it? We know that meditation, mindfulness, certain kinds of breath work and supportive self-talk can help us regulate knee-jerk emotional reactivity. In fact, neuroscience research demonstrates that those who meditate regularly, even for relatively short periods (10 minutes), are better at keeping their cool while in triggering situations.
Losing emotional control, even when seemingly justified, is no picnic. It can damage relationships and mess with our self-esteem. But, most of all, when abdicating control over our feelings to persons and events outside ourselves, we lose personal agency, the power to be in charge of oneself.
As psychologist Wayne Dyer put it, “He who angers you, controls you.”
For more, visit philipchard.com.
