Being Present - Testing Your Reflexes

It’s been a long time since my doctor tapped my knee to see if I would kick him or not.

Testing the reflexes like that is pretty old school, but there are other ways to do it, just as there are many different reasons.

If you have been drinking, one of the reasons you shouldn’t drive is because your reflexes aren’t very reliable. If you are an athlete in any competitive sport, you need those reflexes to pop. Emergency room technicians, police, construction workers. And what if you found yourself in a combat situation?

But physical reflexes are only part of the story, because the mental reflexes need to be even sharper than the physical ones. If you needed to dive for cover due to a shooting event nearby, you would first have to recognize that you need to dive! Standing straight up looking around when shots are fired (which I have done) is not advisable.

Yes, I have just admitted to having dull mental reflexes. You get used to it….

“Reflex” can be defined as a reaction to a stimulus, particularly without consciously reacting. We hear a loud sharp noise nearby and we wince or jump. We feel something painful and we just automatically try and get some distance from whatever is causing the pain. Itch, and you scratch. Generally folks don’t have to think about reacting; they just do. In fact, folks usually have to practice discipline to NOT react.

But you might not think of reflexes when it comes to dealing with someone in a relationship.

Not really physical ones, though. I’m talking about the mental and emotional reflexes.

Remember how you reacted when you first heard about someone close to you being hurt? You really didn’t need to process the fact in order to react to it. Your reaction may have been different from another person’s, but it was reflexive. Did you instantly go into denial? Did you start crying or shaking? Did your eyes get wide and your voice tremble? These and other reactions are very common to sudden bad news.

Now then: remember how you first reacted when your parent became angry at something you did, or something he or she thought you did. Consider some of these reactions:

·         Burst into tears.

·         Raised your voice in response.

·         Lashed out physically.

·         Ran away to another room.

·         Ran away to another house or location entirely.

·         Shut down and stopped responding.

·         Felt really, really bad.

These and other reactions are not uncommon for children. They aren’t that uncommon for adults either, although as we age we learn other reactions. Such as:

·         Defensive posturing (like watching a cat arch its back. Except with people it’s better posture, clenched fists, tight jaw, etc.)

·         Denial (“No I didn’t.”)

·         Lying (“No for real, I didn’t!”)

·         Shifting blame (“It was Sally who spilled the soda.”)

·         Counter-blaming (Oh yeah? Well, so what? You did whatever whatever whatever.)

·         Dismissal (“Whatever.”)

So we see that as we grow older we develop new reactions to a familiar stimulus, although the old standbys are still good.

Of course, you might spoil your lie when you instantly start crying.

When we boil it down, it still amounts to reacting to the stimulus out of reflex. Lots of choices for how you can react, but you probably have one or two standard reactions for specific circumstances or people. These default reactions are your outward manifestations of reflex.

When you get into a relationship, these reactions are probably already set in concrete with steel braces. The more relationships you engage in, the further they are developed, but you probably stick close to your defaults.

If you’ve ever gotten so mad at a partner that you called them by a previous partner’s name in the midst of hollering, you probably have a pretty good idea how that works.

Like water running down a path on a hill, it eventually erodes a little trough in the soil. That makes it easier and faster for the water to get down the hill. Unless you live on a really odd planet that has intelligent water, this was just a matter of something following the path of least resistance and shortest route in obeying gravity.

Reflexes happen the same way. Your brain develops little pathways that act like shortcuts between stimulus and response. The more often electric impulses follow a particular path in your brain, the more likely they will do so in the future. Only they will be able to follow the path a little faster next time.

For example, if we started off shutting down when blamed for something, and then developed a mechanism to relieve the pressure on us by throwing it back on the accuser, we begin remapping what path those little electric impulses take. The more successful we are with the new reaction, or the more we like the results of this new reaction, the faster the remapping occurs. Pretty soon we find we shut down and counter-blame in about equal measure, and eventually the counter-attack becomes our favorite reaction.

So that person begins to recognize the pattern, even if only subconsciously. They start reacting reflexively to your reactions. After awhile it’s like a well-choreographed ballet, with two dancers spinning around on a stage in relation to each other but not really thinking through each step.

Have you ever found yourself arguing with someone – again – only to discover a little bit later that you have no clue what either of you actually said or did? Reflex is a shortcut that you don’t have to think about. Just push the Play button and let it go.

Then you get with someone else, and it’s amazing. You don’t have to develop a new process, because the old stimuli start showing up and you just start reacting as usual.

Then suddenly you are standing with your jaw swinging in the breeze, because this new person didn’t react to your behavior like the old person did. Let the internal diagnostic begin!

“Hmmm. She asked me to take out the garbage. Check. I didn’t take out the garbage because this level of the game doesn’t have a Save Point. Check. She yelled at me to put the game down and take out the garbage because it has the diapers in it. Check. I yelled back ‘I’ll get to it when I’m good and ready, woman!’ Check. She started crying…. Wait a second. She didn’t start crying. Why am I laying on the floor and why does my jaw hurt so much?”

Perhaps that old process could do with some tweaking….

Again, the path those little electric blips follow in our noggin relates to what we perceive as the most desirable path. But as we find ourselves changing and growing, what used to be preferable may not be any longer. There might be a different path we would rather pursue.

That takes conscious evaluation of where we are, what we do, how we react, and most important what goal we really want to achieve with our reaction.

If we just want to win fights, that’s how we’ll develop our reflexes. Like a sniper honing his or her rapid aim.

But if we want peace, harmony, love, and a partner who won’t simply hand the relationship their two-week notice, we can develop reflexes for that instead. It may take a lot of doing, but it’s up to us. What do we really want?

Mindfulness says to be in the moment. We need to be MINDFULLY PRESENT, not merely reacting but taking a moment to analyze the situation and determine the preferred course. We need to be aware of what is happening, how we are reacting, and intentionally choosing a course to pursue.

It means getting out ahead of your reaction and choosing another option.

Of course, that reflex path is a pretty deep rut, so we might have to really yank on the brain to get it into another track. For awhile it will probably be after the fact, when we recognize that we reacted the old way out of habit, out of reflex. We need to figure out why we went that route, and what route we probably should have taken.

It ain’t easy. But relationships take work. If you want to succeed, it’s worth the effort.

For Your Consideration - A Simulation I Can Relate To

Now picture this scene:

I am at dinner with a beautiful woman. I’m not the only person who recognizes her beauty, and soon this gentleman makes a comment about her beauty. How do I react?

Survey says –

Ding ding ding. That’s right, I’m ticked off.

Why? He didn’t do anything other than tell her how beautiful she is. He’s totally right; she totally is. She smiled and accepted the compliment but didn’t reciprocate or escalate. He said his peace and that was that.

If things developed further, for example if she got up and joined him at his table for example, then yeah I might have reason to worry. If he pushed the matter and she became uncomfortable or offended, then that’s an issue.

But nothing really happened; I reacted with a possessive reflex. I got angry because he was intruding into my territory, doggone it! She’s MY date, so she’s MY territory.

Sheesh. Give me a minute and I’ll grab the post-hole digger, then I’ll start unrolling the barbed wire….

Men aren’t the only ones who put a fence around someone special to them. Women do too, although in the American Midwest it’s pretty standard behavior for guys.

But I’ve leaped way beyond the present moment and begun to apply past attitudes with a view to possible – POSSIBLE – future developments. Maybe I’m afraid of being shown up by another man, or replaced by this smooth-talking scumbag, or whatever. It’s my insecurity that mapped out that reflexive reaction.

By analyzing what really happened, I can gain control over my reaction to it. I am often so caught up in what I feel that I forget to notice that it is just a feeling. By staying in the moment, I notice that the past is intruding and threatening the future. I don’t want the evening to be ruined just because my dinner companion is knocking out everyone who sees her.

She has sovereignty over herself and her person. If she wants my help, she’s totally capable of asking. I will not decide how she will react, nor will I annihilate the guy for being wowed by this gorgeous lady. I will, however, recognize that my breathing is getting faster, my blood pressure is going up along with my temperature, and I will deal with those things. By managing those things and calming down, I am taking a huge step towards changing how I reflexively react.

Please repeat: I will not – I WILL NOT! – take my frustration out on her. Make that a priority on the reflex list.

It’s cool to tell her it caused a reaction in me. In fact, girls are pretty perceptive. She noticed my reaction before I was aware that I couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of my pulse in my ears. We can talk it out if necessary. But dude, really. It wasn’t her doing.

And if he was ogling her because she was sitting there naked, well shoot dawg. I took her to a restaurant like that. Lol.

As I said, in that example I reacted a certain way because I felt intruded upon. But the intrusion is nothing more than a perception on my part. And those perceptions are often geared towards “where it all was leading to”, in my mind. Instead of the event being a self-contained thing, it is seen as but step one in a series of steps. Imagination takes over, and soon I’m worrying. What would happen next? What would happen in the future?

That’s the topic for the next post.