Lately I’ve been pondering the reasons for our actions. Does everything we do / say have a reason?
They say children behave in certain ways because they want attention, so I thought maybe it’s the same way with us adults. After all, we’re just grown up kids.
So I’ve been trying to “notice” what’s behind my behavior, what’s behind my every move. For a week I made an effort to ask myself: “What is the purpose of what I’m about to say (or do)?” before I said or did it.
At first, I told myself I was “adding to the conversation” or “clarifying something” but the more I asked myself my real purpose for what I was going the more I realized that I needed validation. I needed someone to agree with me. I needed a pat on the back, a “good job”, so to speak. I needed someone to pay attention to me!
Another interesting thing happened: I realized that perhaps attention wasn’t that important, and I would just stay quiet and listen more. I became more observant. I said less hurtful things.
Many times I think we act on automatic, especially when someone in our family “pushes our buttons”. It’s like we’re a machine trained to react a certain way. For me, you’ll get this reaction if you “tell” me what to do instead of “asking” me to do something. You’ll see a rare nasty side of me!
But on the day of this experiment, I was able to pause long enough to see myself falling into that trap. I actually noticed myself hearing the person “tell” me what to do, and in my brain, before I reacted, I actually replaced it and imagined them “asking” instead. And I was able to avoid a confrontation.
The other day I was in the bedroom talking to my boyfriend who was in the kitchen. Since we were in different rooms, with tvs blaring, and other noise interfering, he couldn’t hear what I was saying, which was annoying me. And I was yelling! After many times of asking me “What?” and me repeating myself, he finally walked into the room and asked one final time “What are you trying to tell me?”
It was at this moment that I realized that what I had been trying to tell him had no importance at all. A lot of trouble for nothing! A feeling of relief, embarrassment and laughter came to me. My answer : “Nothing, darling. I just needed attention!”
We laughed.