I like to talk about practicing thoughtfulness in the hopes of influencing others to do the same. I find thoughtfulness turns our focus to more creative and innovative ways of solving conflict with others and pushes our limits as beings that interact with the very strange and unpredictable world that we live in.
We can often get caught up believing conflict is a competition, a struggle for power, or a way to blow off steam when you are stressed. This causes the kind of destructive interactions we usually remember as traumatic when it happens to us, but when we realize we've done something wrong to another person, this should be a time to learn about ourselves and address why we decided to cause injury or project blame.
Blame doesn't even need to be here. How do we even know that this experience we're currently having is an overall bad or good one? Unless we know the complete future, we don't see the peaks and valleys for what they are - a range of experiences - because having a 'big picture' perspective when we enter conflict with others will remind you to observe your actions. But it's soooooo hard. How do you consciously enter conflict with
a 'big picture' perspective?
You practice thoughtfulness. This isn't just being introspective, or coming up with new problems to distract yourself with - this is observing your actions as if you were, say, a manager of a team of 150+ personalities. You don't start as a manager, obviously, because that's kind of intimidating. Sometimes you start out as a kid, because life made being real with others too dangerous, so be aware this might stir up a lot of uncomfortable
feelings about digging up the past, in order to facilitate the being 'thoughtful' process. Regardless, you start from where you are, because anything else would just be extremely confusing and frustrating. Ask around and confirm this.
So, you learn to practice thoughtfulness for a few situations at the beginning. You can think of this like starting with meditation, and then practicing a few lessons you learned while meditating when you randomly become reminded of it during your non-meditative states. For others it may need to be more physically linked, so choose an activity/behavior that makes it easier for you to practice thoughtfulness.
For a lot of people their first instinct when choosing a behavior that helps them be more thoughtful is something they enjoy doing, or at least enjoy more than they don't. For others it is harder to distinguish thoughtfulness from having to give up something they might not even have enough of in the first place. Try to find out which one you are before you settle down and practice something long term, because you can end up choosing activities that just make it more difficult to practice thoughtfulness. I'm making this crucial because your first experience with something you love doing that also helps you practice thoughtfulness is an important one.
An example of this would be someone whose nature it is to love the outdoors, but was raised to believe that lifestyles that promote the freedom to travel were immoral. This person decides that the behavior that they enjoy and helps them practice thoughtfulness is participating in a group activity that sets up a booth at market times locally and practices giving advice for free. The thought was that they're outdoors, and they're helping others, right? But when I'm talking about thoughtfulness I'm also talking about your thought process and how you interact with others. So, this means there's an emotional aspect that can help you really nail this and find something you really love doing.
There's a debate here about logic vs emotion that I'm entering, I know, but I'm a firm believer in using each for the appropriate situation, and emotions typically need to be addressed first and foremost when making even the most trivial seeming decisions. When we make decisions, emotions that are properly received and accounted for in the process improve your ability to think things through clearly.
If you have a hard time accepting how you feel all the time, thoughtfulness will be difficult because emotions are at the center of strong memories - my un-pro opinion is that they pull strings on memories you literally #canteven handle consciously - since that's bad, there's no way you'll let them surface enough. These emotions get stuffed down below your threshold of awareness. They still come up though, and the majority of your thought process will be consumed with the avoidance of new experiences.
I'd like to have a side conversation with you first though, just to say:
If this is happening for you, this is where you can reach out to your (confidential if possible/preferable) local professional and licensed brain healers, aka therapists. If you're in a situation where that brings up shame or fear of being found out, don't worry! You're not alone! There's so much pressure in society to be normal, and the rewards don't outweigh the risks.
Taking care of yourself is like putting on your oxygen mask before helping others in a plane crash. You can't help others if you're suffocating in your current environment! Give yourself that much needed air so you can recover and help those around you from a position of wellness.
Also, From my personal un-pro experience, if you can find a knowledgeable and experienced psychiatrist that understands the interplay of trauma/ptsd/anxiety, you can also weed out the potential for chemical imbalances, which typically takes much longer to accomplish with talk only therapy.
Back to the topic that was previously at hand, knowing how you feel in your current situation can help you move through experiences with more grace and acceptance of this strange and unpredictable world we live in. Emotions have the potential to create conflict, but when you are aware of how you feel, you can include those feelings in your 'big picture' perspective.
When you through your feelings out on that table, just remember - the long term risks of putting your feelings out there are pretty small - people who alienate you for expressing your feelings may not know what they're feeling or doing themselves, so you may not want to take their advice to heart without taking that into account
as well.
So this is where it all ties in: finding activities and behaviors that are fun for you, the emotions, the strangeness, the conflict, the monkey in the brain pushing all your thought buttons at random, and the big picture perspective that helps you make it through your personal experiences and even your conflict with others.
Practicing awareness of all those things while you go about your day is like adding a board of advisors of all your most inspiring role models to your decision making process - things will still get noisy and a little crazy, and when you first start practicing it you'll have to work through the communication issues, but in my opinion it'll be so worth the things you learn on the way, and not just the things you learn about yourself!
Hope this helps
