You Made Me Do It – Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Reactivity
You get cut off in traffic. In an annoyed state, you cut someone else off. You have just experienced emotional reactivity in its simplest state.
Dynamic emotional reactivity is where a negative emotion or behavior expressed by one party in an interaction causes a negative emotion in the party, often causing that other party to behave uncharacteristically negatively.
In our often negatively super-charged world, we can become ‘react-aholics’. We recall past disputes, often revising the actual dialogue to meet our needs; we imagine disagreements and feel that others are intentionally trying to annoy us, belittle us, or shame us.
Negative emotions are our built-in alarm system.
In our daily lives, we encounter a spectrum of emotions that shape our reactions and behaviors. Some of these emotions, known as fight or flight responses, are processed swiftly and instinctively, often bypassing rational thought. These include:
Fear
Anger
Anxiety
Disgust
Sadness
Contempt
As we experience negative emotions, we try to justify our feelings rather than taking the time to test the reality of what we are experiencing. This results in confirmation bias, a state where we discard or overlook evidence that contradicts our negative mindset. An example of this is if I experience shame in our interaction, I feel you are a jerk; therefore, you are a jerk, even if I have evidence to the contrary.
To break this cycle, we must reality test these automatic negative assumptions by asking crucial questions, starting with “Am I acting like the kind of person I want to be?”. Take a pause to access positive emotions or positive information we have about the other party. We can also examine what the other person might be reacting to in our own behavior.
When we dig deeper to access our real values and actively combat confirmation bias, our responses can be compassionate, fair, and respectful, bringing greater peace to both parties.
About the Author:
Frannie Hartley Horn, JD MA ALC NCC, holds a Special Membership in the Alabama State Bar and is a practicing therapist under the supervision of Carol Hollis-White, LPC-S.