PRE-CONDITIONS FOR REGRESSION
There are five physical, psychological and emotional states that if avoided will minimize the number of times and tendencies to regress, get small, or lose it. I often point out that these states are not only common but really a part of almost everyone’s personal and professional life. Many work places like Google spend time and energy reducing these preconditions and that is part of the reason they receive over four thousand applications per day.
1. EXHAUSTION
Mental or physical exhaustion greatly increases one’s time in the past. Extreme tiredness can make a grown man or woman yearn for their care-free college days or a perpetual extended beach vacation. Exhaustion can take us out of the pre-frontal, rational neo-cortex. It can send us to pre-verbal state of the reptilian brain and either curl up and take a long, winter’s nap.
Exhaustion makes us more susceptible to verbal, emotional or physical abuse from bosses, parents, our children or people in authority. It makes our skin paper thin and we tend to lose our ability to say things like, “No”, “No more”, “Enough”, or “Stop.”
When we’re tired we can’t think about the big picture. We exchange things that are good for us for short term, temporary fixes. We tend to settle for much less than we want or deserve in personal or professional situations and even relationships. We have a “short fuse”; we’re grouchy, irritable, impatient and impractical. We say and do things we may regret for years to come. We rage at the too slow lady in front of us at the store checkout line and swear at the DMV.
Question: Does exhaustion ever make you yearn for the comfort of a blanky and a bottle?
In Lesson 37 we will look at how being excessively hungry can trigger a regressive outburst of anger or rage.
For more information go to johnleebooks.com and read The Anger Solution: The Proven Method for Attaining Calm and Developing Healthy, Long-Lasting Relationships, Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately, The Missing Peace--all available on Amazon.com.
I am really enjoying your blog. I definitely relate to this post. I do have a tendency to fly off the handle more easily when I am tired or trying to do too much. Hence I have been paring down over the last couple of years. Simplicity is key for me. Eating local is my next agenda. Looking forward to your next post on the hunger trigger. What do you think about how different foods effect your anger? I haven't looked at all your posts so I am unsure as to whether you have written on this topic yet.
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