Micro, Macro: Perspectives on Mindsets

[Darkkin]

(If anyone is screaming frustration at this point, don't worry, we completely understand. Yet another long winded topic...sigh.)

Micro and macro. Little things, big things. It is one of the first concepts we learn and it is also plays a huge roll in how we learn and interact with the world. I have dysphonetic dyslexia, meaning I cannot sound out words to save my soul, but I know how to read and write very well. Why? Because of an inherent work around of rote memorization recall akin to eidetic memory in the way it functions.

My term for it is touchpoint memory. New information is taken in and unconsciously woven into workable contexts, allegories, idioms, axioms, and pop culture references. It is a biomechanical tessellation of information. And because it is a tessellation, I can shift from micro to macro on many topics, (and there are plenty of topics I have absolute zero interest in and thusly, no frame of contextual reference), but I do have points where the system gets stuck my dysphonetic dyslexia being one of the biggest. Another is struggling to understand certain fixed point perspectives because my own weirdly flexible one.

From the smallest everyday things to the larger picture of work, school, life in general, equilibrium is the state sought by most things. From our own bodies and minds to our environments everything is connected and fluid. Turmoil in one can ripple outward like a stone cast into a still pool. We all know where this allegory is going. Tsunami. And it happens to everyone. No matter how much earthquake prevention we have in place, there will be events that rock our inner pools.

And therein lies the whole point of my ramble. Earthquake prevention. Small things one can do to stabilize and disperse the force of sudden shifts/shocks over a wider area, thus lessening the potential for damage to the whole. The answer is literally in the small things. It is in finding the little victories like completing a dreaded chore or getting off work early on a nice day. (I'm not saying grab a basket of rose petals and go skipping down the lane singing a happy tune...realistic expectations are a must.)

e.g. I've had the closing shift at the bookshop the last three days. Not my favourite, but there are fewer people and a couple of really good, in depth conversations with coworkers on mythologies and their historical contexts. Not something I usually get on the opening shift. It felt good to stretch my brain and engage those deeper levels. Pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but it was a positive attribute of my day.

The mirco settings become the foundations one holds onto when life hands us an earthquake. Venting pressure on those settings is an absolute must. It happens in the form of meltdowns, shutdowns, verbal altercations, etc. These are a universal phenomenon, not a moral crime. The guilt and shame of the venting process can make it feel like that, but it is a reality of being human, of having emotions. Water sloshes out of one's pool onto the floor.

There are a few options. Accept the boil over for what it is and let the spillage evaporate at its own rate. Fight the sloshing, try to keep the water in the pool, and end up drenched and exhausted in the process. Clean up the overspill once the waters have settled. If one wrings one's mop back into the pool that can bring unwanted debris along with it. For many people the process is going to be a gamut of these depending on the context of the slosh source and the individual.

But there is still another reaction. There is the rock toss. And this one, many can understand because it is so easy to do, especially if one is angry or upset. We throw rocks, into our own pool, into others' pools. It's the: We're upset, so why shouldn't they be too! mind set. This is where self sabotage, guilt, and shame all come from. And since nobody lives in a glass house, it is safe to assume we have all been here at one point or another, some on a more regular basis than others.

Throwing rocks into one's own pool doesn't seem like it would have much of an impact on anyone else, right? Not necessarily. When those ripples started by one's own rocks spread, they can and do impact those around us. Habitual negative (self) talkers can very hard to be near because their ripple patterns are overwhelming to others' pools. If one's own pool is not very deep, but wide, these wave patterns can swamp them. Those with narrower, but deeper pools can fair better because they can dive deep. (Introverts, you know this trick.)

Others feel the effects of seething pool currents and many will retreat to restore their own balance. They are not looking to throw rocks into the pool that is already seething. (There are people who do throw rocks just to see how big the waves can get, but these individuals are not the case standard.) More often it is the perspective of the rock's source that is the issue.

e.g.

Individual Q took two steps back for breathing room. Individual O took this as a sign of disapproval or dislike. Individual O is now upset with Q. O has a habit of tossing rocks into their own pool to vent. (This is what negative self talk looks like folks.) O's waves become larger and the sloshing very pronounced. Q retreats even more. O throws even more rocks into the water. What does water do? It flows over the path of least resistance impacting everything in its path. And O looks at Q as the source of the rock because Q retreated instead of getting drenched, but it was O who was the actual source of their own rocks and seething because there are no earthquake prevention measures in place.

People are going to be selective about who they are willing to get drenched for. Like trust, it is a courtesy that is earned and should not be taken for granted. That stupid little thing that blew up into a screaming match or a passive aggressive war starts with the individuals. Understand and work with your flow, the road work, mindfullness, conscious efforts, those stabalize and deepen our pools. Yes, there will still be earthquakes and rocks, but knowing the sources of the rocks and having good foundations is a crucial step in succeeding in the macro seas of this thing we know as life.

Sorry about the ramble, but rogue waves have been swamping a lot of folks recently and personally, I do better if I articulate things in a logical construct. Something productive in lieu of tossing rocks into my own pool.

What are your thoughts or methods of coping when you want to toss a rock?

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Just my personal perspective, but typically the internal/external stressors will begin to trigger my emotional centers,...and when that happens, my logic and reasoning centers will be down-regulated. In other words, I start to loose control,...and I actively push my emotions down and risk imploding into a shutdown,...or I explode into a meltdown.

I am far more likely to shut down. Voice gets quiet,...almost to a non-verbal state. I try to escape into a quiet room and take care of myself. I hate, hate, hate, loosing control and allowing my emotions to get the better of me.

I am one that has an active internal monologue,...I spend a lot of time talking to myself inside my head. It's almost like I have this person inside a control room inside my head,...and speaking to me as I go about my day. He's helpful, especially when things begin to become stressful for whatever reason,...get's me back on track with emotional down-regulation and logic and reasoning up-regulation.

 

[Knower of nothing]

Water is always such a good analogy for all things related to mood. I'm not sure I even have anything to add. Perhaps that everyone should learn about the concept of trauma dumping. And maybe install some of these:

 

[Thinx]

I'd say the key thing for me is remembering I choose how I behave, and taking responsibility for that, which may mean withdrawing if over stressed.

Even though I may be experiencing the Other as somehow causing my stress, I am always able to notice that and decide if I will be reactive or proactive, and that keeps me feeling better. I am responsible for me. That's the goal anyways. Sometimes it drifts of course. Oops. But often I can do it.

Finding out I had high autistic traits or Aspergers was a key to developing that strategy. It helped me understand why some issues were pervasive that I had worked on a lot. It's my neurology. Stopped trying to fix some things that weren't so much broken, as different.

I didn't quite understand how the dysphonetic dyslexia affects this area of discussion? I may well have missed something obvious about that. I nearly said, can you spell it out more clearly?! But, can you clarify, how that links in, do you mean it's a source of added stress and confusion?

 

[Darkkin]

The fact that I have a huge tract of missing context. I cannot sound out words or identify syllables. The word is the word. My brain says there are no parts, only word.

It is the same thing with people whose pools are chronically seething because they continuously throw rocks into their mental waters. That chronic state of unrest (negativity) I do not understand. My own neurotype with emotions is boil over and done. It is not worth the data storage. So I don't waste mental resources on it.

(I will toss a big ass rock in my own pool occasionally, but it goes deep. Very deep and no one sees the wave pattern. It peters out very quickly, but my pool goes down for miles. Not the smartest move, but I am a flawed soul.)

Contextually speaking, I do not have a working construct for those who invest heavily in prolonged, and in some instances chronic, bouts of seething waters and its resulting fallout. It is a pattern I learned to identify very early and take efforts to avoid.

While it is not openly aggressive, it has culminating affects, taking spoons I can ill afford to lose. My brain is generally sunny by nature and it finds its bright side pretty quickly. Chronic rock tossers seem to make the depth of my own pool seem wrong or unfair because I can dive to avoid the worst of a rogue wave, but the clutter left behind is still there.

The perspective is a struggle to comprehend and my empathy is not absent. Usually it is easy for me to understand someone's perspective, but like sounding out words, this specific mindset I fail to understand because there is a blank space where that knowledge should be.

Unlike my syllable gap which has a hardwired work around, the only way to add knowledge to fill that blank space is to shell out spoons continuously. The cost of such knowledge is not worth what is being demanded. It isn't a remotely fair exchange.

In a nutshell I think I figured out what rankles about the issue. The reciprocity of spoons because it simply is not balanced or fair. The situational context does not justify the exchange.

 

[Callistemon]

People are going to be selective about who they are willing to get drenched for. Like trust, it is a courtesy that is earned and should not be taken for granted.
...and having good foundations is a crucial step in succeeding in the macro seas of this thing we know as life.

Thank you for a thoughtful post. The bit I have quoted is the modus operandi I've grown into as I have gotten older and is much better than the less selective approach I had before.

A writer friend put it like this, "I won't set myself on fire anymore to keep other people warm."

PS: I can expand on what I mean by better if you would like.

 

[Darkkin]

Fire and water, both forces of life and destruction. Either borrow a selkie pelt, become a phoenix, or have the sense to get out of the way.

 

[Callistemon]

Water is always such a good analogy for all things related to mood. I'm not sure I even have anything to add. Perhaps that everyone should learn about the concept of trauma dumping. And maybe install some of these:

And now the earth science person in me says, "If people stopped interfering with natural coastline processes and respected them instead, we wouldn't need these things in the first place!"

...does it make a good metaphor?

 

[Callistemon]

Further to some of what you're reflecting on here, and also on your profile page today - something that influenced me in a big way was, in my late 20s, working in a school with a behaviour management and pastoral care strategy that sought to reverse the trend of disproportionate resources and time being spent on negative behaviour, at the expense of people with positive behaviour and of overall student outcomes both curriculum and life lessons. It was and remained one of the best places I ever worked at, despite having serious social issues in the catchment.

Boundaries were clear and students were included in the rationale for them. Anyone who crossed the boundaries and didn't immediately self-correct had to leave the group for a "buddy class" with paperwork that they had to fill in, which guided them step by step through a reflection and conflict resolution steps for the situation they had caused. They then met with the teacher out of class time to present their paperwork and resolve the conflict, with the teacher mentoring and with, most of the time, a mutually courteous conclusion and with the student being warmly welcomed back to the next class. (If not, they had one more day to sort it while parents were notified, or they would then be excluded from all classes until they fixed the situation.)

It taught misbehaving students self-control, insight about the effects of their actions on others, and conflict resolution skills - super valuable stuff. And the aim was always for staff and students alike (both ways) to be really positive and respectful with each other, and to maximise group learning in a respectful and positive atmosphere.

At no stage did anyone else sort out a conflict on a student's behalf, or do the paperwork that resulted from the incident for them. Teacher time went exclusively to presenting interesting well-prepared lessons and modelling positive behaviour and respect. We were educators and mentors, not authority figures. And not a second of time was to be diverted from positive activity to negative if possible - the person who had caused the situation had to own it - they had to sort it out, but friendly adults (including their class teacher) would mentor them through it (had to be mutually respectful).

It really worked - it minimised the amount of inconvenience to others from negative behaviours, maximised interesting lessons and courteous and warm student-staff interactions, created a safe environment for kids who wanted to learn in class, taught self control and conflict resolution skills and personal responsibility.

Too often, when you don't have a considered strategy like this in a school, the people with negative behaviours end up disrupting everyone from their own learning and social goals and hijacking time and attention from everyone else to tend to problems that are actually their own responsibility to address and sort out. So they hold everyone else to ransom, and it is detrimental to them as well as everyone else. They learn entitlement and "everything stops for me and my problems and I can do what I like and I am more important than everyone else" unless that kind of scenario is proactively prevented across the board.

Kids thrived at that school, not just the cooperative ones, but also the ones who had not learnt about healthy boundaries and considering your effect on others at home. The few that totally hated it tended to have sociopathic traits, and those ended up with the school psychologists, which is a much better outcome for them and others alike than having them running the show and holding others to ransom.

Now, @Darkkin - microcosm and macrocosm.