Reining in our hot buttons

This pandemic is stressing all of us moment and it’s also the perfect time to encounter folks who are able to “push our buttons” either on purpose or by accident. The next question is how can we manage it well?

Our “buttons” are those sensitive areas that can make us react as we communicate with others. They vary in size and sensitivity but no matter what the intensity, it’s a good idea to be prepared to handle minor situations that have the potential to degenerate into major fights or unpleasant situations.

Obviously, when our buttons get pushed, we react as if we were thrust by a force that's far much stronger, than our rational grown-up minds, and we strenuously defend ourselves or attack the individual who has provoked us.

Psychologists claim that getting our buttons pushed almost invariably sends us on a nasty return trip to our past. By contrast, the adult that we have become is normally reasonable, logical, objective, and controlled, which means that when we've gotten our buttons pushed, we’re developmentally regressing back into the little kids we used to be and the grown up in us has suddenly checked-out.

We’re so shocked that our irresistible impulse is to regain some sense of safety, to reduce our precarious sense of vulnerability and to act out the emotion that now holds us in its grip. It is therefore critical to be able to identify what pushes our buttons.

Chances are, the stimulus of the moment will unconsciously reminds us of something that has so much upset us in the past you weeks, months, years, or even decades ago, that we feel obligated to go berserk in the present.

We therefore have to dig deep into our troubled past to determine what causes us become so upset at this kind of provocation. We’ll explore that process and the causes in a next blog. In the meantime don’t let others get under your skin!