Dhaka Diaries /Mar/2020
As
we live on this earth, we are privileged to have access to so many natural
resources that we enjoy; air, water, trees, atmosphere. These resources are
free and play their very important part to make life beautiful and worth
living. But along will all these free natural resources, there is yet another
resource that is free, prevalent everywhere but negatively impacts our life.
This is the growing ‘Nonsense’ around us. We face it every day, everywhere, at
our place of work, place of living and now multiplying very rapidly into social
life through networking platforms.
Well,
why I picked up this topic to write? The reason for me is that ‘Nonsense’ is
becoming an integral part of our life. It comes from anywhere and anytime, and
you have no option but to face it. And how you react to it or do not react to
it becomes the measure of your composure. When all other natural resources are
under threat of depleting or getting polluted, ‘Nonsense’ around us seems to
keep growing and growing. Hence, we have no choice but to embrace it into our
life. That being the case, it is apt that we understand ‘Nonsense’ in greater
detail.
The
Oxford dictionary describes ‘Nonsense’ as -ideas, statements or belief that you
think are silly and not true. Or something you feel is silly, illogical, lacks
any meaning, reason or value, or that does not make sense to you. Here the word
“YOU” is very important in defining something as nonsense. So, what you
perceive as nonsense might have a very different connotation for the other
persons. Something that you feel nonsense, may not be so nonsense for others.
That being the case, it is very critical that we horn our skills to handle
nonsense in life. While we have done enough to enhance our skills in technical,
management and finance related subjects, but I have not come across any reading
material or training that has prepared me -How to handle the Nonsense? We see
often that people have excellent knowledge of his domain, good in team
management, interpersonal skills and many other necessary skills of profession
and life. But when they face with a little bit of ‘Nonsense’ around them, it
dislodges them. In their haste to respond to such a situation, they commit acts
that are not warranted or desired, and soon when the environment is normal,
they repent their own such actions. They now wish that perhaps there were so many
better ways they could have handled it. And frankly speaking, while all the
other skills differentiate yourself from the lot, your ability to manage
nonsense helps you to steer through many of the turns and bumps on your road to
success. Let’s revisit “Nonsense” from an entirely new perspective.
Nonsense
can hit you in two ways -intrusive and non-intrusive. Intrusive Nonsense is
something that affects you by annoying you and making you uncomfortable. It
causes disruption or annoyance by intruding where one is not welcomed or
invited. Here you do not have the option to duck it or avoid the encounter.
It’s like somebody walking up to you, disrupting your current activity and
saying something which seems absolute nonsense to you. Or somebody calls you
and speaks something which you feel is nonsense.
Non-intrusive
Nonsense is something that does not instigate you to respond or gives a choice
if you really feel the need to respond. It does not intrude or invade your
current personal space. It does not invite you to react to the situation
immediately and get you enough time to digest the issue and then plan a
suitable reaction. For instance, it can be a ‘Nonsense’ you see on social
media, or an email sharing some communication. Or many of the debates that
happen on some of the news channels. I say these debates as ‘nonsense’ as it
starts, progresses and ends with no takeaway for the viewers. It is absolute to
link to TRP for the channels and eyeballs on any specific day in that channel.
Nonsense both intrusive and non-intrusive creates some ripples in us, and that
leads to some action. So, let’s see how we prepare our self to handle nonsense
in any form that comes to us.
Nonsense
leads to anger within us, and anger has clear scientifically proven facts that
it affects the brain and body. We have seen from childhood in cartoon like “Tom
and Jerry”, that when Tom is angry with Jerry. steams come out of the ears, red
creeps over the body from head to toe, and there may be even an explosion or
two. It’s not as entertaining to watch in real life, but when you encounter
nonsense you do get angry, and the state of anger causes physical effects in us
as well. The feeling of anger will be different from person to person, while
for some it builds up slowly and for some within seconds like a fire, or a
storm raging within. As I am not trained on the physical anatomy of the body, I
did a bit reading on how anger affects the brain and body.
While
anger is the most challenging emotion to deal with, it is best controlled if it
is more understood. In the brain, the Amygdala is the section that deals with
emotions. The brain’s two almond-shaped amygdalae are typically no bigger than
a couple of cubic centimeters in adults and are found near the center of the
brain. When you face some nonsense, it leads to either of disappointment,
frustration, or you feel rejection, fear, and ultimately makes you angry. On
one side you can say that “anger is an unnatural distortion of who you are” and
on the other, you can say “anger is the natural emotion that alerts us that
something has deviated from the natural order that how things should move. The
first spark of anger activates the amygdala and it goes crazy. It wants to do
something. The moment you face an “intrusive nonsense” and makes you angry the
response from the amygdala can come in a quarter of a second. At the same time,
the blood flow increases to the frontal lobe, the part of the brain over the
left eye. This area controls reasoning and likely what’s keeping yours from
throwing the paperweight across the room when you are angry. These two parts
balance each other quickly and there is research to prove that neurological
response to anger lasts for two seconds only.
There
is a Harvard Case study: The Lessons of the brain: The Phineas Cage story;
which explains the importance of the frontal lobe in controlling our rage. In
1848, Gage, a nice, dependable well behaved and professionally successful
railroad worker suffered an accident in which a rod went through his skull,
right above the left eye. From then on, Gage was angry, irritable and unstable,
and not just because he'd had a rod driven through his skull. Rather, the rod
had destroyed the part of his brain that could inhibit an angry response.
Without elaborating further into anger psychology, it can be simply summarized anger
leads to the release of stress hormones cortisol’s, adrenaline and
non-adrenaline. Too much of these stress hormones will decrease serotonin, the
hormone that makes you happy!
When
now we have a thorough understanding of what happens when you get “Anger
provoked by Nonsense” let's learn how to improve our response. There is a nice
saying by Buddha
“Holding
on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at
someone else; you are the one who gets burned”.
At
this moment I would like to introduce the term “Anger Inoculation” to you. This
is a very powerful tool that can help us to moderate our anger and control
intrusive nonsense that we face day in day out. The concept called “Anger
Inoculation” is taken from the work done by Davis, M., Eshelman, E.R., &
McKay, M. (2008); The relaxation and stress reduction workbook. Davis (2008)
explains that “the idea behind anger inoculation is that if you progressively
expose yourself to memories of more and more provocative anger situations –
while using coping skills – you will learn to manage the anger response.”
Coping means to invest one's own conscious effort, to solve personal and
interpersonal problems, in order to try to master, minimize or tolerate stress
and conflict. The psychological coping mechanisms are commonly
termed as coping strategies or coping skills.
Anger
inoculation won’t prevent you from feeling the emotion of anger. Rather, it gives you effective coping
strategies so that you may more confidently face situations that typically
provoke anger without losing control and damaging important relationships.
Let’s
work on being more tolerant of nonsense and use the anger inoculation
techniques to be in better control of the situation:
1.
Coping Thoughts
Your thinking
has an incredible influence on how intense and prolonged you will experience
anger. When your thoughts are fueling
the fire, it is not surprising when your level of anger intensifies. Conversely, when your thoughts are designed
to accept, validate, and neutralize anger, the emotion deescalates. Allow your
thinking to guide and transform your
emotions.
General Coping Thoughts:
•
Getting
upset will not help this situation.
•
I
am able to remain calm and relaxed.
•
This
is temporary. This will pass.
•
I
am mindful of my thoughts and behaviors.
•
It
is up to me how to respond to this situation.
•
“Respond”
… don’t “react.”
•
I
need some personal space to cool down before continuing in this conversation.
•
I
have choices about how to handle this situation.
•
I
choose to accept this situation.
•
I
choose to change this situation.
•
I
choose to leave this situation.
2.
Inoculation
Reflect
upon five specific situations when you have struggled with anger in your life
(the more recent and/or intense, the better).
Take the time to write down each situation on a sheet of paper. Beneath
each anger-triggering event, write down the following:
•
The
specific thoughts that triggered your anger.
• Any
cognitive distortions that you notice
embedded within those thoughts. Cognitive
distortions are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn’t
really true. These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative
thinking or emotions — telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate,
but it really only serves to keep us feeling bad about ourselves.
• Coping thoughts that you can
use to counteract or accept those thoughts.
•
Revise the cognitive
distortions to allow them to become more accurate and based in reality.
Example:
•
Anger-triggering
thought:
“He always does stuff like this. He’s
just a jerk.”
•
Cognitive
distortions:
Overgeneralization, labeling.
• Coping/revised
trigger thought:
“This actually hasn’t happened in some time.
Maybe he was just having a bad day.”
But
we all know that many times in life even when science does not work,
spiritualism has the answer. When you have growing levels of nonsense around
you want to stay insulated from it, just do what Jesus did.
Remember how
Jesus asked forgiveness for the angry mob that had mocked Him and called for
His crucifixion. Jesus’ words “Father, forgive them for they do not know what
they are doing. Even in His agony, Jesus’ concern was for the forgiveness of
those who counted themselves among His enemies. He asked the Father to forgive
the thieves on the cross who jeered at Him. He asked the Father to forgive the
Roman soldiers who had mocked Him, spit on Him, beat Him, yanked out His beard,
whipped Him, put a crown of thorns on His head, and nailed Him to the cross.
So,
when you are faced with a Nonsense, take a deep breath just say it to yourself-
“Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing!
Happy Living
Robin
Good and useful
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