Expectations & Our Desire to Resolve Conflict
Today we are talking about triggers, expectations, and our internal desire to resolve conflict.
What a trigger truly is
A trigger is anything that will give you a reaction or have you react. Think of it as something that will take you out of the ability to think and feel simultaneously. Our prefrontal cortex is where our executive functions are. Our limbic brain is the protective part of our brain. It's there to keep us safe. It's one of the oldest parts of the brain. So when we are triggered, our prefrontal cortex goes offline, and we're no longer able to be as logical or to think while we're feeling.
How the brain desires to resolve conflicts
We have this drive to resolve conflict, but most of us don't know how to fix it productively or peacefully. Connecting is really hard if we think we have to all be on the same page and have the same viewpoints and opinions. Peace is often thought of as external. We have become a world that relies on everything outside of us to bring us peace. That is something that will always fail. If we rely only on the external to bring us peace, then that means we have to have everybody and everything go in a way that we want. And that will not bring connection because we are driving for things to turn out the way we are hoping for. We forget that other people are involved in this exchange.
So, if we can see peace as an ability to act neutrally, in spite of our differences, then we're allowing ourselves to have more peace internally as well as externally. And if we define peace merely as the absence of conflict, then there will be very few opportunities for peace. So we're not looking for an absence of conflict what we're looking for is the ability to handle differences or conflict without going outside of our self-regulation and without getting too reactive.
Expectations are planned resentments
When we have expectations of things, we do not have flexible thinking. It's very easy for us to start developing resentments because they didn't wear the right sweater or use the right China, that sort of thing. Suppose we can move into our engagements with others from wanting to connect and temper our expectations. And then, we have more ability to stay in our own regulation and not become distressed by external behavior.
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