Nobody Makes You…
“Nobody makes you. It’s your choice.” If I had a dime for every time my mom would say that to my brother and I…
Let me explain. My brother and I would get into some sort of spat, feelings would escalate, and it would end with one or both of us running to our parents ready to report the damage incurred from the incident.
We’d each unload our side of the story, infusing flair at every point on how the other was in the wrong, and “caused us” to respond how we did. Basically it became a blame game.
Something like this:
“Yes, I hit him, but he made me so mad!”
“She yelled at me first and made me so angry!”
“He wouldn’t listen so I had to.”
I HATED when my mom used the phrase above. It made sense…but didn’t. It fell into the realm of, “Because I said so.”
Let’s unpack what it actually means (and maybe a more opportune time to teach it/use it rather than in the heat of the moment.
Let’s start with emotions. They are 100% created inside us.
Our body cues give us signals (heart racing, flushed cheeks, quickened breath, etc.)
Our minds race to take in the context around us to make sense of the body cues. Have I been in a situation like this? Is this fear? Excitement? What does this experience mean?
We become cognizant of and label an emotion.
Think about how fast that happens.
Our body cues are exactly the same for multiple emotions. WE ascribe a feeling based on what we perceive around us.
So…what’s the big deal?
Here’s the big deal: we have a lot of control when we perceive our surroundings to label what we are feeling and how we handle it.
Consider this.
I’m preparing to give a lesson to a class. My heart is racing, my hands are warm. I look up. I’m at UT, in a classroom with 15 students.
Now’s the point I have control. I can see that room, those people, as threatening or scary BECAUSE I am teaching my first class at a college level in 20 years and they aren’t smiling and they are looking at their computer and…
OR
I can see that room, those people, as exciting new opportunities BECAUSE I am teaching my first class at a college level in 20 years and they are seriously looking at the syllabus on their computer and…
Same situation. Different emotion label = different reaction/actions/words.
When we ACTIVELY choose to look at situations and frame them, we can actually change our emotions and our behavior.
That puts a lot of weight on WHY we need to teach, practice, and model perspective taking. It’s not just a nice thing to help us understand others - it’s important for us to learn to frame our own experiences well.
I’m not advocating for “spinning” everything positively or putting a silver lining on everything. Our instinctual center, however, causes us to rush to protect, which tends to put us in a negative-first space.
That’s why it’s so important to take one to three breaths when we get those initial body cues. That gives your amygdala time to check for threat but not run with it if it’s not necessary. That’s how we build the Prefrontal Cortex, or thinking center, of our brains. That Prefrontal Cortex helps us go from “This is a threat to…hmm…what else could this be? How else can I think about this situation?”
Let’s go back to my brother and I. Think about your kids, your classroom.
Imagine my mom using those same words at a low-stress time and making them inspiring: “You have this invisible superpower,” teaching me how emotions really work and how I have control over them. Maybe - “Hey, I learned something” kind of way. Imagine as a kid I learned to name a bunch of different emotions to label those. Imagine my mom and I taking the time to do some perspective taking – flipping the script as I did with the UT example above - to help me see situations in different ways. Using books, personal examples, and even movies as avenues.
Guarantee there would be less blaming others. Less defensiveness. Less “losing it.”
What your kids will have is more perspective taking. More patience. More empathy.
As the adage says, “Mom’s always right.” I’m grateful I heard those words, hung on to them, and dug in deeper to understand them.
If you are a podcast listener, here’s a Hidden Brain episode you might enjoy!
