Thursday 09th of September 2010
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| Wednesday, 14 October 2009 13:45 |
Maybe I am like a light switch? I was watching America's Funniest Videos last night and saw a short clip where a little girl, maybe about 1 and a half years old was riding in a small go-cart on a tiny track. She was in the car by herself, standing at the wheel and clearly enjoying every moment of the easy paced ride. The car stopped behind the one in front of it and an announcers voice indicated the ride was over, which was becoming increasingly clear to the little girl as her car was no longer moving. It took less than 3 seconds before she had a complete and utter melt down. She started crying, with a grief-stricken look on her face, she hit herself in the head with her hands and the bent over the steering wheel and started banging it. She'd gone from the top of the world to instant total upset - the America's Funniest Video announcer made a joke about road rage....A few moments later I was still thinking about the scenario...and thinking that perhaps my expectations of being 'even keel' all the time are a bit unreasonable. I thought about little babies and how fast their emotions change. I thought about myself and how fast I can flip from top of the world. Maybe it's natural for us to turn emotions on an off in an instant? Then I realized, the difference with most of us adults is that we STAY in the negative emotions more frequently. As an adult, I may be doing great, feeling good and happy, then the next moment I'm pissed off, sad or otherwise having a mini 'meltdown' of my own (and if truth be told, and I wouldn't be picked up and sent off for professional evaluation, I'd have a tantrum just as visible as that little girl on that ride). I just never realized maybe I'm wired that way... and, more importantly, I don't let it go. I'm sure that little girl was inconsolable for a few minutes, until her parents put her on the ride again, or let her cry for a little bit or she became distracted by something else she found fun, exciting or interesting. As an adult, I've learned to hang on to those feelings, almost for dear life. I'm starting to think that modeling a child, not only in the first part of going from happy to tantrum in 0.02 seconds flat, would be good, but also in the getting happy again in 0.03 seconds flat by changing my point of focus is a valuable and good practice as well. My brain tends to get carried away with the negative...I think it would be good to re-train it to float off with the positive. What do you think? Do you find yourself having similar reactions to things? How do you think it would impact your life to 'let it go' and get happy again, just as or almost as fast as you got unhappy? |
