“Wait! Did you say my thoughts were ‘screwed’?” my client demanded.
With a smile, I clarified … “I did not. I said they were ‘skewed’.”
He looked confused as he paused to ponder.
“Is there a difference?”
I smiled again as I casually responded, “Not much, I guess!”
We both laughed.
I had been speaking to him about some of the facets of emotional intoxication. How that when we become intoxicated with emotional reaction, it releases chemicals that interfere with our brain’s logical thought processes.
Suddenly, 2 + 3 no longer equals 5. Somehow it equals 6 ½.
We were taking steps toward developing emotional sobriety, and addressing his skewed thinking that often interfered.
Before we take a deeper dive … let’s conclude this. Over time, patterns become more pronounced. It’s key that we execute our own self-style intervention before we become what we can no longer see that we have become.
Skewed thinking, or cognitive distortions, are not unusual in anyone with unresolved trauma. Early trauma often creates an interference in the functioning of the amygdala in our brains, distorting thought processes and perceptions.
In a state of emotional intoxication, it’s common for these to rise and take a stand.
Very few of us can step outside ourselves and see ourselves for who we are and who/what we are becoming. We’re living out the subconscious and often unaware that that’s what is happening.
“So how do I know if that’s what’s popping up?” my client asked.
I shared with him how these cognitive distortions (or skewed thinking) normally present themselves:
- Overuse of words like “always” and/or “never”
- All or nothing thinking
- Assumptions and wild jumps to conclusions
- Exaggeration of negatives
- Downplay of positives
- Unrealistic expectations of self (even more so of others)
- Taking undue responsibility for things to achieve victim status
- Refusing ownership of behaviors (that others have witnessed)
- Bent toward worrying or expecting the worst
- Living by and setting “should” standards
- Pervasive sense of doom (living under a dark cloud)
- Refusing to hear perspectives different than one’s own
“Oh … that’s me! I always looked at all of that as honorable. Like I’m protecting others (or maybe just myself) from disappointment,” my client confessed.
I understood as I see that often.
I asked if he could see how this could affect his daily attitude, as well as his worldview.
He paused and looked out over the golf course to gather his thoughts.
“Well, when I see it in other leaders in my company, I call that anal retentive, and point out how it keeps them in analysis paralysis. Yet when I see it in me, I think it’s noble or something.”
I admired his honesty. And I know you know that’s what it takes to develop emotional sobriety … honesty.
After soaking in the validation, he chucked and asked, “So are you going to help me ‘unscrew’ my thinking this week so that I can get over this emotional drunkenness?”
I acted as if it was a novel idea and grinned as I said: “What a great plan!”
I’m guessing that you have seen some of these signs of “skewed thinking” yourself when you are experiencing moments of emotional intoxication you.
Have you ever defended something starting out emphatically only to arrive to arrive at a moment of skewed thinking reaping?
I thought so.
I shared with my client some ways we could begin to ‘un-skew’ his thinking and wanted to share them with you this week. Because doing so is a major step toward emotional sobriety.
“Part of emotional sobriety lies in learning how to live with and manage a certain amount of stress, ambivalence, fear, anxiety, and disappointment, and how to temper those emotions and feelings with love, acceptance, productivity, and community.” Dr. Tian Dayton
1. Pause twice daily for an assumption assessment.
“But what if my assumptions are usually right?” my client pleaded.
I responded quickly: “That’s the problem. When we aren’t emotionally sober, we’re absolutely convinced our assumptions are right … whether they are or not!”
He was with me as I continued.
“I bet you’ve been there before. Caught up in a moment … making assumptions and reacting accordingly. Only to find out later that you were at least slightly off base?”
With a redness crawling up his neck, he nodded sheepishly, and responded, “Or A LOT off base!?”
He paused, looked at the floor, gathered his thoughts, and continued.
“We were leaving on a trip, and my wife had a small extra suitcase that she asked me to put in the car. I snatched it up and growled out, ‘God forbid we go on a trip without you taking work to do’! But I guess she wasn’t emotionally drunk because…she just let out a small sigh and kept gathering her things.”
He paused as the redness crawled to his forehead and muttered, “Turns out it was gifts to surprise me with for my birthday.”
I had to chuckle … and he got the point.
I invited him to join the 2x daily assumption assessment for the next week.
“I’d like for you to set two times a day to do this assessment. You’ll need 10 minutes each time,” I instructed.
The eye roll looked as if I had asked him to take 10 hours to do yardwork on a 101-degree day!
I shared this exercise with him, as I’d like to share with you.
But first … you cannot just think your way out of this. You must WORK your way out of it.
Following these steps just 2 times daily for a week can interrupt the deep grooves in your brain that lead you to reactions that you regret.
Press pause twice daily and ask yourself to find 2 assumptions you made since your last assumption check. Then journal (or at least make bullet point notes) about these things…
- What assumption did you make?
- What did that assumption lead you to do? (or not do)
- Examine all that followed, including, but not limited to … words, facial expressions, body language, behavior moods, sounds, body movements, etc.
- Were there any that you would take back if you could?
- How did it affect the others who experienced the results of your assumption?
- If you were being filmed to send evidence to me for your next session, how do you wish you had responded?
- What assumption might have led you to the response you would have desired in the first place?
“So, you’re basically trying to change everything about me with this, and have evidence for every misstep I take?” he accused in fun.
I sparred back: “Well, I guess you are confessing to more assuming than I have thought since it’s everything about you?”
He got it!
I’m hoping you will join him in the twice daily assumption assessment. It will be a major step forward in conquering emotional intoxication!
Don’t make it a heavy … let it be an aim, a focus, a target. And ‘give up’ defending that version of you that you know NOW you WANT to change!
“Don’t make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.”
Miguel Angel Ruiz
2. When feeling emotional, shuffle your deck of perspectives.
“I can see I get to opt out of this one! My wife thinks I have a problem with gambling, so there’s no shuffling for me,” my client retorted!
I laughed and replied: “I have a funny feeling that she might be alright with me suggesting that you shuffle the deck on perspectives.”
When we are emotionally intoxicated, we all tend to think our perspective is not only right, but it’s the only one that makes any sense.
Although it plays out in a manner that often appears narcissistic, it is truly a result of being stuck to what our brain produces in moments of emotional intoxication.
Have you ever heard it said that you cannot reason with someone under the influence? Not only is that accurate, but it holds true in the case of emotional intoxication as well.
(From my friend in AA…I’m alcoholic and if I get drunk people around me are not just dealing with the version of me struggling to respond soberly when under the influence, but the full on version of me ‘under the influence’ that’s not me at all. I become the alcohol.)
Under the influence (whether it be substance, processes, or emotions) the brain resorts to “my way is the only way.” But with emotional intoxication … the added caveat is that ‘any other way is wrong, or at the very least foolish’.
In the state of emotional drunkenness, the ‘drunk’ will fight to prove their perspective is right, even if it doesn’t really matter. They’re unable to drop their need to be right.
It’s not a mere desire to be right, it’s a NEED! Therefore, they are unable to drop the matter. An hour later, a week later … years later!
They’ll fight for their need to be right until they achieve emotional sobriety.
“Yep! You’re right … my wife would LOVE you to have me shuffle that deck!”
He continued.
“I would ask what if my perspective were usually right, but I already have a nub on one arm for asking that about my assumptions!”
I asked him if he could sincerely identify his need for his perspective to be right. He nodded with a bit of shame.
“But I assume you’re going to help me out of that self-laid hell too?”
If you find yourself in similar situations, I hope you will follow the same assignment I gave him.
I am hoping you want to do this?
You know nothing changes if nothing changes.
The emotional intoxications you’ve held tightly led you to reading this with a nudge toward the change you want. You will transform your life with just a tinge of ‘want-to’ that you learn to repeat daily.
If you do … over time EVERYTHING will change.
Any time you find yourself ready to “fight” for being “right” … I want you to press pause and literally pull out these questions and answer them thoroughly:
- What is my perspective that I feel right about?
- Even if they are ridiculous in your mind, what other perspectives could someone take?
- Name 2
- Write them down on 2 small pieces of paper
- Write your perspective down on a third
- Put them in the palm of your hand and shake them up
- Pull 1 out
- If you select yours, proceed with caution
- If you select one of the other two, “act as if” THAT ONE is “right” for one hour before you respond in ANY WAY!
“That will be painful,” he exclaimed!
I nodded. “Yes, but it will also break the emotional intoxication grooves and lead you down the path of emotional sobriety!”
I hope you will take this giant step toward emotional sobriety.
“Once you have disidentified from your mind, whether you are right or wrong makes no difference to your sense of self at all, so the forcefully compulsive and deeply unconscious need to be right, which is a form of violence, will no longer be there. You can state clearly and firmly how you feel or what you think, but there will be no aggressiveness or defensiveness about it. Your sense of self is then derived from a deeper and truer place within yourself, not from the mind”. Eckhart Tolle
3. Examine early life experiences for roots of skewed thinking.
“My family tree has deep roots in stuff you don’t even want to know about,” my client assured me.
“I think that’s true for most of us,” I assured him and continued. “Particularly when there’s trauma involved.”
“Well, if there was any trauma, we would never tell it,” he mused.
“Which tells me there was,” I commented.
“So how would I know if any of it … if there was any … affected my skewed thinking?” he asked with a little-boy innocence.
“By noting the skewed thinking of those you grew up around …
By noting trauma …
By noting things that didn’t make sense to you as a little boy …
By noting things you swore you’d never do or be when you grew up …
By noting family rules like, ‘We would tell it if there was any trauma’!”
He asked assuming he’d be a client for the rest of his life: “Then I’ll be here the rest of my life?”
“If we grab one by root and yank it out together, you’ll be able to handle the rest,” I assured him.
“Can you choose one of those ‘By noting’ things that I just listed that we could use to examine,” I challenged him?
I could see him doing a mental review of his entire life.
I waited.
“The trauma thing,” He tapered off and ‘went away’.
I knew he was remembering.
“He stabbed my brother’s arm when he reached into the cabinet in my dad’s office where he hid his liquor.”
I saw his lip quiver.
“My brother slugged him.”
A teardrop hit his jeans.
“My dad knocked him out.”
He dissolved into tears.
I whispered with deep empathy: “I’m so sorry.”
“I took him to the hospital and my dad took my truck away for doing that.”
This was tough, but he was resolved and continued: “So, I became an angry S.O.B. I really wasn’t. But it kept everyone away from me.”
I nodded, “And you still use the anger to control everyone?”
He nodded with regret written all over his face.
I half asked and half stated: “But it’s not who you really are?”
He looked up as if begging and said, “I hope you’re right.”
We did an exercise which I’d invite you to do in a letter … A letter NEVER to be sent.
I had him imagine telling his dad that the violent act had influenced him, and that he would no longer be allowing that root to direct his life.
I would invite you to write a letter to what root you find.
- Tell them what happened
- Tell them how it has affected you then
- Tell them how it plays out in your life now
- Tell them that you’re cutting that “family root” (not the whole family or the person) out of your life
- State how you will manage yourself differently
Seal the letter, and then rid yourself of it. Drop it in a postal receptacle with no address. Or burn it. Or tear it up and stomp it.
Symbolically get rid of it.
Weeks later, my client reported that breaking that one family root in my office had been transformative to his business, to his marriage, to his family, and to his peace of mind.
He also informed me that it had been the one step that placed emotionally intoxication into a checkmate status.
I hope you too will look for a key root to cut. And plant a new root in fertile ground. To create the kind of life you deeply desire and deserve.
“What makes a family is neither the absence of tragedy nor the ability to hide from misfortune, but the courage to overcome it and, from that broken past, write a new beginning.” Steve Pemberton
*****
Emotional sobriety is attainable. It requires some work … but never forget the amazing results and benefits it can bring to your life.
My client, his wife, and his family experienced all of these.
Open and honest communication.
Great fun.
Lots of laughing together.
Mutual respect.
Unity.
Embracing and planning a great future together.
Fulfillment as a family.
I wish you all of these things and more as you journey toward emotional sobriety.
