I have been through various psychologists and counselors throughout my life. I’ve spent years in 12 Step groups. I’ve read self-help books. I’ve prayed for supernatural intervention. And although each resource was able to help me in one way or another, I was never been able to pinpoint exactly what helped me break out of an insanity cycle and make a permanent change in my life.
Then I started learning about Life Patterns from Dr. John Mauldin, and about Spiritual Community from Dr. Larry Crabb, and all of a sudden, a clear pattern emerged. There were certain things that occurred, in a particular order, that brought about “aha” moments which (instead of quickly being forgotten) drastically transformed my beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, emotions and actions. That is how my RESET method was developed.
I use this process to address my exaggerated emotional and physical responses to daily events. You see, rarely will we encounter anything during our day that should evoke an overpowering wave of emotions or extreme physical response. If I suddenly feel a wave of panic, sadness, or anger coming over me, I realize that I am probably not responding to what is happening in front of me, but to something I previously encountered. That is how I determine if I need to be RESET.
There are five (5) basic steps to resetting your Life Patterns using the acronym RESET.
- R – Recognize/Realize
- E – Examine/Exercise
- S – Search/Study/Step Back/Spell Out
- E – Explain/Elaborate/ECHO/Embrace
- T – Test/Taper/Tell
R – Recognize/Realize
The first step is of course the most important. It is to stop unquestioningly accepting our life as though we are fated to be this way and continue to act this way. We must acknowledge that who we are now is not who God intended us to be when He created us. We cannot tell ourselves that “this is just who I am” and accept the status quo. We have to wake up and say, “this is not right, and I want to finally be right.”
We must also open ourselves up to the reality that previous life events are driving everything we do, especially the way we handle every situation we encounter today. Once we accept that truth, we can accept the responsibility we have to change them and start planning accordingly.
Referring back to my story about my reaction to angry women in authority over me, I would get sick to my stomach, and feel a cold tingling in my arms. My stress level would shoot so high, my brain would shut down, and I couldn’t think logically about the situation.
I never thought about why I reacted this way – it was just who I was, or so I thought. I didn’t connect it back to anything at that time; I just thought I was broken in some way, and most likely un-fixable. I didn’t recognize my reactions as being inappropriate, and I didn’t realize that it was connected to events and people in my past.
E – Examine/Exercise
This step addresses our “autopilot” issue. On a daily basis, we really don’t pay much attention to ourselves, how we are physically feeling, what emotions we are experiencing, or the thoughts that are swirling around underneath in our subconscious. We respond automatically to situations without analyzing them, we ignore physical signs that we are being adversely affected by stress, and we stuff down troublesome thoughts in an attempt to avoid them.
Therefore, the second step addresses the fact that we have to intentionally force ourselves to pay attention to our bodies, emotions and thoughts, and take the time to address them. We also must start implementing simple tools to calm our over-stressed nerves, because too much stress stops us from effectively recognizing, analyzing and effectively handling whatever situation faces us.
Looking back, I now know what I was feeling emotionally and physically, but I didn’t take the time to evaluate my responses back then. My way of dealing with it was suppressing it, which really did nothing to alleviate the high level stress that was turning off my brain. I didn’t know how to calm myself down so I could start thinking logically again.
S – Seek/Search/Study/Step Back/Spell Out
In this step, we seek the Holy Spirit’s help to reach back into our memories and see what pops up. Our overreactions are connected to something, but what? Once we discover it, we need to revisit it, re-evaluating what happened, what it meant to us, and how we responded. Then we need to see it from another viewpoint, like a calm, logical, adult passerby, and compare that to our memories. Next, we need to spell out the truth of what happened to ourselves, a la “Back to the Future”, and help our earlier version understand the reality of the situation.
It wasn’t until years later that I connected my past to my present. I kind of did a mental drive by it in the early 2000’s, but it wasn’t until 2013 that I fully revisited the original events to understand their impact on my life.
E – Explain/Elaborate/ECHO/Embrace
This is where spiritual community comes in. It is very hard to go through this alone, and I don’t recommend that anyone do so. This is because there is a spiritual healing that happens in a gathering of the Body of Christ that doesn’t occur when we are alone.
Here we explain aloud what we have discovered about our memory, what we remembered and what we subsequently realized when we revisited the event. We elaborate on how it has affected our lives up to this point, and any related revelations. We allow the group to echo back to us any important truths that we have shared but may have missed its importance, especially contradicting beliefs. Then we work on embracing our new narrative by continuing to review it and speaking it to ourselves and our group.
Being able to go back in time surrounded by a safe, supportive group of women was so important. It is like going into a haunted house with your friends circled around you. I remember how traumatic it was to really come to grips with what had happened to me, and how my support group encouraged me to verbalize all I saw and felt. They were patient with me as I had to deal with a month of angry emotions as I processed the truths I was accepting. It was the most freeing event in my entire life.
T – Test/Taper/Tell
Lastly, we test our new knowledge and narrative by putting ourselves in situations where we would normally overreact. We use the tools we have learned to taper our breathing and stead our bodies. We then tell ourselves our narrative to adjust our responses. This step is repeated until our new narrative becomes our accepted new Life Pattern.
Now, I can put myself in situations with angry women and not take any of it personally. I am able to distance myself from their emotional and behavioral responses because I have learned that they are responsible for their responses, not me. I did not force them to act that way or even provoke their bad behavior – they made a decision to react that way, and they alone are accountable for their actions.
Over the next 6 days, we will look more closely at these 5 elements and what they accomplish in our quest for emotional and spiritual healing.
RESET ASSIGNMENT:
- What areas of your life have you attempted to fix through self-help books and counselors? List them.
- How successful have those attempts been? Which areas still require healing?