PSYCHOLOGY
OLD HABITS DIE NOW Words: Annia Baron
Don’t mind me, I’m just waiting for a text back.
Has this happened to you? Your friend hasn’t responded to your text in days, but you see they’re active on social media. “So, they have time to update their Facebook story, but don’t have time to respond,” you say to yourself as you choose not to like their post. Or what about those times in your relationship you’ve heard yourself say, “Why is it always up to me to organise everything all the time?” or “They should know this is important to me.”
wanting to organise as much with me lately. Can I check in on that?” or “Georgia, I noticed myself reacting negatively the other day to your post and realised that maybe I’ve had an expectation that responding to messages the same day is an effort to show we value one another. Seeing you being social online triggered some sadness for me because I feel we’ve been drifting apart. How are you feeling about our friendship these days?”
Should they? Who said? Is it always you organising everything or you’ve organised somewhat more in the last few months? And if friends take more than a day to respond, does it mean they’re not valuing you the way you think they should? Are your friends aware you hold these standards or are you just assuming they know?
Spring cleaning your relationship mindset requires courage, taking accountability of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, and popping your ego aside. Easy to do? No. Worth it? Absolutely.
When it comes to how we relate, there are some pesky thought patterns that get in the way of creating harmonious and joyous interactions. Unhelpful cognitive templates include personalisation, overgeneralising, emotional reasoning, black and white thinking, and catastrophising. A major culprit is mindreading - when we assume that we know what the other person is thinking or feeling, and then react to that assumption versus reality checking. A reminder that to ‘assume’ means to make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’. And what an injustice we do when we ass ourselves this way; misunderstanding and miscommunication creates unnecessary misery. What’s the remedy? What if we regularly spring cleaned our relationship mindset? Just as we schedule regular vehicle servicing to prevent a major breakdown, let’s make it a habit to check under the hood of our assumptions, curiously question their validity, and make space for more adaptable thought patterns – those that nourish and flourish our relations. What would that look like? “Hayden, I’ve got this old story popping up in my head telling me you’re being distant and it’s making me assume you’re not
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Just like any good clean up, your effort in doing the work will leave you lighter, brighter, and happier. The more regularly you do it, the less arduous it will feel. Importantly, it will open up space for understanding, play, laughter, authenticity, and all the other juicy good stuff that make friendships and relationships satisfying. So, stop making an ass out of yourself and those you care about. Assume less. Ask more. Do the inner work and enjoy that spring clean feeling. Annia Baron is a Clinical Psychologist and Mindset Coach at ReMind Yourself in Hobart. remindyourself.com @anniabaron
Did you know? We have on average 60,000-80,000 thoughts a day? Our wonderful brain, which takes up only 2-3% of our body weight, has 100 trillion neural connections. That’s more than the number of stars there are in the galaxy. With so much energy being exchanged, consumed, and generated, it’s no wonder our brain prefers to rely on templates and automatised habits! Care for your brain. It loves you. The way it works to keep you alive and well is mindboggling.
