Current "Bad" Behavior, Past Trauma & Empathy

     It's stunning how well-educated, professionally-successful people can behave completely inappropriately from our perspective.
     How can this be? It's not possible to have a balanced overview of, or proper perspective about a situation if one  viscerally feels in mortal danger. It is now a life-or-death emotion-directed struggle, reason has fled (executive function / mature judgment). This brain-stem-led behavior does not arise from stupidity or evil, though the consequences can easily be both. Such people who fight tooth-and-nail for their "rights", insisting that they're "right" (when in fact they may be partially or wholly wrong), very likely had traumatic childhoods (insecure or disorganized attachments): http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/12/everyones-doing-their-best-under.html plus a variety of other traumas about which we truly know little or nothing.
     Nobody gets up in the morning and decides to behave unreasonably or foolishly - there are valid reasons, though not necessarily current ones, therefore appearing irrational. It's really useful AND practical to try to understand such strangely disruptive behavior, and try to mediate instead of sliding into heavy-handed, adversarial mode.
     We understand all of this when a patient behaves irrationally, BUT when a colleague behaves "badly", OUR judgment can become compromised, and WE can can overreact & easily become punitive!
     Our colleagues, & we ourselves, deserve just as much empathy as our patients.

Nita Zeqiri, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Appropriate Rational Behaviour & How we Actually Live

     We've all scoffed at older people who insisted on doing things "the way they've always done it", disregarding the fact that it wasn't working. A popular definition of madness is "doing more of what doesn't work, yet expecting a different result." So what do we see objectively, that (some) "old folks" can't seem to?
     We clearly see that (some) old methods fail to address current problems; that continuing to use these is irrational; and that there's emotional attachment to or identification with these (now useless) methods.
     Interestingly, most of us - particularly physicians, dentists, surgeons - consider ourselves highly rational, scientific, "evidence-based." At the same time, we insist on doing things "the way we always do it", and avoid major aspects of life in which we have minimal training or competence. To become a more balanced, whole person, it's reasonable to actively train in areas in which we're deficient. Instead, don't we work more ("do more of what doesn't work"), to the exclusion of family, friends, hobbies, physical fitness, and a meaningful spiritual life?
     It's so easy to become completely identified with and emotionally attached to our work role in society. It's entirely our choice whether or not we balance our lives.

This Summer by Alexandrya Eaton   http://www.fogforestgallery.ca/exhibition.html