Experience for the fact of experience and experience for the absence of experience
I wouldn’t be opening America if I said that our whole life is sheer stress. More precisely, a series of stimuli that causes stress. And this is normal, since stress is the basis of survival, being an adaptation reaction (adequate or not, that’s another question). This is the so-called primary stress. And everything is fine with him (as with a mechanism).
But in my practice, I quite often encounter another phenomenon, more destructive, which can be called secondary stress – this is worry about the fact of experiencing. This increases the stress from the original stimulus, increasing its destructive power. But this is not the end. Phrases like “I’m worried that I’m not worried” are starting to sound more and more often. And now I want to look at this in more detail.
Why are we worried? Why do we worry about experiences? And why can’t we live peacefully without worrying? Let's look at it in this article. And at the end, SUDDENLY, we’ll talk about the generation difference through the prism of this topic.
Disclaimer: Due to my approach to work, it so happens that I usually advise people with intellectual work. In recent years, these have been mainly managers and IT employees. These are people who have spent their whole lives solving any problems “over their heads.” This approach inevitably leaves an imprint on the individual and non-professional life. I am engaged in minimizing the negative consequences of such features. And within the framework of the articles on this resource, I try to summarize my professional experience and provide useful information.
General understanding of stress
First, a short educational program on stress in general, so that we have a common conceptual framework (at least while reading this article). This block is an excerpt from an article about understanding stress in the cognitive-behavioral approach of psychology. You can check it out herebut I will outline the main points.
Stress – this is a normal reaction to any irritants that disturb the balance of the body
As you can understand, stress does not appear on its own; it has triggers in the form of various stimuli from the external (world) or internal (consciousness) environment. And here it is important to classify these triggers, which would be more accurately called stimuli:
Biotic stimuli. This is a type of stimulus that directly affects the functioning of the life process. The most obvious example is temperature change.
For example, you want to drink tea. Approach the kettle and touch it to find out whether it needs to be heated or not. You touch. “It seems like it’s just boiling” – a thought arises in your head while you pull your hand back and shake it to quickly cool it down and reduce the pain syndrome.
In this case, jerking your hand and shaking it is your reaction to a physiological stimulus. This situation is as simple and understandable as possible. There is a stimulus, there is a clear reaction, which with only a small probability will turn into chronic stress (although this does happen).
Abiotic stimuli. This is a type of stimulus that does not directly affect the functioning of the life process. Let me give a general example from practice:
Hypothetical Gennady has been working in one place for a good ten years. And almost all this time, his working day begins the same way – he walks along the corridor to his office, meets his boss, who stretches out his hand. Gennady shakes this hand and goes to do his job. But on Tuesday, things didn’t go according to plan. Gennady comes to work as standard, walks along the corridor, meets the boss, who… does not greet him and passes by. Discouraged by such a sudden change in the measured rhythm of life, Gennady enters the office and begins to think: “The boss didn’t say hello to me. This is strange, because he always said hello. Why didn’t he say hello? He’s probably angry at me for something or offended. Why? he may be angry or offended? Probably because I handed over the project to him only on Monday, and not on Friday, as promised. And since I deceived him (not on purpose!), he now considers me a bad employee. What if I'm a bad employee, he'll fire me. Will I, a bad employee, find a job? But the devil knows. What did I do last time when I was fired? I drank. And now I'll drink. And no one needs a bad employee who drinks “, which means I won’t find a job. I’ll get completely drunk, I’ll drink on credit. I won’t be able to pay off, I’ll have to sell the apartment. I’ll become a homeless alcoholic and die under the fence, having drunk too much of some burnt vodka bought from taxi drivers.”
And at this moment Gennady becomes very ill. Self-esteem drops to the floor, emotions go off scale, the heart is playing around, shaking legs shake the table. At the same time, he did not encounter any biotic stimulus capable of causing a corresponding reaction. What happened to him? We’ll talk about this a little further, but for now I’ll just note an important point:
Biotic stimuli cause predominantly (but not exclusively) physiological responses. Abiotic stimuli produce both physiological and long-term psychological responses. Let me clarify that we are talking about the normal experience of stress, without trauma or fixation.
But why did Gennady get so stuck? The answer lies in just one word, “sign”. But this is not a road sign or a sign of fate, but a term from the Soviet school of psychology:
Sign in psychology – a material reflected phenomenon, cognizable as a substitute, sometimes as a symbol of the main phenomenon. A brief dictionary of the system of psychological concepts. M. Higher school 1984
It is important to say that the main function of the psyche is a reflection of reality. And not just reflection and systematization, but also the introduction of meaning. In fact, each of us lives in our own “sign” system, which largely determines the perception of the world and the reaction to a particular stimulus. In general, the first wave of behaviorism foundered precisely because it ignored this individual characteristic of each person.
Checking the adequacy of these signs and their meanings, as well as correcting inadequate (maladaptive) interpretations, is one of the tasks of practical cognitive behavioral therapy. In other words, if you come to a CBT specialist, then all the work can be called debugging your psyche.
This is where we can end with an educational program and move on to the very essence of the article, for the sake of which it was written.
Secondary stress
If the usual reaction to stress can be described through a simple diagram:
Stimulus – interpretation – response
In the case of secondary stress, the stimulus itself is your reaction to the previous stress factor. Conventionally, this can be displayed in this form:
(Stimulus – interpretation – (reaction) – interpretation – reaction)
Each cycle is reflected in brackets. It is logical that it can last quite a long time. A series of such turns has its own name – hyperreflexia (in everyday life, “Stop being driven already, two years have passed since that conversation!”). You can read a little more about this here. But we are interested in another question – on what basis does our reaction become a stimulus for the next stress? After all, stress is an imbalance. So what do we measure this balance against?
And here we come to a simple conclusion – in addition to the reaction to stress itself, we also have an idea of how to react to stress. And this gap between the existing and desired reaction is also a stress factor. In other words, we have an image of the correct reaction, that is, how to “correctly worry about this or that matter.” And if we do not fit within acceptable limits, this becomes a reason for worry, which can be expressed by the phrase “Something is wrong with me.”
“Something is wrong with me” is one of the most common requests in my practice. It is curious that it occurs even when the client (in his own opinion) has no particular reasons for worry. There are no incentives, but there is stress. Miracles! But our psyche is very natural. It is not always intuitive, but it is very natural. And this is easier to understand if you keep in mind that in addition to the reflective (and a number of others) function of the psyche, it also has an adaptive function, aimed at eliminating inconsistencies between the desired and actual states, taking into account the available possibilities.
Where does this norm of reaction to specific stimuli come from? How do we understand that, because of a cup of coffee spilled on oneself, jumping up and obscenely expressing one’s attitude towards the subjective injustice of life for 10 seconds is the norm, but a minute is clearly too much? Nobody tells us about this directly.
And here we gradually approach the answer to the previously unasked question, why stress triggered by abiotic stimuli is often called social. We are all products of society, bearers of its ideas (in pure or processed form), some of which took root in us even before the formation of critical thinking. And the learned models (especially those obtained from reference groups) significantly determine our individual understanding of the norm.
But this is not yet the deepest point of the mental rabbit hole, although we are already at the finish line. It is worth considering that each of us is the bearer of a number of ideas about the world, good and evil, good and bad, adequate and not so. A little higher we talked about balance and individual limits of the norm. Roughly speaking, an internal “ruler” against which we measure our adequacy. If it falls within the norm within certain tolerances, then we are not worried. And if not, hello, self-criticism. And the only problem here is that there are a lot of rulers, some of which may contradict each other. And we don’t really notice this until we find ourselves in a situation that does not fit within the norm of the most important of them.
Situation: Hypothetical Gennady is working at work. Then his wife calls him and says that their child, Imaginary Vitalka, got into a fight with someone at school and they demand that he urgently come and sort it out, otherwise the child will be registered. She would go herself, but it would be difficult for her to get out. Gennady understood and accepted the information and decided to leave work early, although he had to hand over the project right away today. Let's see how it fits on Gennady's internal rulers.
In this visual representation of the concept described above, you can clearly see the discrepancy, as well as predict the direction of further stress. Here I would just like to add that the “lines” are influenced not only by the opinions of various social groups, but also by your self-perception in different roles (for example, the role of a spouse, the role of an employee, the role of a parent).
I think I'm worried about stupid things
Whoever read this block is a great fellow. As a reward, keep information specific to IT specialists living in Russia (in fact, not only, but primarily). Perhaps it will be useful to you.
It’s no secret that IT specialists currently receive salaries noticeably higher than the average hospital temperature salary in the country. It seems – live and be happy! But it doesn’t work. Why? Questions arise about fatigue, burnout, a feeling of external pressure, a feeling of life passing by, procrastination, loss of meaning, difficulty with positive emotions, general apathy and the frailty of life.
Important note! This is more common among specialists who, over the past 3-5 years, have significantly increased their level of income and, accordingly, their living standards. For people who initially started out in good conditions, from a material point of view, this is less common. But it also happens.
And then a person has a thought: “Damn it, I used to work more, I was more tired, but life was more pleasant and interesting! And I felt better! Could I dream that I would earn as much in a week as I did in five years? ago in a month? With difficulty. Could I imagine that I would feel much worse? Not at all. God, where are we going?”
This situation is reinforced by communication with people whose income is several times lower, but their condition is better. This gives rise to self-accusation in the following scenario: “Here is Hypothetical Gennady, who works at the factory for 9 hours, five days a week, and also takes part-time jobs. God willing, he has three or four days off a month. And nothing, he doesn’t burn out, doesn’t procrastinate, doesn’t worry. My parents also worked like I was not myself, in the 90s I didn’t see them at all. They earned pennies, everyone worked two jobs. And they didn’t complain! And I’m burning out here, you know. Who am I after this? “.
And here a person falls into the snare of his own thinking. He assumed that as soon as he earned a lot and met basic needs (and even higher than basic needs), then worries and worries would go away, and prosperity would come in life. But this is not the case. Why? The answer is obvious – because there is something wrong with me!
And here it is worth keeping two important points in mind:
There are no false emotions and “unimportant” experiences. Any emotion is true. But the relationship between the strength of the emotion and the stimulus that caused it is a matter of cognitive interpretation
In other words, if you are worried, you are worried, and not “suffering from nonsense.” Experiences are always real, regardless of the stimulus that caused them. Conventionally, a refusal to buy a chocolate bar in a store can cause a child to go into real hysterics. Of course, you can devalue it and say that he is worried about nonsense, but for him this is a real tragedy.
The ability to worry about (nonsense from the point of view of society) is an indirect indicator of your success, expressed in the closure of basic needs.
That is, if you have the opportunity to worry about burnout, you should praise yourself and tell yourself that you are doing great, because you have covered the needs that do not allow other people to worry about what you are worried about.
Will you ever achieve blissful nirvana? I doubt it, it’s just that with each successive achievement you will have an “increasing level” of stimuli for experiencing. Here we can recall at least Maslow’s pyramid (for all its controversy as a theory) and Graves’ spiral dynamics (also a theory not without sin). In fact, you become more sensitive. Can I not think about how not to die in the next hour? I'll worry about the food. No need to think about what to eat? I will think about where to live. Have you found where to live? I will worry about comfort. Am I feeling good on all fronts? Now I worry about prestige and status. Have I gone through this life and achieved everything I wished for? I want to leave a mark on history! Is my name already in the textbooks? Well… is there a God, how did life begin, what happened before the Big Bang, what was the question of the life of the universe and everything that exists…
What about the experiences due to the lack of experiences?
Okay, we've covered the issue of overreactions. We dug a little deeper into worrying about little things. But how can you worry about lack of worry? The penultimate block of the article is devoted to this.
Despite the fact that requests due to overly intense reactions are much more common in practice, others are gradually gaining momentum. And they arise, as one might guess, due to the fact that the intensity of reactions does not reach a “socially acceptable level.” Most often this is associated with events that are interpreted by society as unambiguously sad and require a clear reaction. The simplest example is a funeral.
Tell me honestly, how would you perceive a person who is not worried about the death of a relative? Who is not sad and does not express grief? For whom this event seems to pass by in his life? For most, this will be a rather strange manifestation, which will be reflected in kitchen conversations with epithets such as “heartless”, “robot”, “no conscience”, “what’s the point of conscience!? There is no soul!” and the like.
And a person, even without witnessing such conversations, feels this discrepancy with the generally accepted framework, also asking the question “Am I normal?”
Here we need to clarify. I’m talking specifically about the absence of vivid feelings due, for example, to a lack of personal attachment to a person or a simpler attitude towards death. That is, we are not talking about “getting stuck” in an experience, for example, at the stage of denial.
And so, even without worrying about the event, a person finds a reason to worry, because he has in his head a template of a normal reaction that does not fit into.
Everything is great and wonderful, of course, but what to do?
If we talk about correcting this situation and possible approaches, we need to return to the analogy with rulers. Let's think logically about what can be done to solve the problem “How to make sure that the reaction falls within the normal boundaries of all important rulers?” In this formulation, the question has at least several ways:
Remove rulers that stand out from the general row and cause contradictions. This can be realized by rejecting one or another social norm through criticism and recognizing it as irrelevant, or by prioritizing other lines (roughly speaking, lowering the one that does not correspond to the very end of the list, outside the visibility zone);
Move the rulers themselves in a horizontal plane. This also happens through criticism and an answer to the question “Why does my decision mean exactly that much along this line?”;
Expand the “tolerances” of the norm to some parts of the rulers. Again, this happens through obtaining information, searching for evidence of the adequacy of a particular boundary;
Adjust the reaction itself. Here we recall the block of the article about “signs” and their meaning. We change signs and meanings – the interpretation changes. The interpretation changes – the reaction changes.
According to the standard, I will attach several methods for independent work: once, two And three. At the same time, I must say that some issues are quite difficult to solve on your own and then you should contact a specialist. In addition to the fact that our brain evolutionarily accumulates thinking errors (article “list of cognitive distortions“A delightful evening read to help you), there are also errors obtained in the process of ontogenesis (a person’s personal life). Life is a rather limited and not always adequate dataset for our neuron. And errors are inevitable. Another question is that not everything some of them should be corrected, because the ratio of labor costs and potential benefits is not always optimal.
What about generations and what do they have to do with it?
Not long ago I came across a categorically interesting study “Early maturation or infantilization: the paradox of the eventfulness of modern childhood” by S.N. Mayorova-Shcheglova and S. Yu. Mitrofanova. I highly recommend that all parents familiarize themselves with this work, since the conclusions are interesting and the methods chosen are non-standard. I will now briefly describe the essence, and then link it to the topic of the article.
Researchers write that in modern children (more precisely, adolescents and young men), two processes occur in parallel:
There is a tendency to shorten the period of childhood. That is, in social terms, adolescence begins earlier. They think about self-determination earlier, start working earlier, participate in political life earlier, watch their figure earlier, and so on;
Tendency towards prolongation of the teenage period. Although this period begins earlier, it does not plan to end earlier. On the contrary, it is extended relative to previous generations. Consequently, issues such as the desire to buy real estate, start a family, have children, or settle down at some place of work are postponed to a later date.
This can be approached in different ways, but these trends exist. The next generation (already growing up) is different from those who lived before and live now. And this gives rise to two problems in the context of this article:
The problem of fathers and children”. This is a classic that there is no point in dwelling on. But! There is a nuance. We lay down in the new generation the standards in which we ourselves grew up and by which we focus. Consequently, we also bear part of the responsibility for those “rulers” that will influence the state of the generation, which are guaranteed not to fall into some of them. Therefore, if you have children or simply interact with children, please do not impose your standards as the ultimate truth. Don't add more work to me and my colleagues;
Transition problem. When a child grows up early, parents admire: “When I was his age, I was using a stick to poke nettles, but he has already learned how to rivet websites and is making money! He raised a genius!” And such praise, on the one hand, encourages, on the other, it raises expectations. Ten years pass. The same parent tells the same child the opposite: “I already had you at your age, but you are still just creating websites! Where is the family, where is the development?” And for a child, this difference from being perceived as a gifted character to being treated as underdeveloped can be quite painful. And create the problem we were talking about.
Let's summarize
Let's briefly go through all the key points of this article:
Stress itself is normal, the basis of survival, you don’t need to get rid of it completely;
The main stress in our lives is social, caused by abiotic factors;
Stress management is built through working with signs and their meanings;
Secondary stress is the perception of a response to a previous stimulus as an abiotic stimulus;
Each of us has “rulers” to measure our own adequacy;
For many reasons, these “rulers” for measuring adequacy are not always adequate;
You will constantly worry about something;
The smaller and more abstract the stimulus that causes stress, the more needs you have met;
You can work with this. Or you can just live. The choice is yours;
Stop loving your children, they themselves will understand how comfortable it is for them to live this life.
Sincerely
Sergey Maksimov.
Psychologist.
P.S. In my TG channel I answer anonymous questions. Only answers and articles, no memes or spam. https://t.me/maximov_psy
