Observing Without Reacting

to be real clear about what this podcast is intended for it is intended for entertainment and informational purposes but not considered help if you actually need real help and you're in need of help please seek that out if you're in dire need of help you can go to your nearest emergency room or you can check into a rehab center or call a counselor like me and talk about your problems and work through them but don't rely on a podcast to be that form of help it's not it's just a podcast it's for

entertainment and information only so let's keep it in that light all right have a good time learn something and then get the real help that you need from a professional so let's just get right into this because I have been talking about this for probably two weeks and uh with my clients and with people and the concept of i'm going to go back to the concept i covered before about observe but don't absorb and if you combine that with the idea that you're going to learn something through the doc

jock institute of higher unlearning we've got to learn to observe more and absorb less I think it's really key to the survival of people who are trying to get into recovery and trying to figure out how to. get their lives back together. I'll tell you something that's really interesting. From a clinical observation, one of the first things that people do when they go into a rehab situation, where they're sitting in rehab, is they start focusing on other people's garbage.

And it's really fascinating because what they do is they come in and they realize that their life is a big hot mess, but they don't want to have to deal with it, right? So the first thing that they do is start creating drama in the rehab center. And it's almost like it's so predictable. Unless the person is one of those that comes in and is very timid and kind of an introvert to begin with, they're kind of quiet and silent and they don't really do a whole lot.

They just come in and listen, but they don't create any situations. But a lot of times somebody will come in to a rehab center and they're the new person. And within the first day or two, they're already starting to create drama by stirring things up with other people. And so what happens is the people that are in there, let's say you've been in there for 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 days. So you've been there for a while. I mean, 24 hours a day, right? Seven days a week.

So here comes some new person and all this drama occurs. And it's interesting to watch the dynamic that goes on because it's usually always the same. Yeah. to their own misery that they're being confronted with and they don't want to be there. And they're a little bit out of their minds anyway, probably because they're still under the influence of whatever chemical has been scrambling their brain.

So you get the coke high person and the tweaker, and you get the opiate addict who's nodding off all the time. So there's different characteristics of the drugs, alcohol or whatever is going on. But it is interesting to see that the people that have been there for a while, some of them just start to lose it. And what's happening is they forget or they resent and then forget or forget and then resent. I don't know which. The new people... And they forget what it's like when they came in.

And perhaps they created the drama. And they're forgetting that because they've been there for a while. And they've been working on their garbage, right? So they start absorbing what this person's dishing out. And they start getting upset and trying to retaliate and stop and argue and fight. And then there's this other group of people that have been there for a while. And they're not absorbing it. It's really fascinating. They don't absorb it. They just observe it. And they're like, yeah.

Okay, that person's kind of acting crazy. And they don't react. They're not buying what that person's selling. So they just are calmly going to the groups and trying to participate. And there's the disruptor in the corner who's creating all kinds of shenanigans. So you have three group categories in that room in a group. a group meeting or in their AA meetings or whatever's going on or, you know, when they're eating or just, you know, to have free time.

You got the one person who's the disruptor. You got the one person who is the absorber and they're reacting. And then you got one person who is the observer and they're not reacting. Now, my question to you is, who do you want to be? Do you want to be the observer or do you want to be the absorber? And I have learned in my life to be the observer because observing is an interesting position to be in because you're not taking on anybody else's crap.

And so because you're not taking it on, you don't have anything to deal with. I mean, maybe there's some annoyance at the fact that the person is creating all the drama. There's that annoyance factor. Okay. But honestly, other than that, You're not taking on their stuff. You don't feel their stuff because you're not investing in it. And that's the problem with absorbing. Absorbing creates all kinds of problems.

I do interventions and I deal with family members that are all up in arms about somebody's usage. And they've been either enabling it or they've been tiptoeing around it. But they're always absorbing whatever that addict is doing. They personalize it. They feel that they're responsible for somehow it, you know, existing and they've got to try to stop it.

Or they are so wrapped up in their own angst about themselves and how it makes them look or what, you know, they're going to upset family members or whatever. And so they're just absorbing everything that person is dishing out and they become paralyzed. Um, I describe it as like the fire drill. I get the call and there's a need for an intervention and suddenly it becomes the fire drill. Got to do it right now. Well, this has been going on for 15 years. Why right now? What's the big rush?

Oh, we can't take it anymore. What's happened is they've absorbed so much they can't absorb anymore. And one or two people in that group has finally had enough and they start vocalizing that. So it makes them feel uncomfortable. I know from personal experience, when you live in a chaotic, traumatic, trauma-filled family, you've got an alcoholic or two in your family, and things start getting unglued, coming unglued, you just, you really, you start to just kind of lose your mind.

Because you can't believe what's happening. You can't believe that person is doing or saying what they're doing. If you are the person who is the addict, you can't express yourself enough to be able to give the information of what's bothering you because there's so much. You're so stuck in avoidance and dissociation and disconnect from your feelings that you can't properly express your feelings. It just kind of comes out as this rage.

And so the people around you, if they're absorbing it, they're trying to figure out what to do. They're either running away or they're trying to calm you down. And usually what's happening is they're absorbing the wrong thing. And so we as people, when we see somebody distressed, the common response is to somehow render aid, unless you're a sociopath or a narcissist, which there are a lot of them now in our society. You don't render aid because you don't have any feelings. You don't care.

It's not about you, so you don't care. But if you're not one of that subgroup in our society, you tend to move towards trying to somehow make it better. Somebody falls down. Oh my gosh, let me help you up. Somebody is crying. You automatically have an emotional, almost visceral response to that person crying if it's unexpected. And so... You're kind of in that moment. You are absorbing what's happening. And that is appropriate.

But there are many times when you're absorbing stuff you should not be absorbing. I'm not sure how many times. I'm going to say it's every week. I don't know if it's every day, but it's every week at least for me. I listen to people tell me these sad stories of their involvement with somebody else. It's either a husband or a wife or a boyfriend or girlfriend or a neighbor or a good friend, and the person is doing something bad. And they keep trying to do something to make it better.

What's interesting is what they're doing to make it better never seems to work. And so they try this, they try that, they try this thing, they try another thing. They keep trying things. They see possibilities for hope and change. And the person that they're trying to help doesn't. And so it's rejected. So everything that they do to help just kind of either doesn't work or it gets rejected by the receiving person of that help. And so what in the world is going on?

Well, what's going on is you've absorbed their stuff. They're putting out frustration, anger, upset. And so you absorb their stuff because this is what they're presenting to you. But why are they presenting it to you? And what do they expect you to do about it? And why are they in a position where they're not doing anything about it themselves? And that's kind of where I'm at with this. It's like if you're absorbing stuff, that means you're being empathetic.

And the empathy... that empath, the person who's the feeler of other people's stuff. There are people out there who are empathetic, more empathetic than others, of course, and there are some that are more insensitive to others. But if somebody is presenting you something that is emotionally difficult for them, and they're presenting it to you, what is their motivation for doing it? Are they asking for relief? Or... Are they trying to just draw you into their chaos?

And if you are always absorbing the stuff around you, you are not able to differentiate between are they asking for help or are they wanting you to partner with them in their misery? And they're very, very different positions to take. If somebody is asking you for help, it can look the same on the presentation of whatever they're feeling as somebody who is just trying to get you to partner in their misery so that, you know, misery loves company.

But you have to really spend some time trying to figure it out. And that's the word discernment applies, right? I'm trying to discern what's happening. I'm trying to understand and not use just emotion. But I'm trying to get holistically, what am I seeing here, right? That's called observation. We do it in science. We don't have opinions. And if we do have opinions, we have to get rid of them while we are looking at experiments. We're just seeing the results. We want to see what happens.

So in science, when we're doing a study of something, what we're doing is we are observing the outcome of the combination of these variables. And we're noting the outcome because we want to know what happens when this occurs.

In science, you have to put aside the idea that you already believe you understand what's going to happen and you're just trying to prove it that's faulty science because now you have an opinion which is clouded how you're approaching things and what happens is you end up not really seeing what's going on you're not seeing what's really going on you're seeing what you want to see to support your preconceived idea about what should be happening That's faulty science. It's a bias.

And that bias makes it impossible for scientists to really study something effectively to then be able to understand the outcome. So in our day-to-day social living experiment here that we're living every day of our lives, when you are absorbing other people's garbage and you essentially have then partnered with them in their misery, you're not really absorbing effective at help. I'm going to say that again. If you're absorbing their stuff, you're not going to be effective at helping them.

You're not going to be a help. You're going to be part of the problem. So in recovery, we only have two positions. You're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. And there is absolutely no gray area, none. And so if you are an addict, you're either working on recovery, Or you're working on making your addiction worse. That's it. There's no gray area.

And so when I'm working with somebody who's trying to get into recovery, I really try to establish with them, what are you doing? What are you wanting? Because they will come to me for a variety of different reasons. They've got to get the person who's bugging them to stop talking to them about it. They're tired of the noise happening all the time. You've got to stop taking heroin. You've got to stop drinking. They just want that to stop so they can get high.

So they'll come to me, and they're not actually working on recovery. They're just working on checking the box, filling the line on the form that said I went to counseling. That's not really working on recovery. And so it's a problematic situation where they're not really doing what they say they're coming to do with me. So as I'm observing this, I can point that out to them.

And there are times when people will get up and walk out because I'm not interested in wasting my time and I'm not interested in wasting their time and their money with them not really working on recovery. It's kind of like as a clinician, As a health professional, of course I do what I do because I make a living at it. But I'm not willing to compromise my position of that Hippocratic Oath of first do no harm. Because if they're coming in only to check a box, I'm harming them.

I'm not going to do that. So there are too many people that are waiting in line behind you to come in here who really want help. And I'll tell them that. And sometimes that breaks through. uh, that resistance and sometimes they get offended and, and, uh, cause I called them out on their stuff. Right.

But the only way I could do that is by observing them because if they came in and I started opening up the empathy portals in my brain and just, you know, absorbing everything there, the horrible stories or whatever it's going on, I've now lost, I've lost a position of, of observer, uh, The third party observer who's got to see what's going on and then understand what that pain that they're experiencing has caused in their lives, which in my case is addiction.

So when we are observing, we are seeing in totality what's going on and what the person is saying, how they're acting, their behavior, facial expressions, the tone of voice, the pacing of what they're saying, the words, the volume, and most importantly, just their presence. If you've ever run into somebody who is seemingly an evil person, they're a psychopath or they've got psychopathy components to their personality or they're manipulators. When we meet those people, it's really funny.

Most people pick up pretty quickly that this is a dangerous person. Sometimes they fool us. Uh, some psychopaths are very good at, at hiding who they are, right? They've learned how to do it, but I'll tell you when you're absorbing everybody or you're absorbing people in pain, you become useless. Really?

Um, you know, uh, in, in the, uh, world of lifeguard training, one of the first things I would tell people when I was teaching them how to be a lifeguard is, okay, the first rule of lifeguarding is don't become a victim yourself. Some people would pick up on what that meant right away, but a lot of times they didn't. I'm like, well, what do you mean?

Well, if you're on the beach and you're looking at somebody and you see a situation where if you went out, you would immediately become incapable of rescuing that person. You don't have the right equipment or the situation is such that you need another person in order to be effective. If you jump into that water and you start going out there and you get caught up in whatever's going on and start floundering and struggling and now the next rescuer has to come along and rescue two people. Not one.

And you're one of the two that he's got to rescue or she's got to rescue. The unfortunate situation there is, who do you think they're going to rescue first? It's not going to be you and your stupid person who went out there and tried to save somebody causing further problems. You're going to be number two. So your survival chances just went down by 50%.

So if you jump into the water, you've got to make sure that you can actually... create a situation where you can help rescue the person you're going after so don't become a victim and that's through observation if all you're doing is absorbing you have become biased and you are not going to see what's going on around you your your mate is is there and they're drunk all the time and you just you just kind of ignore the drunkenness because you feel such strong empathy for them because you know

what their childhood was like, and you're like, well, you know, they really had a tough childhood. Yeah, but they're drinking themselves to death. Yeah, but it's understandable because blah, blah, blah. Yeah, okay, you know what?

Listen, this person is an addict, and then me, the clinician, I end up getting in a debate about whether or not the person's an addict, and I can pull out my DSM and go through all the diagnostic criteria and say, look, you've already told me that your mate is this and this and this and this and this and this and this, and they tick off nine or 10 of the diagnostic criteria, they're still gonna tell me, well, I don't know. But why don't you know? How could you say that you don't know?

Because you're biased. You have a bias in your thinking caused by absorbing everything that person's going through, and your clouded thinking now has resulted in you believing that they're not really an addict. They just struggle. And I, you know, or whatever excuse you want to come up with a wording for the phraseology for the enabling. So how do, how do you live your life by, uh, observing rather than absorbing?

Well, one, take a step back and, you know, you, you, you're, you're talking to somebody, maybe they're a friend, maybe they're a close friend and something happens. You gotta, uh, Take a step back and pause as you're observing them, right? Consciously think, I've got to observe my friend, my husband, my wife, my child. I've got to observe them. Go seek professional help. If you are biased and you can't break through that bias and make it not be there, that's okay. All right. At least admit that.

And then go seek professional help from some third party who has no dog in that fight. And they can look at the situation in an unbiased way and not be influenced by anything other than what they're actually observing. If you've lost your objectivity and now it's very subjective, you've become very subjective, your bias is influencing everything, go get help. Let somebody else, and then you've got to listen to them.

And if your bias towards the opposite of what the observer is noting is so strong that you start arguing with the observer, you got to stop. Listen to yourself. You're excusing everything that's going on. And this is one that's really hard for family members. Addicts too. My childhood was not that bad. I had a woman a week ago.

tell me as an introduction that yeah sure you know her her childhood was kind of normal it wasn't really all that bad she said it three times and then she proceeded for the next 10 minutes to tell me how horrible her childhood was and it was funny because she started with my childhood wasn't that bad and then she started telling me about her family members and then she started out with the ones that were the least offensive least egregious kind of problems and she started working her way up

Until she finally got to where this horrible situation is being demonstrated in the family. So I stopped her and I said, you know, you started this whole thing with telling me three times that your childhood wasn't that bad. Do you realize that? And she said, oh yeah, yeah, I did say that, didn't I? I was like, wow, you are so used to dissociating for other people.

that you started with somebody that you haven't really met before, your therapist, your new therapist, with an automatic protective statement to guard yourself against opinions, or perhaps your own opinion, but opinions of others about your childhood. I find that really interesting that you are always protecting yourself. Why is that? And She didn't know.

And so I pointed out that one of the reasons for doing that commonly is because you don't want people to formulate negative opinions about you because of your childhood. So you've been doing this for a while, I guess, right? You've been excusing it by saying it wasn't that bad. And she agreed, yeah. Yeah, I guess I have been doing that. And that's kind of what happens to us. We start to really forget about how bad our lives are and excusing it. And we have become very biased.

in our opinions about ourselves. And we do that with the people that are around us, our friends and our loved ones. We ignore what goes on. We dissociate from the problem because we have been absorbing for so long that we're just cutting it off in our minds by excusing it. And that's a very negative thing to have happen.

And so the position in my theory of recovery about observe, don't absorb, I hope that that becomes something that's a little more powerful for you if you start to implement that in your life. And I'm not saying just become cold and indifferent towards everybody. Of course not. But you need to be more selective about who you're going to invest in and how you're going to invest in them and how much.

People who are constantly dishing stuff out, wanting you to engage in destructive thinking or their destructive lifestyle. They're not interested in anybody that's not willing to absorb whatever it is they say. If you start observing, you can start to see the reality of what people are about and what they're capable of. And that to me is the most important thing is what are you capable of? Are you capable of actually caring and engaging in a loving relationship or not?

And from a scriptural standpoint, we saw that happen in Jesus' approach to dealing with people. He would observe them and would not absorb what they were doing until they asked him because that was why he was here in the first place, right? To help heal. But you can't heal if you can't figure out what the person needs to be healed from. And that comes from observation. So be a little more scientific. and then follow the rule of lifeguard training and don't become a victim first.

Stay being the rescuer. Well, that's it for this edition of Doc Shock, Your Addiction Lifeguard. You know, I do other podcasts. I've done podcasts on the Naked Marriage podcast. I've done Bold City Church podcast. If you take a listen to those, you'll be able to hear further words of advice on recovery and addiction. If you have a problem and you need help, please reach out for help. Go to a rehab. Go to your emergency room. if you need to, or seek out help with a counselor like me.

And I can help you if you want. You can reach out to me through my website, wellspringmindbody.com. And in the meantime, please save yourself from your addiction. Get the help you need when you need it. And I look forward to talking to you next time. Thanks for listening.