Data Collectors,
I hope you are all doing well. Since being back home, I have been connecting with nature, and my heart is feeling so full. I have also been doing a lot of reflecting alongside my own spiritual study, and there was something in Chapter II, Part II of the A Course in Miracles text that really stuck with me. The question is:
What do you treasure, and how much do you treasure it?
I had to really sit and think about it. In today’s society, especially as a clinician working with couples and families, from what I can see and hear, it could easily feel like many people treasure being “right.” But I wanted to examine this even deeper, at the heart and soul level—and y’all know me: I see things through a trauma (imprint) lens. So let me apply this question to myself, and I hope you will do the same as I provide examples from my own life and nervous system. When I think about the journey we are on with Rewiring Out of Resentment (ROR), I think about relationships, of course—whether that is with family, with my husband, or within relationships outside the home. I sit and ponder the ache I feel when I am caught in shitty tennis matches, going back and forth, and I feel that activation inside.
Am I trying to be right?
That question hurts because, for me, it’s never about being “right.” Okay, Sav—so then what’s all the fuss about? Why do you get so activated inside or upset when XYZ doesn’t do ______? I pause here. I wonder if what I am about to say fits for many of the readers out there. You see, being right is not what I treasure. When I think about resentment and how I get shipwrecked on Resentment Island, it typically occurs because I treasure the need to be heard. So, it’s not that I treasure being right; I treasure being acknowledged. That has been at the forefront of my reflections throughout our ROR series. I think about conflicts with family, my husband, and others. The grief comes from being misunderstood or misperceived.
Now, I know that people are committed to misunderstanding you out here in the streets of the wild, and some are committed to trying to drain your prefrontal cortex energy. But if treasuring being heard is something that has been at the forefront for me, what often follows is a pattern of trying to get people outside of ourselves—with fundamentally different brains and nervous systems—to acknowledge or hear us. We all have different brains, different nervous systems, and different perceptions. So, trying to get another person outside of yourself to hear, perceive, or understand you can become like beating a dead horse. It only drains—you.
Okay, so then what’s all the fuss about, Sav? I ask myself this again. What we treasure has the ability to create disruption within us. But when we treasure peace—no disruption. So, what does that look like exactly? Now, I am no guru, and of course, I do not have all the answers. I simply am doing the work alongside us all.
I recently posted a video talking about the human unconscious addiction to chaos. I mentioned the power of statements—the power of suggestion—and how that alone can pull us back into the chaos Jenga tower, even after we remove ourselves from it. I speak in analogies and metaphors. The Jenga tower is often the system we are all a part of within our families and relationships. I discuss how important silence can be. Remember how I said my goal is to channel my inner Cillian Murphy through non-reaction and intentional response? I tend to overexplain in an attempt to get people to meet me across the bridge to connection. Do you see how draining that can be?
When we think about our role in creating the resentment we struggle with, I have to acknowledge that much of my own drain comes from trying to overexplain things to my husband—trying to get him to “see,” to “understand,” what it is that I am attempting to convey to him. What I am learning is that what we say with our mouths is not nearly as powerful as what we say through our behavior. Literally. Think of WNBA player Sophie Cunningham…
All she did through her behavior was point a finger, and it sent DeWanna Bonner into an activated frenzy. Why do you think something as small as pointing a finger has that much power to activate someone? Don’t even reach for the race-war narrative. That can become a distraction from this work. Think nervous system here. Even in the interview, Sophie stated that she kept doing it simply because she saw how much it annoyed DeWanna. Now, think about your family and the things they do—or maybe even your partner. What do you think DeWanna treasures? What we treasure has power over us. So, if we treasure money, fame, material possessions, etc., those things can begin to control our lives. I will assume that DeWanna may treasure winning, and if she treasures winning, well, even a distraction as small as someone pointing a finger can cause her focus to drift—which is exactly what we saw.
When I work with high-conflict families, what I often hear is, “They just want to be right.” Well, my question is: If that’s the case, why go back and forth with someone who just wants to be right if being right is not something you care about? We can all be petty. I think the petty part of us—the ego mind—is what causes us to engage with people who activate us because the interaction does something to our ego. We feel as though we need to “stand on business,” which is just another way of saying that we become defensive because how dare they disrespect us? Now we feel compelled to prove something. But if we truly did not treasure being right, would we need to engage back?
Whatever DeWanna says is the reason she became so activated by Sophie’s finger-pointing, the story itself is not the most relevant part. Why? Because the story is being processed through her filtration system, and if its dirty or tainted (think Brita filter here) it will drift her. Sophie is a white woman, so the narrative can easily become “racism,” which is a vine we tend to grab onto instead of entering the shadow work everyone talks about. A finger being pointed during a basketball game, by itself, has little to do with racism and everything to do with nervous-system behavior, imprints, and how dirty DeWanna’s filter may be—meaning the lens through which she internalizes and assigns meaning to Sophie’s finger being directed at her. When we drink the dirty water, we avoid the portal within. That is why family and couples work can be so difficult: We feel justified in our hurt because sometimes people really do and say hurtful things. I think about the statement, “No one can make you feel anything.” This was hard for me to grasp, and it used to make me so frustrated. What do you mean no one can make me feel anything? They clearly did or said XYZ! But when we channel our inner Cillian Murphy, we practice remaining unfazed by what occurs outside of us.
Back to my point about acknowledgment. When I look back at the times I was reactive, defensive, or severely pissed off, it didn’t come from a need to be right or agreed with. It came from—grief. A wound had been touched—the wound of being bypassed instead of heard. When we have deep imprints throughout our timeline of being ignored, interrupted, dismissed, etc., and our partner or family does it to us, it can make us feel invisible. So we talk louder, get louder, or become reactive and defensive in an attempt to get acknowledged. But all that does is move us away from the deeper discomfort of feeling ignored. You know, when I was an MFLC (Military and Family Life Counselor), I worked in the school system with military kids. I spent time in high schools, which reminded me of being out in the wild. I would observe their behavior and notice just how often fights broke out over some of the dumbest things. “They were staring at me.” Okay, and? So now you have to get violent?
We have no idea why people look at us. It could be because they like your hair or your outfit, or because they think you are attractive. You could also be dressed in a way that draws attention—this happens even with adults. We dress in ways that attract attention and then go off when people start looking. The point I am trying to make here is this: Is all it takes for you to lose your power and become the one who looks like the clown for someone to stare or point at you? What do you think people are treasuring in moments like that?
I have realized that treasuring acknowledgment can be the first step toward getting a one-way ticket to Resentment Island. Now, I am not saying that acknowledgment isn’t important, because, for me, it is. I also think it is a significant part of human connection. When I am willing to sit in the heat of the Expression Highway, but others are not, they may avoid that heat by exiting onto the Logistics Highway—ignoring what happened, acting as though nothing happened, or engaging in behavior that feels like gaslighting. It hurts. It feels like rejection. Trust me, I am not denying that. Remember, we all have different brains and nervous systems, and we are all holding on to something. We must be careful not to play Mad Libs with other people’s intentions if we are unwilling to check whether what we used to fill in the blank is accurate.
But let’s zoom in closer to ourselves here. I tell myself all the time, I wish I could do that thing Dumbledore does where he pulls out his memories and places them into that well-looking thing. I feel that way about neural pathways. If only I could just pull them out of me, then maybe my body would not respond so quickly to things that truly hold no importance to me.
Have you ever reacted to something so intensely, only to cool down later and feel a little wacko for reacting the way you did? It happens to me a lot. I don’t think most of us are fighting to be right as much as we are fighting to be heard—and being heard does not require being agreed with. This makes it understandable why so many people do everything but acknowledge us or hear us. They may believe that acknowledging our perspective means agreeing with it— Many do. That’s part of why gridlock happens so much. There was a comment on my TikTok from someone telling me that I needed to be more compassionate. She wrote an entire paragraph explaining why my behavior needed to change, overgeneralizing my entire existence based on one clip because it made her feel something. Some women love telling other women what to do, but let a man do it and it’s, “F*ck the patriarchy! “Toxic masculinity—Misogynistic La la la!” Yet here women are, doing the same thing to other women.
Now, I responded by mentioning projection and the problem with assuming who I am outside of one clip. But do you think she acknowledged what she did or even what I said? Absolutely not. She flipped it and made the conversation about how I assumed and projected onto her. Do you see the shitty tennis match that could easily begin there had I continued with a back and forth? Y’all do this at home, too. There is no point in going back and forth with people, especially online. Especially in the comments of social media. That’s asking for a drift session. I don’t need people to get me or understand me simply because they have misperceived me. That misperception has nothing to do with me and everything to do with their filtration system. Think Brita filter here like I said before. If someone has a dirty-ass filter from 1980 and refuses to change it, you make that filter your responsibility when you begin overexplaining, reacting, defending, etc.
Let them.
If people want to assume I am not compassionate simply because I am not online to be liked, but to speak what I believe needs to be spoken, that’s fine. I’m channeling my inner Cillian Murphy.
My husband often misperceives me, too. And you know the algorithm is quick to tell you to find someone new. But again, you aren’t you when you’re hungry—Snickers commercial reference, LOL—but you also aren’t fully yourself when you are activated, tired, stressed, grieving, full of resentment, or carrying unmet needs. The goal is not always to throw out the person. Sometimes the goal is to learn how to bridge the gap with the person you chose and made vows to. That is part of the problem with society today. The enemy is quick to tear families, couples, and friendships apart, and so much of it is rooted in, Well, what would people think of me if they saw this behavior? Who gives a f*ck? It is not their relationship. It is yours. We often forget how snappy, snooty, and ugly we can become simply because we are in a particular emotional state. We are all state-dependent, and our emotional state can temporarily change the very things we treasure. That is important for all of us to understand.
When my husband misperceives me, trying harder to force him to understand me usually makes everything worse on my end because I first need to check my own undercurrent. People have no clue what kind of undercurrent they give off when they feel defensive or misunderstood. We can become condescending, snippy, snooty, sarcastic, rude, or dismissive. We all can. No one is exempt. That is why this is the work. The work is not only identifying how someone else failed to hear me. The work is also becoming aware of what begins leaking out of me while I am fighting to be heard. People online misperceive me all the time based on how I reply to them in the comments—literally, the comments. People will take text written on a screen and create an entire story about who you are based on the meaning produced by their own filtration system. I have a tendency to write very matter-of-factly, not because I am trying to be right, but because I become extremely overstimulated when I am online. I truly do hate social media—to an extent—because that is where the Rugrats and mob mentality members live. So many people discharge on those apps while expecting you to become a vending machine for their needs.
When I am online, my nervous system comes online, too, and I begin to feel a sense of panic and urgency. It has nothing to do with being afraid of anything. I couldn’t care less if I get canceled, especially in today’s climate. It could be an ADHD thing. It could be a Rushing Woman’s Syndrome thing. It could be a variety of things. The fact of the matter is that I try to hop on and hop off. But I do not need to “LOL” and smiley-face my way through every comment just to prove that I am safe for people. That is ridiculous. It coincides with the expectation that we should shrink ourselves to make other people comfortable. At the same time, self-leadership asks me to check my undercurrent—not automatically confess to the undercurrent someone else has assigned to me. Maybe there is some spice underneath my words that I need to acknowledge. Maybe there isn’t. We live in a damn gotcha culture where people are always looking for the next piece of language they can use to redirect the focus back onto you and your behavior. Now someone can say, “See, it’s your undercurrent,” as another way to deflect from the actual point being made. The possibility that my delivery contains an undercurrent does not automatically make the message itself untrue, nor does someone feeling something in response to me prove that their interpretation of my intention is accurate. Read that part again.
This is where I return to the question: What do I treasure here? If I treasure being accurately understood, I can find myself back on the shitty tennis court, writing dissertation after dissertation to prove what I meant. Or I can simply say, “That was not my intention,” check within myself to see whether there is anything useful for me to acknowledge, and leave it there. Self-accountability is not the same as accepting every accusation, interpretation, or projection someone places upon me. I can examine myself without putting someone else in charge of narrating me.
The important distinction here is:
Checking your undercurrent is self-inquiry. Being told what your undercurrent “really” is by someone committed to their interpretation is narration.
This is where I am beginning to understand the teaching in A Course in Miracles differently: What do you treasure, and how much do you treasure it? Because whatever we treasure enough, we can begin organizing our lives around protecting it. If I treasure acknowledgment so deeply that I cannot have peace until someone understands me correctly, then I have handed that person power over my nervous system. My peace now depends upon the cleanliness of their Brita filter. That does not mean I stop valuing acknowledgment. It does not mean I become silent, tolerate mistreatment, or pretend that being misunderstood does not hurt. It means I am learning not to chase acknowledgment at the expense of my own peace. I can express myself, clarify where clarification is useful, and then allow people to do whatever they are going to do with what I said. Their perception belongs to their filtration system. My responsibility is deciding whether I am going to drink the dirty water with them.
So, what do you treasure? And how much power has protecting it been given over your life?
Let me know.
Till next time data collectors.
Come as you are where you are.🫶🏽
