The Function of Dysfunction
Am I right in thinking there’s a few of us who maybe feel like there’s something broken in us?
That the ways we engage with life are dysfunctional and we need to fix them?
During a breath-work session today, I set an intention of understanding objectively where I was at and why. I wanted to see clearly how my dysfunctional nervous system was affecting my life, and how it came to be so broken.
Immediately on beginning the breathe, I had the realisation that the way I am in the world isn’t dysfunctional. It just has a function different to what I want and need right now.
It’s not dysfunctional, it’s other-functional.
The problem lies in the fact that my nervous system is still set to respond as it did in the past…but I have new needs for it now. And completely different terrain.
I think this realisation helped open up my ability to look with soft and understanding eyes upon my life.
A while back, I started answering my own rhetorical questions. When I would angrily admonish myself, ‘Why can’t I just xyz like normal people?!?’ … I would get curious and think, ‘Yeah, why can’t I just xyz?’
A small shift in tone, from frustrated to compassionate, that helped me get curious about what was going on in any given moment.
So I started today stressed that I had wasted time being and responding in certain ways. (Or if I’m really honest - stressed that I had completely ruined my children’s lives and driven Jarrod to a life of secret resentment over my unbearable ways. Know that if I disappear - I’m not pointing fingers…but he watches a lot of shows about murderers…)
And I finished it with knowing that so many behaviours and thought patterns and emotional responses are adaptations, and they are what get us through. Even coping mechanisms serve a purpose for a time.
You might not be how you’re hoping to be at this particular point in time, but it all has a function. I hope you can have grace for yourself and how you needed to be in the past.
I’m certain this realisation and grace is exactly what we need to open up the door to our next way of being. One that can serve us well in the time and relationships and terrain we find ourselves in now.