Buffering: the wall and the habit.

 

Hey there! I’m so glad you’re back and the fact that you’ve actually made it this far means you’re all set on taking the journey to taming the tiger. it’s a journey to the promised land so strap your bags and let’s get right to it.

This week has been incredibly crazy, with lots of things happening around me which also meant a lot of stress. My uncle disappeared on Saturday morning and didn’t come home. Everyone was tensed as phone calls and missing person posters went all around social media. We couldn’t sleep because we’d drive off into the cover of darkness looking for him until on Tuesday morning, we all gave a sigh of relief when someone called after spotting him walking along the highway. On top of that, I missed a math tutoring session I was supposed to attend before schools open on the 1^st of July and how I was going to travel back after the holiday. 

Honestly, it was intense but even though the stress was all over the place, I still managed to tame my tiger well enough to be writing this post. I can’t lie, I slipped up somewhere but here I am with a happy smile gleaming in the Friday sunshine and how I managed to deal with these emotions is today's topic.

Understanding the world around you: the village.

Before I get into the topic, I just want to shed some light on a few things happening in modern society. These days we’re living in a world where people are slowly shying away from collectiveness and drawing towards individualism. Everyone wants to live in their own world and having their own space which means keeping all our emotions to ourselves. On the other hand, in that same world we find ourselves interacting with, are parents who get judgmental towards their kid’s experiences while at the same time expecting their kids to open up to them which creates contradicting tugging forces.

Looking at the bigger picture of society, people are somewhat expected to always wear a smile on their face or simply look happy and because of that, some people create a false identity which they use in their everyday interaction. In other words, we put up a juilliard performance Infront of everyone. 

We become masters of the act.

That false identity creates an egg shell around us where our true emotions are hidden from the world outside. We hide our feelings for the sake of seeming happy in front of our parents, friends and even ourselves. We believe it’s safer to smile than telling someone what we feel inside. That belief of wanting to deal with the negativity alone cartwheels on and on until you hear that the same person you were laughing with yesterday has taken their life. 

Now, I don’t mean to sound extreme but it’s really a common occurrence in almost every society around the world and that’s reality because it leaves us with questions such as; this person was just smiling yesterday, what happened? What was going through their minds? Why didn’t they talk to someone?

However, it’s not everyone that goes to such extremes whenever they are feeling negative, but it rather shows us just how much negative emotions can influence our decisions and actions when we don’t know how to process and sit with them. That’s the scale of which the tiger can rampage if it keeps roaming untamed and all of this falls to what we do or what behaviors we engage in whenever we feel negative. In most cases, it starts with a process called buffering.

What is buffering?

Buffering is any action you take in order to push away the negative thoughts or to keep yourself from process them. Don’t get me wrong here! What you do to keep yourself from processing those emotions instead of sitting with them. you’re basically saying go away go away I don’t want you here.

The most common buffers include bingeing a movie/Tv show, alcohol, smoking and even pornography. Yap! there’s more to it than what I've mentioned. Even the positives like going to church can be a buffer.

You see, what happens is that when that tiger comes in, you feel uncomfortable with your negative emotions and it feels as if something is trying to crawl out of your body and escape. That’s not a great feeling, is it?

Now since you don’t like the feeling it essentially means you don’t even want to think about it. you don’t want to see it or even hear it so what do you do? You build a wall around yourself to keep the tiger out of your line of sight. You simply want to Houdini your way out of it and make the negative emotions disappear or simply pretend as if they don’t exist. That wall you’ve built for yourself is simply everything you end up doing to make yourself feel better enough to push the negativity away; but don’t forget, the more you push those negative emotions away the more they come back stronger. You’re constantly trying to shove those emotions into a little pandora’s box but the box eventually gives in and bursts open then it’s all hell breaks loose.

Whenever we feel negative, we find ourselves constantly trying to find a way of bringing pleasure without having to think about the negativity. We seek different escapades that’ll distract us from the negative emotions coursing inside us. In this stage, your brain is actively seeking something called dopamine. 

Dopamine is our brain's happy juice.

Dopamine is a neurohormone released by the hypothalamus in your brain and your brain loves it! it loves it because it is responsible for giving you the feeling of pleasure, satisfaction and even motivation. Some of the tenants of low dopamine are bad moods, anxiety, lack of sleep, lack of concentration, depression and the feeling of hopelessness. Ring any bells? 

Now whenever these negative emotions linger around, your brain tells you that; hey, remember whenever we feel negative you do this thing and it makes us happy. By happy it means dopamine and you engage in those habits once more but the downside is that dopamine is only temporary. 

"That's why whenever that pleasure we get from whatever we do to keep ourselves from processing the negativity fades away, we tend to feel bad. We feel stuck and we blame ourselves which leads us into a frustration cycle. A buffer is only temporary."

The Band-aid Solution.

If you’ve ever fallen off a bike and bruised your leg or taken a terrifying shot from the doctor, you can agree with me that little ol’ Mr. band-aid does the trick. The band-aid seems to make the pain go away but as the day progresses you begin to notice that the patch, as strong as it looked, starts to lose its grip and eventually it stops sticking. Some solutions we take to keep away from the negativity are band-aid solutions but you have to understand that a band-aid solution is not aimed towards getting rid of the negativity around you but is a solution you take to keep yourself from doing certain habits which are adding on to your negativity. The habits that make you feel worse about yourself.

It’s a solution that starts out strong but eventually falters with time. For example, if someone is using porn as a buffer, they can use porn blockers to keep themselves from watching porn but as time elapses, they’ll find their way around that blocker and watch porn or a person going to church in order to feel good whenever they do certain things to make themselves feel better, will only feel the joy for a short period of time before getting back to that habit. Though both of these examples are in different and parallel domains, the fact that you’ve gone back to square one simply means that you still haven’t gotten rid of the negative emotions. The negativity is still there and they’ve come back stronger.

Remember that it’s all about changing your perception towards how you approach negative emotions. Let’s have a scenario where you went to church on a beautiful Sunday morning and you prayed to God that the devil should no longer tempt you. Sometimes we even use prayer as a buffer to push away the negative emotions instead of sitting with them. wouldn’t it sound better if you asked God to give you the strength you need to face the negative emotions within you so that you shouldn’t end up buffering or doing certain habits that will make you feel worser?

What happens when buffering and band-aid solutions don’t work?

You get frustrated and you spiral into a cycle of shame. If you’ve noticed in today’s post, I’ve mentioned the frustration cycle a couple of times because it flocks together with buffering; however, I wanted to separate them in order for us to understand them clearly and not to process too much content.

How do I know that I’m buffering?

Even though buffering and band-aid solutions can bring pleasure, it doesn’t work in the long run. If you’re feeling negativity, first ask yourself; what is it that I want to do right now? You’ll find that your brain is probably telling you something to do in order to make yourself feel better. Once you identify that thought ask yourself if what you want to do is really going to make you feel better about yourself in the long run or  you want to do it simply because you feel terrible inside.

Today’s Friday everyone and it’s been great writing this post for you. I also loved writing it because it showed me that I’m also making progress in handling my negative emotions despite the crazy week I’ve had. I’m sure we’ve both learnt something today and I can’t wait for next Friday where I’ll be sharing my next topic on the frustration and shame cycle: an ouroboros effect.

Enjoy your weekend. Have fun. Stay safe and know that you are appreciated. kudos🌟

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