Cussing skills for better relationships and a happier life

Facebook (I am mostly a Facebook user) and other social media platforms look a lot like our inner unfiltered stream of thoughts: seemingly random posts, some of them catching our attention in a direction some in another. And we respond emotionally. We even have the tools to show strong emotions, like love and anger (or fury or hate — same emoticon).

Our reactions teach the algorithm about us so we have more of what we interact with. Can our reactions teach us something about ourselves? And maybe even teach us to grow, to become a better version of ourselves?

I believe the answer is yes. For this, we have to pay more attention to our responses especially when we feel triggered. When we laugh not from joy but from our perceived superiority and when we are as red as the angry button we are reaching to hit. The trick is to pause before hitting it.

Then, there is a three-step formula I used to change. It improved my mood, my relationships with myself and with others. In short, it changed my life:

First, pause.

This might be the most difficult step. I used to react soo fast… Somebody was posting a rude comment about a young girl, shaming her body? Take this, you misogynistic moron! Another one was labeling me for practicing Tantra? He was just a frustrated man rapidly approaching… no, I am not going back to that type of reaction not even as an exercise…

Then, question. Why? What? How?

Why?

Why is this triggering me? Sometimes was obvious, the post I was rejecting was absolutely full of rude comments about people I love and admire or they were showing heart-breaking violence against innocent animals or children. Sometimes was not obvious at all — a joke a little bit off, someone laughing at himself, a piece of art that hit a nerve, and so on.

I stayed there, with that question. Waiting to see what appears. It was strange and somehow mysterious: a face of a long-deceased relative or teacher who used to say the same things to me. Or a memory of an embarrassing date. Whatever it was, I was breathing and watching my reaction.

What?

What is my reaction telling about me? This part can be quite fun: there is something deeply satisfying in ”being right”. So I let my wild part roam freely answering like I was truly wanted to ”destroy the enemy”.

Forgot about being kind, spiritually enlightened, or politically correct. When I was too tempted to post my answer, and there were so many occasions, I was writing them in Word. Now, I feel sorry for not saving them in ”nasty journal entries”. Remember? I was writing down anything I was wanting to lash at others. Looking back, I`d wish to have a way to see how I was thinking just a few months before.

Now the not-so-fun part. This part was quite eye-opening and embarrassing: First, another pause. Then I was reading what I just wrote but this time changing the place where I was reading from. Like a third person, a bystander, a friend who was watching my game and carrying and wanting the best for both of us, me and ”my enemy”. Then, I was the one who would receive my comment. I was closing my eyes trying to see how it feels. What I would believe about my strong answer when I was reading it from their perspective?

It sucked. I was furious.

And I could not find any good reasons for my interlocutor NOT to feel the same.

How?

This is the most exciting and beautiful part: I was imagining an older and wiser version of myself. Thinking about people I strongly admire. Teachers who inspire me. Some public figures. The ones that have the power to move my soul, to make my heart yearn. People that make me wish to learn from them. And I was asking myself a better how: how I would answer to this if I would be this better version of myself? How my role-model would answer this?

Then, I was adding the special ingredients: zen and sarcasm.

I was playfully remembering my favorite sarcastic-zen cuss:

How a zen monk says “f@#k you?” “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to practice again!”

That made me giggle almost all the time and took me from my self-righteous position to a more light and playful mood. I start seeing it as a game, putting some humor in my answer, some soft sarcasm. Then I was starting my answer with ”Thank you” while smiling at this beautiful innocent joke I was making.

My answers were kinder. Lighter. I felt better, I was not fighting a war, I was playing a game.

But this was not the end: at the beginning, my answers were really this (literally) internal joke. Now they are coming more from love with very few sarcasm-spots.

And there is more of it: my answers were getting reactions. From the very people that triggered me. It made me think about something that Emily Levine said in this heart-warming Ted Talk:

Wave-particle duality: the idea that one thing can manifest as two things … you know? That a photon can manifest as a wave and a particle coincided with my deepest intuitions that people are good and bad, ideas are right and wrong. Freud was right about penis envy and he was wrong about who has it. :)

(Emily Levine - How I Made Friends With Reality)

The lesson here is this:

These people were good and bad (like everybody else) and my words were summoning the good part in them. And in me.

So maybe we can take some advantage of the fact that as much as we dislike some people, social media gives us the advantage of distance: we are not usually pressed to react in the instant. We can pause and ask what happens. Why are we triggered?

I'll let you with this incredibly insightful short video of Dr. Gabor Mate and with the idea that anything that triggers us might be an opportunity to grow.

“How you handle the people that trigger you, that’s your call. But at least know that you’re the one with the explosive inside you and you gain so much liberation if you find out what that ammunition is and how you got it and if you can really diffuse it… like they diffuse a bomb, you can actually diffuse that ammunition inside you through getting to know yourself. And that’s where freedom actually lies.” ~ (Dr. Gabor Mate)

Now, I am not saying that you have to cuss to live a happy life. But if you are finding yourself cussing anyway maybe this can help. Give it a try. And let me know if and how is working for you.

Thank you for reading until the end. 🙂

Disclaimer

The original version of this story was published in another platform under a different title.