We all have a troubleshooter and troublemaker within us who clash. Sometimes engaging in a swift mealy-mouthed squabble and other times in a lengthy hell-bent brawl, their discord is our way of deciding how to feel able, or successful, and close, or connected. The duo routinely tussles over how we can best acquire our psychological needs and, in doing so, attend to our well-being.
As implied, our troubleshooter and troublemaker are combatants with very different goals. Our trusting troubleshooter is ready to size up and improve upon our self-care strategies. Especially important is the willingness of troubleshooters to recognize and heal the hurtful losses that hinder our self-care. In contrast, our distrusting troublemaker shuns the self-exploration required to spot and modify shaky need-acquiring tactics. In conjunction, our troublemaker usually wants to skirt, or ignore, hurtful losses and, in effect, pretend healing isn’t necessary.
Ready to avoid the work of healing, our troublemaker tries to compensate for lost ableness and closeness by over- or undervaluing ways to acquire these needs. Because this strategy is commonly shared by others, it becomes well reinforced, making it hard to challenge. While kindness and fairness are often undervalued ways to feel able or close, a popular overvalued way to acquire them is the pursuit of a dream, during which we seek what we believe to be a grand achievement. Even when bringing about much criticism and failure, our troublemaker may continue to demand we pursue the dream partnership, job, talent, deed or possession. Times an achieved dream results in disillusionment, our troublemaker often insists we pretend things are fine.
Of course, our ability to engage in the mindfulness needed to truly own times our troubleshooter and troublemaker are wrangling depends on the learning experiences we’ve had. Unfortunately, mental health self-care lessons are usually haphazardly delivered. The adults running things generally believe the skills needed to handle mental hurdles are sufficiently passed on during typical day to day exchanges. In other words, they believe self-care lessons don’t need to be somewhat standardized and structured.
Good mental health self-care, especially mindfulness that deals with inner-conflict, is more likely when planned learning experiences are routinely provided. Ideally, kids would learn and relearn how kindness and fairness nurture and heal. Without such learning, our troublemaker becomes difficult to oppose. No one is always nice, our troublemaker may successfully rationalize when encouraging us to lie, cheat or ridicules. Failure is not an option, our troublemaker may threaten when countering thoughts of giving up on a dream.
The imperfection that leads to self-care difficulties can be lessened, but not vanquished. Consequently, we do best when we routinely bolster our troubleshooter with empathic humility—a mindfulness that normalizes our potential for mistakes and for growth. Such bolstering enables us to more readily turn the unpleasant mulling that’s usual after hurtful losses into a time of healing.
A specific way to have our troubleshooter promote good mental health is to ponder a reminder. Examples of such mindfulness are below. Focusing on one that rings true can be especially helpful. Tweaking one so that it better suits you may also be beneficial. For those ready to challenge themselves, a suggestion follows each reminder.
Reminder: Being nice boots my self-regard. After going out of your way to be kind or fair to another, take a moment to recognize the ableness or closeness you acquired.)
Reminder: Owning my flawed humanness helps me condemn less and heal more. (Challenge the valuse you continue to give to something you failed to attian.)
Reminder: Staying with niceness despite encountering nastiness shows courage and wisdom. (Imagine experiencing self-esteem by responding to ridicule with kindness or fairness.)
Reminder: My niceness makes me good enough. (Convince yourself that diplomas, trophies, partnerships, purchases and other achievements pale alongside being a nice person.)