The Mental Emotional Health Blog

The word “intimidate” is defined this way in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: “to make timid or fearful : frighten; especially : to compel or deter by or as if by threats”. I want to provide a strategy for not feeling intimidated in certain situations.

The main goal of this intimidation-buster strategy is to identify what is intimidating you in a situation in order to diffuse your own ”fear reaction”. These questions may help:

1) What is it specifically about this situation that has me feeling intimidated (a specific person, feeling outnumbered, environment, etc.)?

2) Does this situation remind me of other situations I felt intimidated into doing something or not doing something?

3) What kinds of body language (posture, invading personal space, etc.) and facial expressions are making me feel uncomfortable?

4) Am I being interrupted frequently?

5) Is this person talking louder than I am, or yelling?

6)  What could this person gain from intimidating me?

7)  Is that person really trying to intimidate me, or am I somehow causing my own anxiety in this situation?

There are other similar questions you could ask yourself, but I think you get the general idea. It may also be easier to consider these questions when you are away from the intimidating situation. Intimidating situations are almost always emotional, and it is tougher to think logically when you’re feeling a lot of emotion.

Being curious is one of the best ways to diffuse your own emotions. Once you feel comfortable enough to ask yourself some of the questions listed above while you are in a situation, you may notice how curiosity can replace anxiety. Curiosity allows you to maintain a logical thought process. Emotions such as fear, anger, confusion, sadness, and even happiness can make it difficult to think clearly. But you don’t have to worry about feeling so curious you can’t think straight.

To summarize, here is a 3-step Intimidation-Buster strategy that incorporates some of these ideas if you notice yourself feeling intimidated in a situation:

Step 1: Do your best to keep your breathing slow and natural.

Step 2: Decide to maintain a curious frame of mind while you are in the intimidating situation.

 Step 3: Ask  yourself a few of the 7 questions listed above, with the goal of identifying what is intimidating you.

This also takes practice, so don’t expect to master it quickly. It may be more helpful to practice the strategy when you are alone and not feeling intimidated, and use the last intimidating situation you were in as an example.

Anxiety and fear can be intense, but you can learn to function well despite having those emotions in intimidating situations.

All of the anger management strategies and skills in the world are worthless unless you use them.

I suppose sarcasm is considered a form of humor. Unlike light-hearted humor though, sarcasm takes on an edgy quality. If a statement is really sarcastic, a common description is that the statement was “dripping with sarcasm”. That doesn’t sound too fun.

The reason I mentioned the edgy quality to sarcasm in the previous paragraph is because the edginess is negative, even if intended to be funny. Negativity affects you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and socially. Following my line of logic here, when you are sarcastic you are probably having a negative influence on yourself and others.

Which would you prefer to hear of the following 2 examples?

1) Oh, you did the dishes. Thanks.

2) You did the dishes?! Wow, that’s not a surprise because you always do the dishes, don’t you?

Consider these 2 definitions of sarcasm from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. I have underlined certain words for emphasis:

“1: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain“

“2 a: a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual“

How much sarcasm do you use on a daily basis? Do you use it rarely, frequently, or only around certain people? Making basic communication adjustments can increase your positivity and decrease negativity. Eliminating sarcasm from your conversations is a great step toward feeling better about yourself and others.

In case you haven’t figured this out yet, when you see an entry with some of my favorite quotations, it means I didn’t come up with my own idea for a blog entry. Anyway . . .

“The difference between us and a computer is that, the computer is blindingly stupid, but it is capable of being stupid many, many million times a second.” - Douglas Adams

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny…’ ” - Isaac Asimov

“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.” - Maya Angelou

“The pain now is part of the happiness then.” - C.S. Lewis

“He who has a ‘why’ to live for, can bear with almost any ‘how’. ” - Attributed to Nietzsche

“Time makes more converts than reason.” - Thomas Paine

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.” - Blaise Pascal

The subject today is about parenting and unconditional love, and is a follow-up to last week’s entry: http://mentalemotionalhealth.com/2008/03/10/where-discipline-and-love-connect/ . It is expected that parents love their children unconditionally, whether their children are infants, teens, or adults. For some parents though, unconditional love gets tougher for parents as their children get older. 

It seems the main reason I’ve heard for this is that as children get older, they become more aware of what to do or what not to do. Some parents start taking it personally when their child gets past a certain “age of accountability”, and then the child is disobedient or forgets how to show the proper attitude in every situation. In such cases you could say that parental love develops “conditions” as parental expectations increase.

Children do not have an adult brain with all of its functions, and teenagers do not have a fully-developed personality. Why then do we expect them to? For several years, a teen’s job is to figure out what life is about, and how they will fit into it.

I wish I remembered where I read this, but years ago I saw an article that suggested adolescence may last into a person’s mid-20’s. From personal experience that made sense to me. I still noticed myself trying to take the easy way out of certain things instead of applying my own skills and determination up until the age of 24. I count myself truly blessed to have parents that continued to love me unconditionally despite my hesitancy to grow up in my early 20’s. In fact, knowing that parental love was there no matter what was one of the main factors that motivated me to mature and take more self-responsibility.

So when it comes to parenting, remember that your children do not know everything yet about how to be a person. If conditions are attached to the love parents have for children, that will teach children to set conditions on their own love, in romantic relationships or as a future parent. But knowing that they are loved unconditionally allows them to explore and grow despite mistakes and missed opportunities.