by Chinook
I read the strangest thing the other day.
It’s the result of a psychology experiment, described by Amelia and Emily Nagoski in their excellent book “Burnout”. Research participants were asked to solve different kinds of mazes. You know, mazes. The kind my kindergartener loves.
In one set of mazes, little illustrations showed the participants that they were trying to get a wee mouse away from a predatory owl. In another set, they were trying to get the wee mouse towards some tasty cheese.
You would think the illustrations would make no difference. The mazes were all equally difficult. But it turns out that participants were faster at solving the ones with the cheese, by a statistically significant margin (i.e., there’s a less than 1% chance that the difference was a fluke).
The researchers called these “cheese” puzzles “approach-related” and the owl puzzles “avoidance-related”.
“The moral of the story,” Amelia and Emily Nagoski write in their book, is that “we thrive when we have a positive goal to move toward, not just a negative state we’re trying to move away from. If we hate where we are, our first instinct often is to run aimlessly away from the owl of our present circumstances, which may lead us somewhere not much better than where we started. We need something positive to move toward. We need the cheese.”
It’s pretty easy for people like us, working through betrayal trauma, to identify our “owls”. We want to run away from the pain of infidelity. We want to leave the trauma of trickle truth behind. We want to flee the horrible feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But what is our “cheese”?
What positive things are we running towards, not for the sake of our marriage (which is only partly in our control) but for the sake of our own life?
Peace?
Loving kindness for ourselves?
Freedom from unhelpful thought patterns?
What skills do we want to cultivate?
What perspectives do we want to adopt?
What feelings do we want to have about ourselves?
If I choose to focus on the heavenly cheese ahead of me instead of the menacing owls swooping at my back, I might just find a faster way out of this maze.
Hear hear i erupted with my sword drawn to the sky ... saluting u for this post ... a maze indeed. I myself want selfcare front and center, appreciation for just being me without all the pressure or doubt we often come upon and maybe gratitude not for staying but for continuing to do my part in being apart of this husband and wife team where even on the days were off or i might not like this ways or actions i still love and support him, us ... well cause thats what u do. I posted a quote months after dday when i realized forgiving ( not forgetting) wasnt for him but it was releasing me of the heaviness and stress of it all the quote read " one forgives to the degree one loves" reread that ... breath it in ...a nice refresher on days u need one. Chanting 4 plus years now wounded not broken. Prayers my warrior princesses
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that quote, Wounded. My favourite quote about forgiveness comes from Lily Tomlin who said "forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past". I think of that all the time.
Delete@ Chinook. Thanks for the post. It helped validate my approach to healing. I am new to this blog. A BS (F) together 25 yrs., married 18. I am 6 months pass D Day #1 the affair and #2 the baby with the AP. What has gotten me thus far is keeping my eyes firmly planted on God and self-care cheese. I’ll admit it has not been easy. But by putting my focus on me: changing careers, renewing old passions, pursuing forgotten goals and dreams, and redefining the me I want to be; helps to give me the correct focus. While making it through this painful maze.
ReplyDeleteOof... what a brutally painful maze to be finding your way out of, Anonymous. It sounds like your focus is on all the right things. I find that the further out I get from D-Day, the more the "cheese" changes, from immediate survival to longer-term goals, including career and travel goals.
DeleteI think there is something very powerful here, if I can just figure my "running towards". I feel like I have spent the past two plus years filled with so much despair and negativity about our past, I have struggled to visualise that future to run toward.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I don't need to have all the answers, I think to date the fact I can't see clearly that happy future, has meant I'm stuck still fighting the past and not really changing. I think the challenge now is to change fact. I might not know what the future looks like, but I probably know parts of what is LIKE it to look like. Less work, less stress, get away from this town maybe so I'm not always searching for the OW face. And I want it to contain H, so I need to fight for us, not just remain sad for where we are.
Hmm. The question is, how much of this did I already know (And it made no difference), how much can I grab with both hands and shake myself to the point I make changes.
Thank you for this post Chinook. It's made me think and I think I need that kick every so often to remind me that if I want to stop feeling shitty, I need to do things differently.
For me someone on her talked about if you fast forward 20 years and were to look at a photo of you from this time would it be full of color and life or black and white, faded and crumpled. That visual hit home for me. I thought about it a lot. Of course I am sad, angry, mad etc about what happened. But with that visual I decided that my husband and the other women already took enough from me and I was not going to let that continue to drag me down. Of course this is not always easy but I just had an ah ha moment and was like enough. I also feel my kids motivated me too. I did not want them to look back and wonder why I was not my best self. They have no idea that anything happened but they did give me some purpose to make the most of the present. I do think when all of this happens it makes everything seem unsure so what future is there really. But this visual image helped me a lot. Good luck!
DeleteAli, there's a line in your comment that has got me thinking:
Delete"And I want it to contain H, so I need to fight for us, not just remain sad for where we are."
I've been in an odd "stuck" place over the last little while, and I think it's because I can't be sure that I *do* want my future to contain my H, despite the fact that he has increasingly become a better man and considerate partner over the year since he finally disclosed all the details of his affair. The thought of it just leaves me so... numb. Detached.
I know that the owls I am fleeing include all the trauma from his gaslighting, the pain of his affair, and the hurt of his lack of kindness in our marriage for the many years prior to that. But is one of my "cheeses" a new relationship with him? At the moment, no. It's not. And I don't know what, if anything, that means.
really could relate with your comment Chinook, specifically where you talk about your H becoming a better man and considerate partner. You talk about how it leaves you numb and detached. I too feel the same way. It’s been two years this month since D-day, like the proverbial light switch my husband became a “new man” after I discovered his 3 year affair. It seems almost impossible to me that someone could have that big of a turn around in their behavior, finally waking up to reality. His behavior has been tried and true, never wavering since d-day. So why can’t I believe it will stay this way, why do i keep waiting for him to make a mistake so I can have may A-HA! Moment? I realize I should be living my life, enjoying everyday and living in the “now” with my new and improved relationship. But what I can’t get over or around is what if I let my defenses down, and start enjoying our life together...being happy...only to find out that he was unfaithful again. Then I look back and realize what an idiot I was to believe him, to trust again. More time wasted. Sometimes I truly believe it would be easier to just leave him and live alone. I know I can trust myself...I look out for my best interest for sure.
DeleteI'm not sure how I missed your reply above, Chinook. The thing is, I keep saying "I want my future to contain my H", but like you, I'm saying it without knowing if I believe it. It's ridiculous. I want to believe it. I want to have a happy long marriage despite what we have been through, but I want it on an intellectual level, not an emotional one. I hate the idea of divorce, and I could not separate while we have our children at home. So I am left thinking that I need to stay in this relationship at least for now. So if I am intending to stay, I want to be happy, and so I go in circles. I crave a relationship where I feel save, loved, in love, connected. I want to feel that way with my H, but right now I dont know if that is possible. Here in lies the dilemma.
DeleteThis week I have started to wonder about this distance I create around myself. The numbness, the withdrawal from the relationship. I am questioning why I do it and if I can change it. I dont have any definite answers, I think most of it is protective - a learned behaviour from being hurt too many times, but I also wonder if all the things I read about looking after yourself, creating boundaries etc are things that maybe I did do, subconsciously. And he overstepped those boundaries, and I am no longer capable of loving him as deeply as a result. I have headed toward forgiveness, but I can't love someone who treated me the way he did (addict or not). I cant live with the self respect I give myself if I let him back in to my life.
Its a crazy maddening situation. I live in hope that things will improve, but slowly start to realise that maybe this future with him is a pipe dream and mutually exclusive from the boundaries he crossed and the barriers I now have around me. I think there are a lot of us in that situation. I just wish I didnt start to feel this way and still had more hope for our future together.
For me. I just need something on the calendar to look forward to. This week it was a movie. Just something.
ReplyDeleteIt’s been five years since DDay. And mostly I am better. But then a cousin with a marriage as long as mine ends. They seemed so stable. A couple to count on.
It sucks that other folks’ dramas can affect me so.
So. A thing on the calendar keeps me going.
Someday things must get better. Right?