Identify, Disarm Your Buttons
By Silver Rose
Identify & Disarm Your Buttons
With the holidays coming, it might be a good time to do some preparation for being around those who know us and love us and yet seem to have peculiar ways of expressing their affection.
Whenever I watch the TV show, What About Raymond? I can’t help but notice how much his family resembles mine. Frank, the father, calls Raymond “big nose.” Raymond taunts his brother Robert with “Jolly Green Giant” jokes. Maria, the mother, hasn’t anything good to say about daughter-in-law Deborah’s housekeeping.
And yet they all love each other. Profoundly.
In my family, we also have a history of expressing love for each other through endless teasing. When I went to live on my own as an adult, my first roommate asked me, “Why are you torturing me?” I replied, “In my family, this is how we express love.” Judith threw up her hands and said, “Would you love me a little less, please?”
In a recent talk by Dr. David Hawkins, the idea of “owning our shortcomings” was introduced. According to Dr. Hawkins, if you embrace those things that are guaranteed to embarrass you when brought to attention, no one has any power over you. Someone says, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” to which you smile and reply, “I know. I have a rare talent for it, don’t you think?”
If we could simply embrace our shortcomings without apology or embarrassment, we would stop giving other people control over our emotions. Our buttons would be disarmed.
In order to do this, it’s important to come to terms with what your buttons are. What could someone say to you that would cause you to turn red as a beet with embarrassment, or start that vein in your neck throbbing with anger, or propel you into an outburst of tears?
Comics turn their hot buttons into loads of money. Louis Anderson is fat and talks about it, making people laugh. Phyllis Diller makes fun of all the plastic surgery she’s had. Rodney Dangerfield “got no respect” and turned it into a gold mine.
What part of yourself have you not accepted? This is the part that others can hurt you with. For some of you, it’s the part you continually hurt yourself with – your self-talk is worse than anything anyone else would ever say.
My father used to tease me about how clumsy I am. Now I can say to anyone who points it out, “Yeah, but I’m fun to watch, don’t you think?”
It all comes down to self-appreciation. The more we appreciate the gifts and talent that we have, the less we feel we have to be good at everything. So I’ll never have the grace of a ballerina. I don’t need it for the things I want to do. And they don’t make the slippers in my size, anyway!
The Law of Attraction says “You attract what you focus on.” The more self-conscious we are about various traits, the more likely we are to attract people who agree with our assessment. We all know smart, capable people who are continually overlooked for promotions in favor of people with less talent. Scratch the surface of the one who is overlooked and you will find someone who is focused on what he’s NOT good at, versus what he is.
So prepare yourself for the holidays (and life in general) this year by sitting down and making a list of all the things you’re self-conscious about. Once that list is complete, take a look at it. Is anything on it really important? Do you have other attributes that more than make up for the ones you lack? Can you embrace those traits? What comebacks can you formulate to disarm the power of those who would push your buttons?
Once you can embrace what you are and what you are not, interaction with others gets a whole lot easier. You see, the Law of Attraction guarantees that the issues won’t come up very often at all.
