Unhooking

It starts out as a regular conversation, friendly or useful, then without even noticing, our conversation is now an argument. What happened? And more importantly, how do we turn the argument back into a conversation?

Right now, many of us are experiencing COVID-19 fatigue, or the many stressors of our times, which can make arguments more likely. To compound the already heightened emotions, we don’t have the ordinary reassurance of speaking face to face in a room with those we are communicating with. A one sentence email, or Facebook post can hook us, and now we are either in an argument on our screens, or we are arguing with the person silently in our minds, maybe for days. I’ll be honest with you I’ve spent a lot of time arguing in my head with my meditation teacher, and that family member who posted something that hooked me on Facebook. So today I’d like to take some time to notice what is happening, I’m going to call it “getting hooked” and to give us some tools for “unhooking.”

A hook is a very simple tool. I have them all over my house, they hold hanging plants mugs, curtain ties, bracelets, clothing. I’d encourage you to grab a hook and play with it. Why? Because symbols and metaphors are also helpful tools in understanding ourselves and our world. Getting the body involved, like holding a hook in your hand provides a kinesthetic, embodied style of learning.

Look around your space, what can you hook with your hook? Not everything will hook. Not everything will hook easily...

Our psyches are like this too. We can have many conversations, we can read many social media posts, and they slide off us. Then, something will hook us, hook our attention, our thoughts, our emotions. That can be good or bad.

But sometimes what hooks has emotional charge, some tender spot that touches our history, or a complex of unresolved issues. I’ll tell you one that hooked me recently. In the Enneagram tradition of personality typing, my type is the 9 or “peacemaker” Recently on a Facebook group, someone posted that 9s have trouble making decisions because they “don’t know themselves.” This really hooked me. I spent about a week arguing with that guy in my head. I’m sure many other people read that quote and didn’t get hooked, but it sure got me. That sentence was just the right size for my own personal hook. 

Step 1- I notice that I am hooked. Like if you were walking by a pricker bush and got hooked by a branch, you would need to just stop, look and notice “oh, I’m hooked on that pricker bush.” Often we notice this as an emotional charge- I feel wound up, stuck, agitated, worried, frustrated, angry, and I notice that it is sticking to me, that I am carrying it around with me into my day. For me, noticing and being able to articulate that I am hooked is already a bit of a relief. By noticing there is much better chance we can avoid damage to our favorite shirt, or to the pricker bush.

Step 2 is to stop tugging at it. You can see with this hook, that tugging is not going to help. [show] It’s easy to unhook if it’s still sitting on my desk, but once I pick it up, I am not going to be able to unhook until I set it down. A hook like this is wide open on one side, and only works because of the force of the object. You can put a heavy object on it, and gravity will make it work. I feel trapped, but actually, there is still plenty of space for me to unhook. So before we lash back to that Facebook post, we just pause, unclench our muscles and give ourselves a little compassion that we are now hooked, and that doesn’t feel good.

Step 3 is to investigate with kindness. Just as you would if a bramble had hooked your favorite shirt, and you bent over- very carefully so you don’t rip it- to inspect the hook and where it is snagged on your shirt. We look inside and ask- what feeling am I having, what are those feelings connected to? To me, the important thing here is not to figure out who did what to whom, who is right and who is wrong, but where does the shirt end and the hook begin. What is mine to notice and change, and what belongs to the bramble.

I look at the argument and literally notice where I end and the other person begins. This is called individuation, and it is a really important goal for psychological health. This might take some discernment. It’s one thing to say “that author hurt my feelings” and to be mad at the author, which I did. But another way to look at is “the author said this thing” and “I feel hurt” – those are 2 separate things. I can’t change what the author said, but I do need to take care of myself, and the feelings I have, and what I want to do about them. In my case I carried this Enneagram argument around for a week, looking for a way to set it down, but finally I sat down and wrote in my journal what I DO know about myself- that I love peace. I love it more than I care whether we have sushi or burritos for dinner. Once I remembered what I know about myself, and grounded myself in that self-knowledge, it was easy for me to unhook. That author didn’t even know me. I claimed my own wisdom about myself, and slid right out of that hook.

As I was writing today’s reflection, I realized that it owes a lot to a Buddhist practice called “RAIN” that I’ve been practicing. (Buddhist psychology is a rich tradition that reaches back thousands of years and has some very practical tools and wisdom.) I’ll put some links into the chat and the blog for work by Tara Branch, who is a wonderful teacher, and has a series of meditations about this.

What I am calling “sliding the hook out” she calls this 4th step “non-identification” Once I’ve figured out where I am hooked, which part is me, what I am hooked on, and where there may be space to let go, I can free my hook from whatever has hooked it.

Brach says there’s an important last step which is resting in that place. How lovely to have achieved that state of being unhooked, of knowing that I am not that argument, I am not my feelings, to just enjoy that for a moment and rest into it.

A few months ago, I got an email from an acquaintance who sends out political rants to all his friends and acquaintances. This particular rant was about some terrible thing that liberals do, or had done. I felt a surge of adrenaline as I read it, and immediately began composing a response in my mind. But I had promised myself I wouldn’t respond, because I didn’t want to get into an argument with him, but that email kept writing itself in my mind. I finally turned to my husband Eric and said “Why would he say that when it’s verifiably false?” Eric replied, “that’s called liberal baiting, he’s just trying to get a rise out of you.” Wow, it sure worked, I thought. But suddenly I saw that I was hooked, and I was able to let go.

Now this is a bit harder when you are in an argument with a person you do know, and they are hooked too. People in your household, people in your family or workplace. So if you are sitting near a friend now, you can try that together. If, like me, you don’t’ have a buddy, you can use one hand for each person. You can see that if you are both pulling, you are never going to get unhooked, and you might even hurt each other.

If you are both committed to healthy communication, you could ask, “hey can we talk about this? I feel some intense feelings and I’d like to talk this through because I care about this relationship” and you can work through the process together, like that time my bracelet hooked on a friend’s sweater.

But some people are just not able or willing to do that. So remember, your hook is part of you, that’s what you can control. [you can try this one with just your fingers- hold out ahooked finger- hook it to other hooked finger] Once you have spent some time in reflection, figuring out what is your part of the argument (your “contribution” some folks call it) what you need to own, and what is not yours to own, you can choose to soften your hook and let go. That can sometimes be very challenging, so that’s why we do it with kindness to ourselves and to others.

If someone still comes after you with their hook, that’s abusive. That requires a clear boundary that their hook will slide off. You many need friends to help you create and keep that boundary. Boundaries are a talk for another day. That’s why the first step is recognizing- is asking- is this a hook, or is it something else?

Like some of you, I’ve been sheltering at home in a space that feels pretty small some days for 3 large adults. We’ve all been intentionally kind to one other, knowing we are stuck together in a new way. The other day my husband said something, and I snapped back- instantly hooked. He said “I don’t want to have an argument” and I realized I didn’t want to either. And in that moment, I was able to notice the hook, figure out what I was hooked on, unhook and let it go. In this difficult time when tempers are short, the country is divided and we all have the COVID-19 fatigue, remembering to notice when we get hooked, and practicing unhooking may be very useful. It’s a nonviolent way of looking at the tangles of our life and relationships that helps us grow in self knowledge and non-identification, so we can rest in the freedom of who we really are.