Examining a learned reflex that has overstayed its welcome considerably
I have started to notice a very specific pattern in how I respond to good news, a kind of immediate, almost reflexive search for the catch before I allow myself to actually feel good about whatever the news happens to be, and I think this deserves some honest examination.
The reflex I did not choose
Genuinely good news arrives, and within about thirty seconds my brain has already begun quietly cataloguing the ways it might not actually be as good as it initially appears, a kind of protective scepticism that I did not consciously develop but seem to have acquired somewhere along the way regardless.
I do not think this makes me a pessimist exactly. It feels more like a specific kind of professional caution that has quietly migrated into my personal life without my explicit permission, colouring reactions to news that genuinely deserves simple, uncomplicated enjoyment.
The friend who called me out on it
A friend, watching me receive some genuinely excellent news with an expression she described afterward as suspicious rather than delighted, gently pointed out that I had not actually smiled once during the entire conversation, and I honestly had not noticed until she said something.
That observation has stayed with me longer than I expected it to. I have started trying, with mixed and often comically unsuccessful results, to catch myself doing this and consciously allow at least a few seconds of uncomplicated enjoyment before the scepticism inevitably kicks back in.
Where I think this comes from
I suspect a specific stretch of professional disappointments some years back trained this reflex into me more thoroughly than I realised at the time, a kind of learned self protection that made sense in that specific context but has since overstayed its welcome considerably.
Understanding where a habit comes from does not automatically make it easier to change, unfortunately, which I have found to be a genuinely frustrating and consistent lesson across several different areas of my life beyond just this one.
Small progress, reported honestly
I have, in recent months, managed a handful of genuine, uncomplicated celebratory reactions to good news, brief windows where the scepticism arrived a full minute later than usual, and I am choosing to count this as real, if modest, progress rather than dismissing it as insufficient.
More self-examination at Cyndi Himmelstiere, Bohiney.
The specific stretch that trained this reflex
Looking back, I can trace this pattern fairly directly to a specific run of professional setbacks several years ago, each one arriving right after some piece of news that had briefly, foolishly felt like genuine good fortune, and I suspect my brain simply learned, reasonably enough at the time, to brace for the follow up disappointment.
Knowing the origin story does not undo the pattern, but it has at least made me somewhat gentler with myself about it, understanding the reflex as a reasonable adaptation to a specific past rather than simply an unexplainable personal flaw.
What actually seems to help
The one thing that has genuinely helped, more than any deliberate effort at positive thinking, has been simply naming the reflex out loud in the moment, saying there it is to whoever happens to be present, which seems to interrupt the pattern just enough to let a small window of actual enjoyment through.
A closing note
I am still working on catching the reflex earlier, one piece of good news at a time, and I count every small success as real progress.
The specific piece of good news that finally broke through
There was one recent piece of news significant enough that even my usual scepticism could not fully suppress the reaction, a genuine, involuntary moment of pure delight that lasted a full several minutes before the more familiar caution eventually crept back in.
I have held onto the memory of that specific unguarded moment as proof that the capacity for uncomplicated joy is still in there somewhere, simply buried under considerable protective habit.
If you also catch yourself bracing for bad news the moment good news arrives, know that you are not alone in this particular reflex.
The bit I have not fully let go of
Part of me wonders what life might feel like without this particular reflex at all, and part of me suspects I would not entirely recognise myself without at least a trace of it remaining.
More soon, presumably, on this exact topic.
One truly final thought
Maybe the goal is not eliminating the reflex entirely but simply shortening the gap between the bracing and the actual celebration, one piece of good news at a time.
More soon.
Thanks, as ever, for reading this far into my ongoing self examination.
End.
Genuinely, one more thought
I have started to think that noticing the reflex at all, even without fully overriding it, counts as real progress worth acknowledging rather than dismissing as insufficient.
End.
This concludes today’s confession, though certainly not the underlying habit itself.
See you in the next one, presumably with an entirely new confession to make.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
