Reactivity - Part 1

Reactivity - Part 1

We humans are born with a pretty good handle on our basic physical needs. If an infant’s airway gets blocked, she coughs. If she is hungry she cries. As we arrive in the world with our instinctive, reptilian brain pretty well developed, we get to work on the emotional and relational part of our brain. Scientists call this part of our brain the mammalian brain or limbic system. They think that most of the wiring for this part of our brain happens in the first 7 years or so.

In those early days, we observe those around us. We learn to read facial expressions and tones of voice. We learn which behaviors are acceptable and rewarded in our tribe and which are not. We learn through often painful experience how to protect ourselves. Relationship is an essential requirement in human survival, so our early childhood brain development is all about figuring out how to maintain relationships by studying and interacting with the people around us.

This is a good system, with one unfortunate truth: It turns out that the people around us are imperfect. In addition to lots of great skills, we also pick up some coping strategies and defenses that will end up making a real mess of things when we leave our first family and try to be in relationship with the rest of the world. For the rest of our lives, growth is mostly about uncovering those defenses and learning new ways of being. This is tricky because most of our relational behaviors (those that work well and those that cause harm) are so deep in our experience that they are unconscious. When life is going along well, and often when it isn’t, we simply don’t see them.

This is where community comes in as a powerful force to help us become our best selves. It generally goes something like this. Joe and Sally live in community together. Joe and Sally do not get along. Maybe Joe has a facial expression when he speaks in meetings that (unbeknownst to either of them) is just like the expression Sally’s father had when he reprimanded her and it leaves Sally feeling belittled and judged. Maybe Sally likes to store things on her front porch and it reminds Joe (unbeknownst to either of them) of the kind of clutter that in his house growing up meant you were lazy and disrespectful. Whatever it is, they trigger each other and when they get triggered they get reactive, which is when their very worst selves show up and nobody likes it.

In a regular subdivision, these two would probably just ignore each other most of the time, but in cohousing that’s hard to do. They run into each other at common meals and community meetings and in the parking lot and on committees. In community it’s really hard to hide from conflict, which is a beautiful thing because conflict is where growth happens. Conflict brings the hidden, unconscious bits into the light and gives us the opportunity to heal them.

Of course opportunity to heal does not assure healing and not all conflict results in growth. The challenge of community is to figure out how to tip the scales so that growth comes out of conflict more often than not.

To be continued . . .