Present Time, Reactivity, and Why Adults Need a Time Out

I want you to envision if you will a place called present time.

I know it sounds easy, but really there are not many people that spend enough time in present time.

For example, let’s say you’re driving to work and you have your attention on an important meeting you’re having this morning. You have to answer up to your boss or senior executive and basically make sure you’ve got your shit together.

You’re totally “in that meeting” as you drive.

So, while you’re driving you’re basically not in present time.

Yes, I understand that while you drive your mind can be anywhere but present time.

And then you come to a red light and you stop. You envision you’re handling the questions your boss asks you.The light turns green and as you drive forward some other car comes screaming across the intersection literally seconds in front of you. You slam on your brakes and catch your heart before it goes through the windshield.

Welcome to present time.

All of us have experienced this “almost brush with death” while driving or when someone suddenly cuts in front of us on the highway.

The adrenaline spike is enough to age you a thousand years.

Yet this in truth is present time.

It is where your awareness is right now.

And this is not some New Age nonsense.

Present time is the moment that is right now.

Not in twenty minutes at your meeting or not ten minutes ago when you were admonishing your son for vaping before school.

You are present.

Right now.

And each moment of now that passes you are present.

Except when you’re not.

You get up in the morning and your attention is on getting your kid ready for school. Or getting your first cup of coffee and a quick breakfast and off to work. With a half dozen other things on your mind, you kiss your husband or wife while you are checking your cell phone for messages. You drive with your attention on work and the confrontation with your marketing director. You think ahead to the call you have with your CPA because your tax bill this year is out the roof.

So far no time has been spent in the present.

Seems unreal but this is a typical morning.

Now, to help you understand present time a bit better and where you are when you are not in present time, take a look at this simple diagram below.

We draw a line like this:

_________________________   

And we say everything ABOVE that line is Present Time, okay?

And everything below that line is Reactivity and Misemotion.

Misemotion is just as the word states.

Mis = wrong. So when you get misemotioal you are dramatizing or expressing an irrational emotion with respect to the event.

You laugh at a kid falling off his bike and he gets hurt. That’s misemotion.

Now stay with me on this...you will see how you wittingly or unwittingly slip in and out of these two worlds.

Here’s a simple diagram of how this would look:

PRESENT TIME    (NOW)

___________________________

REACTIVITY/MISEMOTION      (NOT NOW)

Two places.

One is NOW.

And one is NOT NOW.

You walk out the door and feel the chill of the morning air. You zip up your jacket a bit tighter. That’s NOW.

As you walk to your car you’re still a bit unsettled that your son is vaping and he’s only 15. You mull over your heated conversation with him as you absently open your car door. That’s NOT NOW.

That’s THEN.

Real Life: You and Your Spouse or Partner

You and your spouse or partner are having a conversation.

It’s going along fine. You’re discussing a trip to Italy for your vacation this summer. You’re both quite excited.

Each of you are in the moment talking with intention and attention on each other and the different ideas you have.

During this conversation Sarah brings up that when she and her husband Jack go to Italy, she wants to get this special Francesca Gori purse that her best friend told her about last summer.

Sarah: “I absolutely have to visit Scuola del Cuoio so I can buy this purse.”

Jack: “Sweetie, you don’t need another purse.”

Sarah: (Looking shocked) “What the hell are you talking about? I’ve been telling you about this purse since last summer!”

Jack: “I understand. But you have enough purses, babe. Besides, this trip is already over budget.”

Freeze Frame.

Did you feel the slip below the line?

Jack and Sarah just left present time.

It’s instantaneous.

And yet both are completely unaware they’re about to fall further down the rabbit hole.

Jack and Sarah have left the world of CREATE and NOW and have each tripped a wire connected to misemotion from their past.  

Sarah is a tad angry but has put her upset on suppress.

Jack’s evaluation about “another purse” takes Sarah’s enthusiastic create out of the conversation which upsets her.

As soon as Sarah hear’s, “You don’t need another purse,” where do you think her attention goes?

Into the past.

Sarah dropped below the line and went to an earlier time Jack gave her his opinion about her spending too much money on another pair of new shoes.

See?

Sarah is now preparing to counter Jack because, “He always does this. He always tells me that I spend too much and I don’t need more purses or shoes.”

Sarah is now in a moment in the past that she still has upset on but never resolved.

And she’s looking at Jack but she’s not in present time.

And Jack?

Jack is using the past to get Sarah to see she has too many purses already.

And Jack is about to get a chamber unloaded from Sarah.

And in the blink of an eye, the creative conversation they were having about their vacation to Italy left present time and both have slid into the reactivity of the past.

The apparency is you have two people arguing now and it looks like this is normal.

No, this is not normal. If there is such a word.

The subtlety of this is the whole purpose of this article.

Both Sarah and Jack just fell down the rabbit hole and although they both know the temperature of their conversation has changed, they have zero understanding that they are in free fall.

None of what they’re about to talk about is in present time.

If you were having a conversation with your spouse in your car and it got heated and the person sitting on the passenger side decided to jump out of the car while it was moving, you would know something had changed. You would slam on the brakes and stop because WTF just happened here, right?

Right.

But when there is no visible or visceral way for you to know this conversation has left present time, most couples keep communicating but below the line out of present time.

And when you go into the past and carry on your conversation, it almost always gets worse.

And why is this?

Because below that line are moments that have occurred that are similar to the one you’re having but with emotional charge or upset not resolved.

Why is Sarah silently fuming?

Because she’s experienced this before and she’s had enough.

Why is Jack using the past to make Sarah wrong?

Because Jack has had enough of Sarah’s capricious spending.

Once you dive into this world below the line of present time, you will see how most arguments come about.

Because arguments are most often the province of things not in present time.

We resume…

Sarah: “Jack, don’t be squashing my dream of having thee purse I’ve been telling you about since I saw Cindy’s purse last summer.”

Jack: “I’m not squashing your dream, Sarah. I’m just trying to be practical. The trip to Italy is expensive. Just how much is this purse anyway?”

Sarah: (Pauses. Crosses her arms across her chest. Stares at her husband)

“You don’t want to know.”

Jack: “Come on babe. We gotta know to plan our finances.”

Sarah: (Pauses again). “It’s $2,700.00”

Jack: $2,700.00??? For a fucking purse??!!!

Freeze Frame:

See where this is headed?

Sarah and Jack started out in an excited high create conversation about their summer trip to Italy.

All in present time.

And as long as you can stay in present time---which would mean being in this moment as it occurs, not a similar moment from the past as Sarah and Jack are experiencing---but staying in this moment, you can communicate with enormous breadth.

Because nothing is happening in present time except what you are creating and resolving.

Sarah knows from these past moments they always end up arguing and she’s had enough.

And Jack has had one too many conversations about purses and shoes and Sarah’s “has to have” spending habits that he felt he had to put his foot down.

So both of them are free falling down the rabbit hole.

See, below this line it’s a trap.

Because all of these past moments below this line have no life in them.

They are like solar cells that just sit there until the sun hits them.

Well, when an aware being like Sarah or Jack put their attention on these past moments, they come alive.

Those “solar cell” argument moments reactivate.

Just for a moment see if you can recall a conversation with someone you love, your partner, or a friend that was going along smoothly.

And then the conversation seemed to morph into this alien-esk decline where you now felt just slightly estranged from the person in front of you.

I mean it’s almost like black magic.

One moment it’s them and then next moment it’s like they're someone else.

They look and sound like your partner or friend. They seem to be talking to you but the tone of the conversation has flipped.

And I mean upside down.

Like maybe you were having a conversation with your spouse, partner or friend on the phone and the other person just abruptly hung up on you?

You were trying to get the conversation back above that line.

And you had your part in it too, but you knew you were underwater and you were trying your damnedest to get back the affinity, some reality and communication.

And then BAM. 

Deep dive into below the line.

It’s shocking at first.

But that’s the part about the world below that line.

Sarah: “You sound just like your Dad when he starts talking about money!”

And see, when your conversation and language goes there, you are down there with the Cheshire cat and the Red King and the Red Queen.

How to Stay Above that Line:

It has been found by research that people have only about 25% of their attention in present time.

Twenty-five percent.

Most of one’s attention are on things in the past including the argument you had with your spouse before going to work, telling your son he cannot vape at school, paying bills, the economics of life, incomplete conversations, and work related cycles.

So when you finally have a moment to devote to having a conversation where your attention is not dispersed on a gazillion other things, it’s pretty rare.

And when you have a great conversation you know it.

It stays above that line and whether it’s coffee with a best friend or discussing your vacation plans, when it flows and doesn’t dive, it’s truly wonderful.

The key to all of this is to understand that your own mind is constantly engaged in what life is throwing at you

Texting Can Make You Testy:

You get a text that disturbs you. You are really pissed. You are so pissed you dive below the line and text back with ninja stars flying.

And then they do the same.

And this is where you need to stop.

Whether texting or talking in person or over the phone it doesn’t matter.

The mistake people make is once that first ninja star hits your neck, it’s tough not to want to ninja star back.

Once your partner or friend says something that is completely insensitive or off the rails, the gravitic pull from the NOT NOW world is tempting you to join in.

Remember the solar cell is inert until life (the sun) hits it.

When you get hit below that line, you will know.

Because the response welling up inside of you if often to send a testy text back.

That’s just playing emotional badminton with the Dark Side.

When the original communication devolves below that line, you will know because you are basically now out of communication.

Really, it’s the weirdest thing ever.

And unless you stop, and I mean stop, like giving your kids a “Time Out,” it usually gets ugly and then it gets distant.

Because below this line there is no reasoning.

Reason has left the building because reactivity took over. 

One is now only trying to “be right” to correct the ship.

The ship will never correct below this line.

You have to stop and see you are sinking.

Jump out of that car. I’m not kidding.

You have to be aware of being aware that you are in the Nebula of Misemotion and give yourselves a “Time Out.”

Have enough breadth and awareness to see that your affinity, reality, and communication have been usurped.

It does matter who or what or how.

You are both possessed.

You are.

You are possessed by those moments and events in your past that tow you into the Underworld.

If she’s sounding like her Mom, stop.

If he’s sounding like his Dad, stop.

If the person in front of you begins to make you think, “Who the fuck is this person I married?” you need to stop.

And if you do not take hold of your free fall, you will add another moment below the line that will be added to the already linear series of moments that are labeled “Powderkeg.”

Most couples “best” these moments because people like Sarah and Jack love one another and ‘hang in there.”

But really, one’s love and endurance often get so thin that the next time someone dives below the line, one or both of the parties hit bottom.

And that is where quitting resides.

Take a Walk to Save the Day:

Have you ever had a heated argument with your spouse and said “Let’s take a walk?” And then you took a walk and things seem to settle down?

Yes, because in an argument your attention is inward. It’s on the past.

It is not in present time.

But if you look around your environment and notice the trees, and say Hi! to a person walking their dog, and just breathe, your attention will extrovert.

You have to walk long enough to do this.

And really Sarah and Jack’s situation is getting worse.  

One or the other will get so pissed, that one or both will blow the conversation and leave.

Sarah will grab her keys and head to the gym and fume about Jack all the way there.

Jack turns on ESPN and fumes about how, “Sarah always gets like this.”

Listen, love is an eloquent concept and people want to believe love will win the day.

It often does not.

Because the truth is love disappears below that line.

And so does the Cheshire Cat and unfortunately many really good relationships.

Don’t play badminton on the Dark Side.

Take a walk or a Time Out until you’re breathing that rare air of present time.

And when you’re back in present time, apologize to your spouse or friend for momentarily going alien-esk on them.

If they’re in good shape, they will have a good laugh and realize their Godzilla was no match for your King Kong.

Dave Worthen

Author. Consultant. International Speaker.

Website: www.daveworthen.com

Books: Dave Worthen Books