Trouble upon Trouble

So, we’ve got problems and struggles in life. That’s a fact of life here in a fallen world. We manage our struggles in a variety of ways, some appropriate, some not. We can know that our management techniques have moved into inappropriate methods when they become destructive. They may be destructive to ourselves, others, or frequently both.

Getting back to the spiral we started with a little bit of stress, and a little bit of stress relief. But if the stress relief didn’t really address the causes of the stress, it’s a temporary patch at best. Sometimes that’s all we need, a temporary patch. Then a good night’s sleep, and we’re ready to face the next day’s stresses. But what if that patch isn’t enough?

If using comfort mechanisms that do not directly address the real problem are relied upon, then it is likely that those mechanisms will become problems in and of themselves. If the original problem is not resolved in some other manner, then you have taken one level of problem, and added another layer atop it, to compound the troubles of your life. Finally, at some point (getting back to the spiral illustration) you have moved along your spiral from non-destructive behavior into destructive behavior.

Here it is important to see that the actual behavior hasn’t changed in substance, but in intensity or volume. My comfort behavior is eating. For a while, those midnight trips to the hamburger place during the college years didn’t really do any damage. They couldn’t. I couldn’t afford enough Twin Burgers at Bunks to cause weight gain. Then too, at that point I was operating at a more youthful metabolism where the calories were more easily burned. What those trips did do was establish a pattern of how I would end up dealing with stress and discomfort.

As time went on, the relatively harmless behavior of “relaxing” through food intensified. I hadn’t really developed appropriate methods of dealing with my stresses. The stresses piled up, and the eating increased. It was the same behavior, just more of it.

Something new is added on when the behavior moves from non-destructive levels to destructive levels. Before we had stress type discomfort. Then we added frustration onto the stress discomfort. Now we add on yet another layer of discomfort: guilt.

At some point, we realize that the behavior is destructive. It may be a very mild realization, but it is there. The trousers are a little tight. We have to loosen the belt a notch. We wake up with a hang-over. We realize the wife is right after nagging that the kids never see their dad, he’s always at work. Whatever our comfort behavior is, by using it too much, we have moved into a destructive phase, and we become aware, at some level of that destruction. That awareness is transformed into an appropriate experience of guilt. If we are doing something we shouldn’t, we should feel guilty about it.

So, for now I will leave it with this new layer. We have the original stress or discomfort. We have frustration that we haven’t gotten rid of that discomfort. And now we have guilt that our reaction to that discomfort has led us into destructive behavior.

Also note, we may not be aware that our guilt over our destructive behavior is in any way tied to the original discomfort. We feel guilty over the behavior. But it is quite possible to still be completely unaware that our comfort behaviors are just that–comfort behaviors. We may not be making the connection of original discomfort to our comfort behavior.