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Pre-processing
Sometimes emotional anger and pain events come as a total surprise, but most of the time we can see them developing well in advance. A valuable skill is the ability to have a plan in place before we find ourselves getting hurt. If we know the area of life in which we are most likely to encounter anger or pain we can develop a course of action well in advance of the event. This is known as pre-processing and it is a smart thing to do. For example, if a person has had a lot of damage in the area of survival, they would do well to know what action they would take if their job suddenly ended. This can happen; companies sometime relocate or completely close their doors. New personnel can mean drastic changes. An unexpected illness or accident can render a person unable to work. Knowing what course of action will be taken helps to lower stress and prevents negative thinking.
People who have damage with acceptance issues are smart to have a plan in place before attending a family reunion or gathering. What will they do if someone at the gathering says or does something that is hurtful? It’s better to plan ahead a polite way to leave rather than storming out and slamming doors. What’s wrong with expressing the need to take care of self followed by the message for everyone to have a good time? What’s wrong with it, nothing! A plan in place ahead of time prevents angry words, bent brows and negative tones.
Pre-processing should not be seen as an excuse to ruminate. It needs to be a plan in place, well in advance of a potential pain event. That’s all it should be. It should never be justification to ruminate or feed negative thoughts into past pain events that were never pre-processed.
"My area of greatest damage is in the acceptance area of human endeavor and it involves primary people. That is the people that I value the most. My first "family get-together” after getting out of prison reminded me of just how valuable it is to have a plan in place. My wife started placing everyone in the room for a family photo; everyone except me that is. I felt that I was getting hurt so I used the plan I had in place and politely excused myself on the grounds that I was not feeling very well. I smiled and sincerely encouraged everyone to have a good time. There was no door slamming, no negative voice tone, no angry looks or bent brows. Leaving on a pleasant note did not upset anyone, plus it kept the door open for future contact with my family. Before I had driven three miles I was able to process the pain event with healthy, accurate, and assertive thoughts. I could have turned around and gone back with no problem, but I chose not to add to anyone’s stress.
How did I process the event? I thought you would never ask. There’s a big difference in using thinking errors that call up harsh, intense emotions and using accurate thoughts expressed in the self-talk in a positive way. Telling myself that she just did that to get to me is the thinking error called personalization. If I had used it I would have felt sorry for myself and been filled with anger in the form of self-pity. If I saw myself as a grown man who was quite capable of placing himself in a family photo, that would not only be accurate, it would also call up easy to control emotions."
Ron Wilkins
Removing Emotional Pain
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