Feeling Responsible

People who experience neuroplastic pain conditions often rate high on trait conscientiousness.  I too share in this personality trait, and while practicing PRT in recent weeks to maintain my own pain recovery I have noticed a physiological pattern that occurs for me: I get anxiety when faced with a decision between spending time at my own self care and spending time with others.  My default mode is to ‘think of others first,’ and when faced with the decision between prioritizing ‘me’ or ‘others’ my brain produces a felt sense of ‘conflict’ in my body.  I get anxious.  My chest and stomach tighten.  Automatic thoughts emerge about ‘letting others down.’  A pre-emptive sense of disappointment can even emerge in the form of a double bind: the conflict of feeling disappointed for not doing ‘my thing’ compared with not doing something for or with others.

Perhaps you can relate to this description.  For those with high trait conscientiousness the brain colours such priorities with a sense of danger – disappointment or guilt – and then sets us to ‘fixing’ the problem.  And what usually happens?  Our well-trained sense of responsibility has us relinquish ‘my thing’ for the sake of prioritizing others.  Then just as often, the disappointment for not doing ‘my thing’ can produce resentment toward others.  Resentment can then cascade into other emotional ‘danger signals’ of self-judgement – anger and more guilt – for harbouring the resentment toward others or for ‘not staying committed’ to one’s self-care.  The solution produces its own problems, and the habitual pattern of sending danger signals to our nervous system continues unabated. 

So what is one to do? 

The first step that I have found helpful is to acknowledge the feeling of conflictual responsibility in the moment it happens.  In my case, it means noticing the initial anxiety and tension in my chest and stomach. And then just noticing it, with curiosity, and using somatic tracking, conveying messages of safety to my primitive brain.   

The second step is to reframe the conflictual feelings in a way that unifies the choice between ‘either me or others.’  This helps to get out of the double bind by unifying it under a higher principle of care.  It is a matter of simply recognizing that both choices stem from a feeling of care, and this has an immediate effect of further soothing the primitive brain. 

The third step is to really lean into the unifying principle of care whenever the mind produces its old pattern of an either/or double bind.  Unified in the principle of care you can then dissolve the conflictual pattern and perceive caring for yourself, or caring for others, as an opportunity for deepening connection.  You can then actually teach the mind to project alternative future possibilities.  In time it then becomes easier to make that space for yourself or for others in ways that feel truly empowering without getting caught in patterns of resentment, judgement, and guilt.