Episode 02 – Notifications, Ugh! -Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome to Twisted Thinking, the podcast that helps you keep your thoughts flexible.
My name is Kristin and today we are talking about notifications and how much I used to hate them! Before we go too far a few things I’d like to get out of the way.
First, this episode is adapted from an article I published on my blog on May 3rd.
Second is a disclaimer. This is about a behavior of mine that I was unhappy with, and I wanted to change for my peace of mind. There are unhealthy and abusive behaviors to consider which I am not addressing here, and I wholly recognize as not something that should be reasoned away.
And last but not least, I’d like to dedicate this episode to Ernest Gordon Decker, better known as Ernie to those who loved him, or as I knew him best Pop. You are missed.
So, I get random messages from people that I have sporadic contact with, and the interactions are almost always nice drama free communications, and they usually end on a positive note and overall, they’re fine. You know, often after it’s over, I’m happy I got to touch base and get the most recent updates in their lives.
But even more often, when I first see that notification that someone has sent me a text or whatever I have to consciously squash my annoyance. It’s nothing against a person, so why is that my first reaction?
Well, who knows. But let me ask you, does the same thing happen to you? If someone sends you a random message or tags you in a post, or oh, God forbid, they actually call your telephone number, is your day suddenly out of whack and your annoyance level kind of off the charts?
You just can’t seem to get back into the groove of being you.
Yeah, me too.
So, for those of you who understand this I am so glad I’m not alone and for those of you who don’t understand, please teach me your secrets.
Seriously though, I don’t know what it is, but I used to have the hardest time dealing with people contacting me, and maybe it’s because those notifications always seem to come at like the worst time. Or maybe it was just because there are so many avenues of communication in today’s world that it can be really overwhelming to know that anyone can reach out at any time and touch you from any direction. And yeah, it’s just it’s overwhelming so.
This issue of mine came into really sharp focus after the sudden and unexpected death of my maternal grandfather after Thanksgiving of 2019. He and I really weren’t close. We might have spoken once or twice a year for the last 10 years or so of his life, but he and my mom did speak regularly and because she and I also speak regularly, I would often listen as she stressed over having to talk to him or having to call him perhaps. There wasn’t any dramatic reason for this. It might have just been for any number of small reasons like she just didn’t feel like it or didn’t want to hear about the latest family drama or she was just busy with something else.
Now that he’s gone and she can’t speak to him, she misses it just like most of us in this, that kind of a situation would feel.
And she’s never said it explicitly, but I do imagine that she wishes she had maybe answered the phone more often or called him more herself, just to make up for these days when she’s not able to.
Watching her mourn and thinking about how she must be feeling after losing her father made me really take a step back and think about my way of reacting when people try to contact me. I was already reevaluating my life and how I was going about living it since just a few short months prior my wife had finished with her chemotherapy and her surgery to remove the cancer was only a few days away and Pop’s death really forced me to face her more mortality.
Uhm, made me question how many messages of hers I had put off until later when that moment would have been just fine. And how many times I had been annoyed after she reached out just to ask a simple question or – and this was the hardest question to answer – How often I had taken that frustration out on her when she had done absolutely nothing wrong. And I applied that to everyone, I started asking if I had done the same thing to everyone else in my life, and I really, really didn’t like any of the answers.
I hated the thought that I had potentially hurt a person who was making an effort to communicate just because I was being selfish with my attention and my time, and I felt like I really, really felt like an arrogant ass and I had to make the choice – the decision – to change it.
How did I do that?
I created a habit of gratefulness every time someone messaged me unexpectedly and there were a few steps to that first.
When I started trying to create the habit I – I didn’t have a specific goal in mind other than to not be in jerk. And to be honest, that is still my primary goal.
But in order to not be a jerk, I realized I had to twist my thought process away from my very selfish and unnecessary thoughts of why can’t everyone leave me alone and let me live my life? You know I had to change it to something more positive and productive and get a different perspective.
So, I thought about why it is people contact other people and of course there’s a million real specific reasons, but they all seem to fall into four basic categories.
First, they just want to check in and say hi. How are things going?
Second, they want to make plans.
Third, it’s informational, you know they’re going to be late, or they’re stuck in traffic or whatever.
And of course, there are number four, which would be asking for help.
And once I delved into it, I determined that these are all really worthy of celebration.
I mean, think about it.
People are reaching out to just check in and see how you’re doing.
That’s awesome.
It meant that they were thinking about me and how they cared about what I was doing. And if they wanted to make plans – as long as the plans were video games and pizza at home I was completely down, you know, I loved it and if they wanted to pass along some info, it’s just plain courtesy and then and –
Cries for help were the best kinds because that meant someone thought of me as a being who could actually help them, be it physically or emotionally.
So, the point is that most of the random messages were proof that I was seen that I was loved and that I was worthy of time no matter what my inner demons were whispering in my ear late at night.
Going forward from that, I really tried to switch things up and as soon as I would feel my phone vibrate and that frustration well up, I would ask myself a few questions. The most important of which was “Is what I’m doing important enough that I can’t be interrupted?”
If that answer were no, which it usually was, then that realization would keep my emotions in check.
But if I was busy then I would go down the list.
Did they know I was busy?
If they didn’t, then I would tell them I’m busy, I can’t talk right now.
If they did know and they still called, then I would ask if it was an emergency, and obviously if that were the case, then there were more important things to deal with.
And if they did call knew I was busy, and it wasn’t an emergency that was probably a much deeper conversation that needed to be had, so I would just tell them I was busy and leave it at that until much later. And of course, this is simplified, but honestly, that was the main point.
Just that act of taking that moment to ask myself what I was doing that was so important usually stopped my initial knee jerk reaction of “why” that was my norm.
These days I find myself excited usually when I get a notification and overall, even when I have that surge of annoyance, I’m able to better manage it. It may be a little odd to say, but considering our lack of real relationship, but I – I like to think that my pop is the main influence for my mindset shift.
So, thank you pop.
So, what about you? Are you like me? And if you are, do you have a process that you go through that helps you deal with it? Or are you one of those unicorns who loves getting notifications all day at night? I would really love to know.
That’s all for today. If something I said caught your attention and you want to continue the conversation, I’d like to invite you to my discord server it’s free to join, just click the link in the show notes.
Thanks for listening and until next time be blessed and stay twisted.