Shark Music
To illustrate Shark Music as it would apply to the hands on the Circle, or or how it would apply to Wisdom in Bigger, Stronger, AND Kind, I hoped to start by having a more broad conversation with the students about fear. Fear can have such an influence, or even total control, of our actions and our well-being. It can live in our conscious selves, or in the darkness somewhere in the bottom of our hearts. It can echo endlessly.
As the book maps out, it can manifest in parenting in a couple of ways. These steps can be and often are a defense against pain-
Parents are not always consciously aware what they do or why they do it... --> But at times they act in ways to avoid the need of the child in some way... --> By redirecting their child to the top of the Circle or the bottom of the Circle unintentionally... --> To safeguard themselves emotionally, or maybe to distract the child from feeling what it is feeling or how they are reacting.
Driven by fear, and to avoid pain.
So we return to our procedural memory (our implicit relational knowing)- the fuzzy whatever-it-is, that is the amalgam of our experiences in our needs and relationships through time.
These fears accumulate over time. This is Shark Music. The avoidance of pain. It's all 100% valid and unavoidable, as the book puts it. Again, as this a psychology course with course learning outcomes I hoped to meet, I spoke briefly to the students about Freud who believed humans act to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
But enough about Freud, students, let's talk about fear in the context of something more relatable. Fear. And here's another fortune cookie from another mentor of mine.
Wise words. Fear can lead to suffering, for ourselves and in our relationships. Paramount to what makes reflective functioning so necessary. For instance, as the book suggests, fear can make even a neutral stimulus seem threatening. So I showed some pictures with not-so-hidden elements to try to visualize how fear, conscious or not, can affect the lens through which we perceive and react to reality. More hidden-in-plain-sight, but about fear.
Is fear playing into your perception of how you view these pictures?
What do we notice first? The lady and the loves of bread, or the abundant skulls of death?
And again?
And again.
Fear and avoidance of pain, they can change the prescription on the lenses we look through. They keep us alive, and are 100% okay, but they can really affect us and our relationships.
I asked the students to discuss ways in which fear may play a part in their everyday lives, or in their relationships.
As for the book, as parents, we may at times react to our fears and avoidance of pain, but what the child (or other person) perceives may be that their needs are not valid, or not to be expressed at all. Perception is reality. Which is why we can focus on keeping our mirror neuron system engaged so that both parties can rely on access to experiencing being experienced. Both parties can rely on access to feeling felt.
In parenting, through the lens of the Circle of Security, fear can manifest like this-
Fear of supporting exploration. Which can be perceived as lack of a safe base to explore from. We are innately curious (children especially), and the need of a child to explore their world in Watch Me moments, Delight In Me moments, Enjoy With Me moments, or Help Me moments, can be inhibited if a fearful song is playing in the parent's procedural memory. If so, especially if the song plays loudly, the parent may redirect the child to the bottom half of the Circle (those about safe haven for comforting connection) as a way to extinguish their own fear rather than focusing on the needs of the child. Or the parent may take their hands off the Circle altogether.
Likewise, fear can manifest on the bottom of the Circle-
Needs in Protect Me moments, Comfort Me moments, Delight In Me moments, and Organize my feeling moments, can be shifted in directing the child to exploration moments in the top half of the Circle. Again, this is likely an unconscious act, but this redirection is driven by one's fear, or unspoken discomfort or pain, rather than focusing on the needs of the child.
And lastly, fear can take our hands off the Circle-
Our Shark Music can cause us to remove our hands from the Circle all together. Being-With, as the book puts it, can be blocked by fears of proximity to children or others, discomfort in big emotions (especially in children, which can come quickly), any avoidance of pain or discomfort that comes in between the parent and the needs of the child.
Being Gone can look like being present but not being 'present', or it can look like not even being physically present at all. Think of the Still Face Experiment, or when people are intoxicated with drugs or alcohol, as examples.
I asked the class if they have witnessed any interactions, or experienced any such interactions, with their parents, caregivers, or even teachers. Some responded that they had helicopter parents growing up. Some responded that they felt alone a lot growing up, or that they didn't have man childhood memories of interacting with their parents. Some responded that they have witnessed similar interactions in babysitters or at the grocery store. Examples of fear getting in the way of the child's need that is hidden in plain sight.
At this point, I had the notion that the class (because I am passionate about attachment theory, the Circle of Security, and intimate with this book as a new father) probably thought that I must have parenting figured out. I asked them if that was the case, and several raised their hands.
Good grief... they think I'm an expert?!
I then assured the class that I have PLENTY of my own Shark Music, and that I mess up daily. I cited several personal examples; When my daughter got upset in the car seat and I distracted her with a toy (she was feeling very unhappy, but I directed her to explore at the top of the Circle); When my daughter was in explore-mode (on the top of the Circle) in the kitchen but I wanted a hug (I picked her up, and wasn't surprised that she wined and wanted to be put back down to play with the spatula, this is me caring about my need for a hug as more important than her need).
I then pivoted to what I strive for, something the overwhelming majority of parents don't know about, simply because they've never been shown or given access. It's not your parent's fault for not knowing how to do this-
I posited, just as the book does, that attachment takes two. It takes two to dance. Here is security, in a mother and daughter taking cues from one another. This is so important for me for the class to see, because not only can you see the two-way dance of security in an early relationship, but it segued to the portion of the chapter on regulation; specifically co-regulation. It's a stark juxtaposition to the Still Face.
I returned to jokingly pop-quiz the students on the Triune brain, and reviewed how our emotional brain can render our thinking brain offline.
Class, remember when I suggested that we need other people? When we are with someone who gives us the security we need, we can be co-regulated with and through them. When we don't have access to others, or don't believe we are even accessible ourselves, we have to remember that we are worthy of our needs, and can still regulate ourselves.
Fear and Shark Music thrive in our emotional brain (Amygdala). Important fortune cookie here to support this, as noted in the book-
Which is why a few things are necessary, for parents, and for students. Honor the fear and where it came from.
Never tear down a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place.
And, utilizing our bilateral integration (naming our fears and defense mechanisms), which shift our experiences from the contextual right hemisphere to the linear, logical left, we name it to tame it. The more we name our fears, Shark Music, and maladaptive behaviors, the more we tame them with pre-emptive action moving forward. The more we are aware through reflective functioning, the more we pre-emptively work to prevent or improve and learn.
Finally, I asked the students just as the book asks, "where do you struggle on the Circle? Top? Bottom? Hands?"
Where on the Circle, or what about the Circle, makes you feel any discomfort at all? Are you willing to get uncomfortable and walk towards that? If not, that's okay. If so, can we validate it and 'name it to tame it'?
We also did the exercise out of the book on Being-With our core emotions, placing circles of curiosity, joy, sadness, fear, anger, and shame, inside or outside the Circle depending on how comfortable we are with experiencing these feelings. We discussed, and once again many students were willing to be vulnerable and speak about their past.
I also encouraged the students if they are so inclined, to journal about fear, and share their journal if they'd like with someone that offers them safety and security. Journaling, as discussed is another way to organize the chaos of our emotional selves, and our fears, into something that makes sense.
Intended Takeaways: How fear manifests in parenting and relationships, why it's okay, and what it looks like on the Circle; Negative Sentiment Override; Security in two-way relationships (the Zoe video)
Course Student Feedback:
-"I didn't exactly learn more about myself but I learned more about how to convey these emotions and understand them easier"
-"The class was valuable in the fact that I have a much better understanding on why people need others and why we try and find our 'And'"
-"I was surprised that even at a young age we need to have a place to run back to for security, I'm even more surprised that I still do that"
-"I learned that I am more of an emotional person who holds back until I snap. This will help me identify when it's okay to talk about my emotions"
Comments