What is buffering? Using external things to change how we feel emotionally.
Something we do to keep from fully experiencing our lives.
Or to procrastinate.
Or to not show up and face the music.
It’s something we do so we don’t experience negative emotion.
Buffer (v): to lessen or moderate the impact of (something).
What do you do to lessen the impact of your feelings? Do you overeat? Over drink? Over facebook? Over Netflix?
Maybe you’re feeling anxious or frustrated, so you eat (when you aren’t hungry). Then you get that hit of pleasure which helps us escape from the negative emotion. Now, does the momentary relief mean we’re actually happier? Or have we just put ourselves into a space that makes us less aware of our discomfort? That’s what buffering is.
Buffering is something we do to avoid fully experiencing our lives that has a net negative consequence. Overeating, overdrinking, overspending—anything done to excess and at your expense. One way to test if what you’re doing is a buffer is to check for these net negative consequences. Buffers only provide temporary release from negative emotion, but always have net negative result.
- If you overeat: likely result is being uncomfortably full, nauseous, eventually overweight, or not meeting your health goals.
- If you over drink (which is any amount of drinking over the amount you planned): likely result is being hung over, not in control of your decisions, poor sleep (lots of various results here)
- If you over Facebook/Netflix: likely result is wasted time, higher anxiety from watching the newsfeed, not going to bed on time. . .
Do you see the pattern? You feel a little bit better when you indulge in the buffer. But the net result does not feed your soul. You may have fed your lower brain with what it demanded at the time, but your higher brain is not nourished.
If you are willing to feel negative emotions and remove all of the buffers in your life, you will remove all the negative consequences that come with those buffers. The pleasure we get from taking care of ourselves increases, but the false pleasure we get from buffering is significantly reduced.
The real key here is learning to feel your feelings–all the feelings! Even the negative ones. I can help you learn to feel sad, or feel stress or feel anxiety and NOT eat the extra ice cream. This is what “diet plans” never address. When you’ve always used food to solve for the negative feelings, how do you stop doing that? It’s not willpower–I promise.
That’s where I come in. I’ll show you how.
Schedule a strategy session with me and I’ll help you! It’s free!
