The interplay of one’s own maladaptive schemas can be interesting to watch.
Recently, I attended a live concert at a very small venue by one of my favorite bands. This was the first time I had seen this band live and they were much better live than I was expecting. To my surprise, I enjoyed their live music even more than their recorded music, which I already liked enough to play often. I was elated by the performance, the crowd, and the overall energy by the time it all ended late in the evening.
Because the venue and crowd were small, the band announced that they would be available after the performance to chat with anyone wishing to do so, over by the bar.
My first thought was that it would be interesting to chat with the band since I’ve been inspired and cheered on by so many of their anthem-like lyrics and know many of them by heart, but I didn’t feel like waiting in a line up of fans just to say a few words to them when I also wanted to be heading home for the night. It was already late and I would have to get up early for work the next morning.
After going to the washroom, ready to leave the venue, I noticed that my friend was walking away from the band where they were seated. It turned out that he had just spoken to them briefly, passing on a few compliments, while I was in the washroom.
It looked like a few more people were waiting to chat with the band, and I didn’t feel like waiting around any longer, so my friend and I proceeded to leave.
As we walked down the street, he told me about what he said to the band. I was glad to be on my way home, but had a vague feeling that I had just missed out on something important to me. I told my friend a bit about how I felt, but I didn’t make a big deal about it, minimizing my truly felt feelings.
He suggested, “You know, we can turn around and go back inside for a few minutes so you could chat with them,” but I replied something like, “Nah, I think I would want to have something specific to say to them—not just, ‘Hey, I like your music’—and I haven’t given any forethought as to what exactly I would say that would be meaningful.”
Enter the Unrelenting Standards Schema
We continued our walk back to the truck and it started to occur to me that I had some maladaptive schemas playing out here.
I was beginning to realize that I really had been wanting to speak to the band, but was being dishonest with myself, unconsciously using my Unrelenting Standards as an excuse to not do so, to deprive myself of the experience. I had been telling myself that, since I couldn’t think of the precise, correct thing that I wanted to say, it wasn’t worth speaking to the band at all, as much as I would have really enjoyed that.
Looking back, that’s simply self-delusion. Even if I had not been able to think of the perfect thing to say to the band, speaking to them would have been intensely satisfying. After all, I’ve been practically worshiping some of their lyrics for years. Why would I not be thrilled to speak to the folks who wrote them and look into their eyes during the conversation?
It’s useless for me to feel that a conversation with them must be somehow perfect in order to be meaningful to me or them. They are the performers here and I really enjoyed what they did tonight for us fans—there’s no need for me to consider a possible conversation with them as a performance of my own.
Enter the Entitlement Schema
People who know me well know that I hate waiting in lines, so I rarely do that. There are restaurants that appeal to me that I will probably never visit due to the long lines in front of them.
My entitlement schema dictates that I simply shouldn’t have to put up with long lines in order to experience something. It rarely ends up depriving me of anything super-special, but in this case, a longish wait would have been warranted. And the line wasn’t really all that long.
In this case, had I been more flexible and able to let go of my general feeling of entitlement regarding waiting in long lines, I might have experienced some special moments in my life that I chose to miss.
Enter the Emotional Inhibition Schema
An Emotional Inhibition Schema infers that one suppresses self-expression to some degree out of fear of losing control of one’s emotions. I’ve learned that part of me is like that.
What if I became overly joyful and ecstatic upon speaking to the band? Perhaps I’d feel embarrassed by my enthusiasm if I let go completely and said things to the band that were too supportive or too personal or too unfocused. I might say things that could break my vision of myself as a highly rational, analytical and focused individual.
I might get overexcited. I might be embarrassed by the fact that the friend I was with that evening saw me overexcited. Had I attended this concert without my friend, I might have been a bit more comfortable speaking to the band, since nobody I know would have witnessed my overexcitedness.
Subjugation Schema too?
My Subjugation Schema runs deep, even deeper than most other schemas. I don’t merely respond to stimuli, I feel like I’m obligated to respond. Or, I countercompensate and refuse to respond in rebellion, reacting to the “subjugating” stimulus nonetheless.
In this context, the “instruction” was for any interested fans to meet back by the bar to speak with the band once the show was over.
As much as I wanted to meet the band in person, I unconsciously disliked the idea of being a sheep-like fan who would do whatever the band suggested.
In this case, my Subjugation Schema won and I lost. I lost out on the opportunity to speak in person with a band that I admired so much, partly because I didn’t like feeling “ordered” to meet them at the back of the bar like a mere mortal.
It wasn’t worth it
I’m getting better at identifying my maladaptive schemas and refusing to fall prey to them when they take hold, but, this time, they won. I picked up on it after the event had passed. I missed the opportunity to connect more deeply with this band that I admire so much.
The first couple of days following the concert, I found myself thinking about the greatness of attending the show and reliving certain moments of it in my head.
However, during the days after that, I found myself thinking about my missed opportunity to chat with the band. Thinking more, I’ve managed to decipher it all in terms of maladaptive schemas.
The overall feeling is essentially one of regret, except that I don’t believe in regret. Instead, whenever I think I might be feeling regret, I seek to understand why I made the choices I made at the time of the “regretted moment,” rather than merely lament the choices that weren’t made.
Now I understand which schemas were in play when I chose to not linger at the venue and chat with the band after the show, passing up on what could have been a memorable happiness-enhancing moment.
Hopefully, the next time I’m in a similar situation, I’ll detect my schemas at work sooner and choose differently.