Logical Magic

Or magical logic. Not sure which.

You will recall, perhaps, the story in last week’s blog post. About Billy and his reluctance to do anything new (like horseback riding). And about his mom Tracey who pulled a few psychodynamically brilliant moves to help him

bust through

his reluctance.

I’d like to unpack that story because it’s a lovely example of logical magic (or magical logic).

(I am no logician, but I’m going to attempt a logical proof here, which apparently consists of a beginning, middle, and end — got it! — the beginning being the laying out of assumptions and definitions, the middle being statements that follow logically from the assumptions, and the end being the

voilà! the QED!

moment.)

So. The beginning: Tracey made some assumptions about Billy based on her lifelong observations of him.

• Billy didn’t like doing new things.

• Billy probably wanted to do new things but was anxious about trying.

• Billy needed support in trying new things.

By “new things,” Tracey meant “horseback riding.” By “support,” Tracey meant scaffolding in managing anxiety.

So far so good?

Note that emotions have entered the picture here. Emotions, of course, defy logic, right? Wrong.

Next. The middle:

• If Billy was anxious about and needed support in trying new things, Tracey should prepare him for the worst (that is, trying horseback riding).

• Preparing Billy for the worst meant talking to him about horseback riding, asking what made him nervous about it, and giving him plenty of time to organize himself to go to the lesson.

Here’s where, logically, the story should end with “And Billy and horseback riding lived happily ever after.” We couldn’t blame Tracey for expecting this, could we? In the pure world of logic? Where unidirectional cause and effect reign?

But the logic of emotions upsets the logical world of cause and effect.

• Because anxiety is powerful, it broke through at the last minute with its swan song, its last hurrah. Its final attempt to protect Billy from trying something new.

Developmentally speaking, this is completely normal. Completely logical. Anxiety always arises for good reasons. In Billy’s case, maybe his anxiety about trying new things protected him from failing. From discovering he’s terrible at something. Maybe it protected him from looking bad compared to his sister. All of which could be shameful, which, let’s face it, everyone wants to avoid. Maybe it protected him from growing into independence a little bit. Or being good at something and feeling obligated to continue doing it. Maybe Billy’s anxiety played all of these roles.

And it would have been logical — in the emotional way — for Tracey to have completed Billy’s anxiety circuit by spewing her frustration and disappointment at him. Thereby fulfilling his

expectations of the world:

that he was a failure, that he was a terrible person, that he wasn’t as good (a person) as his sister, etc.

But Tracey short-circuited this logic and took a different path.

Rather than force her son to deny his anxiety — his logical response to trying something new — she treated him like an agent in his own life. “OK,” she basically said. “You are you. You are capable of making a choice based on your own needs and wants (even if they’re different from mine). I’ll lay it out very simply: either you go to your horseback riding lesson (and suffer the consequences) or you stay home from your horseback riding lesson (and suffer the consequences). I’m cool either way.”

Brilliant.

And logical.

Because it is Billy who needs to make his choices. Because it is Billy who needs to experience the consequences for those choices. Because it is Billy who must struggle with the tension underlying his anxiety. Because it is Billy who needs to engage with himself, not with the added distraction of his mother’s response to his response. Tracey removed herself from Billy’s logical emotional equation.

Which, by the way, gave her unexpected relief. It feels good to stay in your own garden!

And —

here’s where the magic happens —

Tracey’s move gave Billy the chance to decide what to do. Which was to grow. To discover. To enjoy. Voilà! QED.

Now I’m wondering (and you may be, too), “Wait! What has been proven?”

Here’s quod erat demonstrandum by Tracey and Billy’s story:

Emotions are logical. And attending to that logic and acting intelligently on it leads to magic. Otherwise known as attuned relationships. And healthy development.

Mantra: Magic is within our reach. All the time.