New Information Shock
Libby describes the phenomenon known as New Information Shock and how to handle it when you encounter it in your relationships.
Transcript
What is new Information Shock? So new information Shock is when you receive a piece of new information that is upsetting to you, that your system reads as threatening, and you find yourself upset about it. And what can happen when that happens is you can feel mad at your partner for the way they shared it or about how they shared it or when they decided to share it. You know, you find yourself upset that you've received the information in the way that you've received it or you've received it and are feeling the way that you feel about it, and you just don't know what to do to make yourself feel better. And meanwhile, your partner is left feeling like, Oh my gosh I'm bad for having shared this information or upset my partner and maybe I shouldn't have shared it.
Or maybe I should have shared it differently. And then you both end up feeling upset, not just about the thing that was shared, but also the way you both dealt with the sharing. I think it might be helpful to give an example here, and there are so many from my experience, from experiences my clients have had friends, et cetera. And I also just wanna say real quick that it's important to say new information. Shock is not unique to non-monogamy or polyamory. Like a lot of the stuff on my show, it's something that can happen with friends, with family members, with monogamous partners, work colleagues, et cetera. And so, but I'm gonna use a a polyamory example because, well, that's what a lot of the folks on this show are here to talk about. So example Jordan and Tina are in a long-term established non-monogamous relationship.
Jordan has an established nested partner. Tina is their other partner and it's a pretty, been a pretty stable dynamic where Tina and Jordan have had consistent time together and Jordan and their nested partner have consistent time together. But then one day, Jordan shares that they have met a new potential partner on an app and they've decided that they wanna go on on a date. And Jordan is super duper excited about it and Tina flips out. And what happens for Tina is she's scared, she's upset and she doesn't like this information. And what she does is she tells Jordan, Man, I wish I told, I wish you'd told me sooner. I was not prepared for this. And maybe what happens inside Tina is she feels feelings of distrust, She feels feelings of destabilization. Again, her system reads that as threat and she's really upset not just about the information, but about the way she's feeling about the information.
And because she's feeling that way, she is blaming Jordan for the way that they revealed the information because she believes that if they had revealed it somehow differently, she doesn't exactly know how maybe she'd feel better about it. And of course, Jordan is left feeling like, you know, I waited until we were in person. I made a point to share it as soon as was reasonable, but I wanted us to be in person and talk about this directly so that she could ask me any questions. And they, they feel like they did the best that they could there and they've had previous experiences where they've decided to reveal a new important piece of information to Tina over text. And Tina has said, I really wish you told me this in person. So does that resonate for anybody? I feel like this probably resonates for a lot of people.
Now, I wanna say here before I get into like, what's really going on here, I do wanna say that I think it's really valuable in every relationship that you're in to actually have an intentional conversation about how you wanna receive information. I think that's actually a good thing to do because not everybody wants to receive it in the same way. I think it's sort of a common cultural construct that all important new information, all important revelations be done in person sitting down together, preferably in a place where the person can have whatever reaction they're having without it, you know, being super dramatic. I don't know you know, some people would say in a private space or some people might even say in a public space, I don't know. But I think there's an assumption that in person is best. And it was interesting because I was thinking about this recently.
I actually don't like it when someone waits to talk to me about something important in person. And I'll tell you why. If they're gonna share something with me that might be a shock to my system, I actually wanna have time to digest it before I talk about it. And I feel like if I'm talking about it with my person in the moment that I'm hearing about it and they're, you know, and we're in person together, there's sort of an expectation for me that I should have a particular response or be ready to respond right away when really I might need to actually sit with it before I talk to them about it. But then I'm dealing with my emotions about it and we're in, in person or in, you know, a real-time conversation about it. And I don't wanna just have to say, Okay, bye, see ya.
So I don't wanna have to cut off the interaction, but I need time to process. And I think a lot of people are like that. I think more people are like that than maybe even they allow themselves to be. And so I really recommend like asking your person, Hey, if I have difficult information for you that you might need time to process, do you wanna be able to process it with me in real time or do you wanna be able to process that without me? And then talk about it after you've processed it? And of course, sometimes it can vary depending on what the information is too. But it's worthwhile like at least trying to have that conversation before you run into a situation like I'm describing. However, it's also important to say that there often isn't any way around new information shock, and here is why.
So our brains are wired to scan for threat all the time. In fact, it's something like four times a second that our brain is scanning for threat. That's a lot. And when our system receives unexpected new information, the brain is looking for whether that's a threat or not. Like we have what's called a negativity bias. So we're more likely to read something new as threatening. And that causes our brain to go from, I think I read it somewhere, goes from what is this? Which is a place of curiosity, interest, relaxation to what the hell is this? And it's, it's, it's not something you can control. It's actually physiological. Your nervous system kind of goes into threat alert system and you can get just activated and sometimes really activated, sometimes triggered, sometimes fully disintegrated in your brain state. And you know, that can depend on lots of different things.
It can depend on how much energy you have, how much sleep you've got, how hungry you are, you know, the whole halt thing. It can also depend on how secure you feel in that particular relationship in that particular moment. It can also depend on just what the information is and how surprising it might be for you. And there may be no way to possibly control for all those variables such that you're gonna receive that information in a way that doesn't feel threatening. Okay? So what I'm saying is if you are receiving new information, there may be no way to receive it that will not be upsetting to you. And if you're delivering new information, there may be no way to deliver it that might not potentially be upsetting and triggering for the person you're giving it to. Now, that doesn't mean say fuck it and just like, trigger each other and have a big old fight and, and just be like, Well, there's no way around this.
We're just, I guess we're gonna be up till four o'clock in the morning processing this because that super sucks. And, and I don't, I don't want you there. And I don't want you to feel like every time you're gonna share new information, it's going to be a big mess. Because what that does is it has a chilling effect on sharing information. You become more hesitant to do it. You might feel like you're walking on eggshells with your partner, and they may be feeling like if you're holding out on them that, that they can't trust you. So we don't wanna be there. Instead here is what I recommend. First, have a conversation about how you share new information. Like I said earlier, maybe listen to this podcast episode together and talk about how it is inevitable that at some 0.1 of you might have a piece of information that might be shocking and might feel threatening to the other and maybe have a plan for how to be prepared for that with each other.
And there are a couple of things that I have found really beneficial when you are giving and receiving new information. So for the person who is giving the information, what I really want you to do is ground yourself in your own good intentions. Ground yourself in your own belief that you're doing the best that you can, and that your partner or whomever you're speaking to may have a reaction that you would prefer them not to have. And try to just kind of hold onto what's true for you and your own goodness. And then with like, loving compassion, except that the person you're speaking to might just need to have their feelings about it and give them room to have them. This is basically boundary work. It's, it's sort of protected boundary work in that what you're doing is, is you're saying to yourself, you know, how however I deliver this information is completely separate from how my partner might receive it.
I'm gonna do the best I can to be kind and compassionate and listen to their wants and needs, but if they have a negative reaction to my sharing, that doesn't mean either A, that I shouldn't have shared it, or B, that I shared it in the objectively wrong way. Now again, you wanna be receptive to their feedback. If they didn't like the way that you shared it and you wanna try to do better next time, but just try to hold onto your own truth that even if they're having a bad reaction, it doesn't mean you did anything wrong because sometimes new information is just shocking. Okay? If you're the person who's receiving that new information, I want you also to turn toward yourself. If you notice that you're having a big reaction, try to just kind of be gentle and kind with yourself. Try to notice, Oh, I'm having a big reaction.
There's something going on here. I'm noticing some anger, some fear, and just try to hold it, hold it lightly. And by lightly, I mean sometimes what we can do when we have a big reaction to something that someone we care about is shared with us is we blame them for our feelings. And it's really important that you be able to sit with and process and care for your feelings a little bit first before you kind of dump them on your partner. Now that doesn't mean you can't tell them again, if they did share the information in sort of a sloppy way, or maybe they shared it in a way where they didn't actually give you room to have any difficult feelings about it, when like, you need to be able to have some difficult feelings about it, it's okay to give them that feedback.
And it's okay to say, Hey, like, I really would've preferred that you shared this with me earlier. I really would've preferred you shared this with me in an asynchronous way instead of in person. Or, I really wish you'd shared with this with me in person instead of via a post-it note. You know, whatever. It's okay to give that feedback, but I would actually make sure that that's not the first thing you do. Instead, I would try to sit with your own reaction and just notice it. Just be an observer to it and try to understand it a little bit better. And as best you can, if you do have a, reaction of I need to go away and process, tell your partner, say, Hey, like, that was more than I was expecting. I'm noticing a lot's going on in here. I need to go be with myself for a little while and I'm sorry.
And so that's, that's again, kind of taking a time out and taking a time out with communication so that again, your partner can feel reassured that you're gonna come back and process it later. I think this is really important work, and it's hard, especially if you're new to new information. Like if things have been relatively stable for a while and maybe one of the people in your relational ecosystem has a new person or there's just a new phase in their life that they're going through, and so there's a lot more new information coming in and all of that new information feels destabilizing. It may be a new practice for you to work through some of that together. And again, when you are in a place where there's a lot of new information coming in, and some of it might be changing how you see things or changing how safe you feel, or changing how stable the relationship feels, it is important to like work through some of that so that you can find a place of groundedness and security.
And it's important that the new information be able to be there and that it be something that is allowed to happen as it happens and that people are allowed to feel about it, how they're, how they feel about it, and kind of be with that part first and then try to deal with the information, how it's delivered, how to handle it, what to do next. Second, I just find that when people get really upset about how the information was delivered, that can just be so derailing. And again, kind of it can be really chilling to sharing new information in an ongoing way because the person who's trying to share it in such a way that their partner doesn't get upset is gonna be like, really, it's gonna make it feel even less trustworthy and more manipulative. And if they are trying to do it in such a way that you just are, are totally fine with it, that just may be a losing strategy.
So make room for imperfection. Make room for your reaction. Make room for the other person's reaction and just own that everybody's doing their best and sometimes new information is just hard. So to recap, new information can be shocking. And this is common in all types of relationships, but I think it comes up a lot in non-monogamy, especially if there's a new partner or a transition in the relationship or some other new thing going on. I think it's, it happens a lot. It can be really useful to have a conversation about how you wanna share new information so that you're set up for, to be as successful as you can be and be willing to give and receive that feedback. However, understand also that sometimes new information is just read by our nervous systems is threatening and it can be triggering no matter what you do.
And so it can be really useful to plan for that and make room for it and slow down with each other as you go through that experience and sit with it a little bit before you deal with the information or even talk about how it could be delivered better in the future. New information can just be part of the deal and the more you can be really tender and compassionate with each other around it, the more it's going to feel safe to both give and receive it, which is gonna increase feelings of trust and security for everybody.
