Upgrading Your Dashboard

Upgrading Your Dashboard

I have a friend from the recovery house that I love to pieces.  She is so willing to examine herself and so eager to figure out why and how she ticks the way she does and that willingness to self-examine will get her farther in recovery than most things.
At one point when we were both still living at the recovery house together she went to visit her mother for the weekend.  She had been so excited to go and we had to earn points to have such overnight visits so I knew she had worked hard to get the privilege.
I saw her return and she looked somewhat deflated and asked her how it had gone.  She told me about the weekend and was sad.  She said it had not gone very well and that she and her mother had fought.  She described the conflict and what had led up to it and we talked it through for a while.  She said that her mother could push her buttons like no one else and that she was mad at herself for allowing herself to be so bothered by it.
She is so self-aware that she saw it as a learning experience and I was impressed that she could see a lesson in the interaction.  I try to see the lesson in every situation as well and try hard to concentrate on what I can get from every stumble along the way.  It may take me a few days to see the lesson, but there is a way to turn every challenge around and see it from a different angle and step work has taught me that.
It occurred to me then that we all have buttons and we all have people who can find them faster and push them harder than others.  Spend a day with my children and you will learn that Dermot has some buttons that only Wren can find and push!  I certainly have them and though I deeply love my button pushers, I get frustrated with myself when I allow them to be pushed.
What if there was a way to upgrade your dashboard?  I know that when using computer platforms at work, older versions are replaced with newer and buttons we used to use are rendered obsolete once the dashboard has been upgraded.  If I could learn to do that on a regular basis I would be so much more serene.  If I upgrade my dashboard, then my button pushers can't push my buttons if they no longer exist or have been replaced with new ones.
It will require a great deal of personal work, but I do think it is possible and it is something I continue to work on.
If people push your buttons maybe you need to upgrade your dashboard...