Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill
When we begin to experience irritation about something happening
between another person and ourselves, our thoughts and feelings
sometimes go to places that are not helpful for the situation and relationship.
At these times, we are not always fully aware of what is
happening, or the fact that our reactions may be escalating things.
However, before we know it, our initial responses may take twists
and turns that end up complicating matters. As they grow, our evolving
perceptions may change from what they were in the beginning.
And as things expand in our minds and hearts, we find ourselves
more and more conflicted, confused, and upset.
Such a situation illustrates the essence of the expression “making
a mountain out of a molehill.” According to Wikipedia, the earliest
recorded use of this phrase was in 1548, in a book by Nicholas Udall—
thought to be one of the first people to use the expression. The historical
meaning of this idiom had to do with “responding disproportionately
to something—where a person exaggerates or makes too much of a
minor issue.”7 This usage is generally consistent with the current
meaning ascribed to this idiom.
Making a mountain out of a molehill is sometimes a reaction that
we are aware of at some level of consciousness. Other times, we are
not fully cognizant of how or why matters are growing bigger in our
thoughts and feelings, and why we are becoming increasingly upset.
If you have a general tendency to exaggerate and imagine things
being and becoming bigger than they are, you will find the questions
on this topic especially pertinent. Even if you do not typically react
this way, you may have done so in the past, and the topic arouses
your curiosity. Or perhaps, this sort of reaction is happening at the
current time, which is how the following questions are framed
(though it is still helpful to consider past events to deconstruct this
concept). In any case, it will help, when responding to these questions,
to consider a specific situation about which something that started
small is growing out of proportion.
QUESTIONS
• In the conflict you have in mind, what first provoked you
(that is, what did the other person say or do, or not say or
do, that led to an inner, negative reaction in you)?
• More specifically, what about that experience aroused your
inner reaction?
• What is, or was, your inner reaction?
• Imagine that the initial provocation is an actual molehill.
How would you describe what the molehill is, or was,
made of? How else might you describe how it looks, or
looked, when it began?
• What changed in your internal processing of things, or
between you and the other person, that is resulting in the
molehill’s growth into a mountain?
• What is the mountain made of that the molehill wasn’t?
• How are you experiencing the growth of the mountain that
is different from your reaction to the molehill you described?
In what ways is your reaction the same?
• Under what circumstances are you not as inclined to make
a mountain out of a molehill? What relevance does your
answer have to do with the particular situation you brought
to mind?
• How might you stop the molehill from growing into a
mountain? What conflict-masterful things could you do at
this point if the mountain is appearing?
• How might you, in the future, stop yourself from making a
mountain out of a molehill?
• What else occurs to you as you consider these questions?
• What insights do you have?
