Thursday 7 February 2019

Emotional Intelligence

The problems with mental health are coming directly from the mindset that is influencing our nervous system. The way we think about ourselves and the situations we are in, the algorithm of decisions we make and the actions we undertake - all these things are strictly connected to what is happening in our brains. The brains shaped during our childhood when we learned how to think, decide and act. 

But it is extremely hard to understand what the current situation has to do with the past, especially when everything seems to have no sense...

Why I am not able to speak to certain people even if I don't know them well?
Why I feel frozen while meeting this or that person?
Why I am feeling intimidated or ashamed in their presence?

At some point, I answered these questions many times. Yet, I didn't feel free.

Because 'feeling free' is the wrong mindset. I am not supposed to feel free, I am supposed to be pissed. 

When someone is hurting me, a natural reaction is an outrage. But if you were trained to suppress this emotion and, what is worse, to feel guilty for whole the situation, you will never have the chance to act properly - not to escape, not to be frozen, not to let others hurt you even more.

If aggression and violence were the only response to our anger when we were toddlers, later on, the one and only reaction for this emotion is fear. We are scared that we will be punished for feeling this so-called 'negative' emotion. Thus we never learn how to cope in difficult and stressful circumstances. I have not acquired this capacity whatsoever. 

Sometimes, the expression of our anger should be controlled so that it won't turn into aggression. Reactions of civilized people meant to be adequate and... calculated, for attacking someone who is pissing us off may have fatal consequences, e.g. losing the job. 


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