Saturday, March 24, 2007 / 9:43 AM
Emotional Detachment.
Have you ever trap in an situation whereby you are supposed to feel sadness/anger/happiness or any other feelings and yet not able to feel a thing?
And this kind of situation seems to be repeating itself so much that you become used to not feeling a thing? Soon, you thought yourself to be an emotional detachment person. The meaning of emotional detachment is when a person could not develop any feelings for any situation/or event happening to him.
I come to the thought that 'emotional detachment' is a term for mental illness for people who couldn't get in touch with their feelings. Every one of us, has the ability to feel, since the day we are born. When we were a baby, we cried for milk. As a kid, we smile with sweets/burger. When we did well at our studies, we grins with pride. So.. since when did you stop to feel your feelings?
For analytical people, it seems perfectly logical for them to reason things/events out rather than to feel them, but that does not equate that they not being able to feel. Depends on what has happened, they might feel the impact lesser or slower on the emotional level. There is no one who is not capable of feeling, but certainly we can block our feelings on the emotional level, refuse to recognise their existence till we can overlook and forget about it.
Long-term 'emotional detachment' can do more harm than you can imagine. For instance, when your close friend betrayed you, you could not feel anger or sadness, perhaps a little disappointment, and reasoned that it is part and parcel of life. You start to reason the situation without feeling it, then you are in danger of coming to conclusion that 'well, things like that happen once in a well, it just not big deal' or you just cut the friend off without any emotions thinking that it is the right thing to do.
Seemingly, it is totally perfect to handle the situation in this manner. Your 'emotional detachment' is not even detected by your loved ones. To them, most probably, you are handling this situation with much pain. No, you ended up consoling people around you that life has entrusted you with trials and you have to get over with it. Does it seems familiar to what you are doing? Have you start to ask yourself, when did I start not to feel?
This is like a run, that you practice and perfect it within yourself. - Cutting off yourself on a emotional level.
This is akin to building an energy shield around your reception of feelings. Regardless of what you are supposed to feel, you just could not register the feelings. The feeling is bounced off by the energy shield. It bounced off, but does not mean that it will vanish. Our emotions are like energy balls, they need to be released. That's why when you are sad, you cry. When you are angry, you scream shout bang. When you are happy, you smile and laugh. So when we reject to recognise our feelings subconsciously, what happened to unreleased energy within ourselves?
Tracing back, we need to know why we actually build an energy shield to reject the recognition of our feelings. This is, most probably, due to bad experiences (which we reject subconsciously). For instance, you are humiliated by your teacher in front of your classmates. Your ego is bruised, you felt anger and shamefulness, the humiliation lingers and haunt you, and you could not help but to keep on relishing the painful memories, it was so painful that you could not take it off your mind. You want to erase this memory and pretend that it never happened, and over time, this memory is sealed together with the anger, pain and humiliation. The rejection of this memory, the refusal to admit that you are ever humiliated, make you never want to feel any emotions that have any association with this part of your memories. And yes, it is the run that you are practicing, and over time, you perfect the skill of not feeling.
Now, do you see something which is not that right? As a result of a rejection of a painful memory (there could be many other reasons which contribute to 'emotional detachment' and I am only focusing on one), you begin to not to feel. I once read a book on 'Talking about the past', it proposed that for any memories you rejected, the way to overcome it is to re-live it. It suggested using a child who was badly abused and battered by his parents, to enact the scene again. I thought, that was crazy..and I stil think that it is crazy. Does replaying the scene help the person to face their worst fear? I read this book when I was 18, and someone came across this theory and reminded me recently. To my shock, (this is a bit random), how could anyone just take in whatever he is fed with? The thing is that, I always thought that he is someone with some degree of wisdom. -__-
I felt that being able to talk about the memories truthfully is very important. Especially, if the person who gave you the bad memories is someone close to your heart. You should have a good talk with the person, not to let them feel bad about something that happened ages ago, speaking out might just improve your relationship with someone who hurt you before. If ever, the person who cause pain to you is no longer anywhere near you, I reckoned that it is easier to forget that it ever happened. It can be difficult, like trying to remove colour run from your shirt. Our brain works in a funny manner. It is easy to coax and convince. Remember how you convinced your brain to block your feelings out on the emotional level. Just convinced it now with much determination, that you are ready to accept the pain/anger/sadness/anythingthatcomeswiththememory, you are mature enough to take the emotions and accept it. The key is that, you must accept the memory and the feelings that comes with it. Take it as a lesson learnt. While others may say, talk is easier than done, tell youself that you have to start off at somewhere no matter what.
I felt sympathy for people who could not feel, while blocking out negative feelings, we block the positive feelings as well. When is the last time you smile from your heart and laugh heartily?
Of course, at the same time, you can always engage in positive activities to release these energy, eg writing (like I do haha) or take up any sports.
Our friends make a difference too. Hang out with people with positive mindsets makes you able to open your heart more. In any case, you can always take a moment, get in touch with your feelings. Let the happenings, slowly seep in and feel. Everyone is capable of feeling, so do you. Regardless if it's sadness or anger or even happiness, let yourself feel it, a bit by bit. This is a new dance you have to practice it more often and hopefully perfect it.
By the way, when we feels, our blood circulation actually improves, improving our skin complexion and concentration at work. :)
Labels: Working on Your Subconscious
