2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Why is this situation practically catastrophic and testifies to large pathological processes in the human psyche?
Many people find it difficult to express warmth, tenderness, and gratitude. We were taught to be strong, to survive on our willpower, to achieve and show results, but it was a shame to show a feeling of tenderness. Tenderness is the sensation that makes us vulnerable and soft. Moreover, often people are afraid to show their tenderness not because of the partner's response, but because of their possible reaction of their own. If now I show such feelings, I will soften, become completely gentle and will not be able to work, because I want even more tenderness, there will be no desire to take any serious action. Some greed sounds here - for a long time I was not allowed to experience tender feelings, so when I allow myself to touch them at least a little, I become incapacitated, it will “knock me out” of my life. This conscious or unconscious fear often holds us back from showing warmth to the people around us.
Not touching your feelings is a strong resistance factor for seeking a therapist. Sometimes there are situations when people take several sessions, but when frightened, they run away (touching their feelings makes them so vulnerable that it knocks them out of life). Why is this happening? The greedy and insatiable need “give me more tenderness, give me more feelings, let me relax, soak up” is so much that a person no longer has enough willpower. Ideally, the therapy should be balanced, you need to slowly touch your feelings and at the same time grow in what you love. In therapy, in addition to mental therapy, the social and financial life of a person should not suffer, this is the only way to achieve what you want and touch your feelings. And this does not mean at all - if you want tenderness, you should not work on yourself, you need to completely surrender to feeling. No - seek balance!
Greed in the zone of tenderness can be compared to a child's prohibition to eat candy. Relatively speaking, if in childhood you were allowed to eat only one candy a day or a week, in adulthood, when you can earn a bunch of sweets, you start to overeat. Likewise, with tenderness - if you allow yourself even a little bit, you will start to greedily gorge yourself, get lazy and will not be able to work.
Why is a situation where a person does not allow himself to show tenderness in life can be considered catastrophic? What happens then in his life? If we do not allow ourselves tenderness and warmth, and in fact we have this feeling (this is natural!), At a certain moment it will overwhelm, even if you do not realize anything. What happens next? You withdraw into yourself, not allowing warm feelings to manifest. Over time, the accumulated, but not expressed, tenderness turns into aggression, and you begin to show it in relationships. Moreover, if feelings have been accumulating for a long time, you will wait from others for the first step in showing tenderness, and only then will you be able to reciprocate ("I have this feeling, but I want him to take the first step, then I will be able to share tenderness.").
So, in the end, tenderness degenerates into aggression, and in a couple the relationship begins to deteriorate (people quarrel against the background of a lack of warmth and affection), partners cannot describe in words what is really happening, and in general they often do not understand what they are missing … A great example is hysterical wives. Often the root of the problem lies in a man who does not allow himself to show tenderness towards a woman. As a result, women start to get angry (“Give me some emotions, show me what I mean to you!”), A scandal is brewing. The husband gives a response, which means that he has emotions, and it does not matter that the tenderness was not received ("I was given attention!"). Sometimes there is a reverse reaction - hysteria occurs in men ("I didn't cook it! I didn't clean it! I didn't do it!"). In such cases, such remarks refer to insignificant trifles, and this is a request for tenderness, warmth, love and affection.
The absence in life of tenderness as a feeling, its manifestation for loved ones and acceptance leads to a catastrophic feeling of inferiority of life, a deterioration in its quality (something is missing, even if everything is good in all areas). That is why here we are talking about the fact that the absence of tenderness in the life of any person, and even more shame because of its manifestation, often lead to irreparable moments in life.
Why is this happening? Where does this prohibition on tenderness come from? We were taught that results are needed, everything needs to be done based on willpower. Firstly, these are echoes of the Soviet and post-Soviet upbringing. The second reason is that our grandparents lived during the war (if we talk about the CIS countries), then there was no time for tenderness, we had to be able to survive. Accordingly, all tender feelings were relegated to the background - work, constant stress, the struggle for a piece of bread and "a place in the sun." You and I live in a completely different time, but our parents were raised by those grandparents who did not know tenderness, did not understand what to do with these feelings.
If we talk about the present generation, there is still a problem in the manifestation of feelings. It is not uncommon for the mother of a 5-8-year-old girl to say during a therapy session: “My daughter comes to me with tenderness, wants to hug me, but I don’t know how to react to this. I freeze, hug her, but inside I feel that I am afraid to accept it and show tenderness in response! There is a shame of tenderness in the soul of every person.
In childhood, when you approached your mother to hug and kiss, with a request for affection, with a request to read you a fairy tale, your mother rejected you in some way. She could do it non-verbally, these are the most difficult cases (mom hugs, but you feel that she has no tenderness - someone emotionally empty hugs you). As a result, the child feels indecent and unnecessary to anyone with his tenderness. The situation is aggravated if at the same time the mother felt ashamed because of the manifestation of her feelings, did not know what to do with it and therefore in every possible way rejected and denied the feelings she experienced (“This is not mine! I do not have such feelings, I will not feel them, but all the more to show! ). From early childhood, it has been poured into the child's psyche that tenderness is bad and shameful.
In the book by R. Skinner and J. Cleese "The Family and How to Survive in It" literally on the pages of the first chapters, it is said that absolutely all families have at least one feeling that is ousted and denied by the family into the shadows. We are not angry, it is bad to be angry. The most striking example of a family - we do not show tenderness, we do not have it, we only have aggression, quarrels, scandals, constant clarification of relations, willpower, crazy joy, print, we can cry, grieve, but in no case show affection and softness. Other feelings may be supplanted, but tenderness takes the lead. As a result, in adulthood, a person will also be afraid to show tenderness, will deny and reject this feeling. Accordingly, when a partner begins to demand affection and warmth, it will cause aggression ("You demand from me what I have very little! I also need this feeling!"). As a rule, in the psyche of such people there is a great need from others for at least a kind and positive attitude. And this is a reason to turn to psychotherapy! After all, this is all evidence of deep early emotional childhood trauma due to constant rejection.
Tenderness is a feeling available to a highly organized psyche. This feeling of love, it gives, without demanding anything in return ("My tenderness was accepted, and I feel good already, I am grateful!"). All other points are related to childhood trauma. Emotional trauma is in the zone of rejection, resentment, some kind of underestimation of the child's feelings. This all necessarily stretches into adulthood, becomes the reason for the devaluation of other people, devaluation by the person himself of human relations in general.
The extreme form of such devaluation leads to egotism, existential loneliness, when a person withdraws into himself. And even if there are many people around, I do not feel any connection with them, it is painful for me to be among them, I feel that I do not have enough resources, I feel bad and lonely, I suffer. In other words, the shame of tenderness is a small tip of the iceberg, under which there are many deep psychological trauma associated with parents.
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