In our early childhood our whole being was pure emotion, all heart. Childhood is a period of our lives in which we live, feel and we express ourselves spontaneously, freely and without worries.
However, this time of emotional fulfillment is too brief. Many adults, loaded with reasoning, forget to give prominence to the emotional part.
Why in adulthood we stop being spontaneous
As we grow, the external pressures to which we are exposed force us to lose our authenticity and to show us much more cautious, controlling and rational than at the beginning of our lives.
The demands of the family, of the school, blackmail, threats and punishments, urge us to adapt to others, to meet their expectations, to be accepted or, simply, so that they do not get angry with us.
This accumulation of tension imposed from the outside, ends up forcing us to repress this part of our personality that is so spontaneous and emotional, to further promote a controlling and rational self.
During these years when we are small and unable to fend for ourselves, adapting to and controlling others is of enormous benefit, since It helps us, when we don’t like something, to minimize the damage or punishment that we could suffer if we were to express our emotions and protest spontaneously.
Empowering this controlling part of our personality protects us and helps us survive childhood.
Also, later It helps us to succeed in studies and to get a good job. In a society that values the rational and analytical over the emotional, thanks to this controlling attitude, we manage to prosper. However, in the long run, the price to pay is too high.
The more control we give to analysis, to reasoning, the less space we leave to emotion or intuition.
In this way, we empower a single part of our self and offer it power over the others, so that the rest of the selves, fractions of our personality, are left with no space to express themselves, no place to express their opinion. If we take this excess of control to the extreme, we will encounter problems such as obsessions, stress, or anxiety.
Consequences of the head ruling over the heart
A paradigmatic example of this dichotomy between head and heart can be found in a session I had in my office with Beatriz, a girl who was forced to grow up early to care for her sick brother and immature parents who barely cared for them.
From an early age, the little had to take responsibility for tasks of the elders and, therefore, she could not afford to be a girl or enjoy this time of her life.
As an adult, Beatriz was a very decisive woman, capable of solving all eventualities in her family, but so controlling that when she came to my office, she already had suffered several anxiety attacks for not knowing how to relax the tension that caused him the need to “have all the loose ends tied up”.
In one of her guided relaxation sessions, Beatriz had a very original way of representing the process she had experienced in her childhood, giving more power to his head than to his heart.
He imagined his emotional part as a little Beatriz approximately 6 years old, in a hospital bed, weak and emaciated. She had so little energy that she could barely move.
At his side, in the chair that was for visitors, He saw another girl exactly like the one in the bed, but this one looked much better, was well dressed, and had a determined expression on her face.
The second girl represented his rational part and he was exercising his role, watching and taking care of the one who was in bed.
When the girl who was in bed, the emotional one, made an attempt to move and sit up, the rational girl stopped her and put her back on the bed. The dialogue they had could not be more significant:
Rational: Keep lying down. Do not bother yourself. I’ll take care of everything.
Emotional: But I want to move, I want to have an opinion.
Rational: Better stay there. He thinks that we have survived thanks to me.
Emotional: It may be, but look how you left me.
Striking a balance between reason and emotion
As we see, the rational part was the one that helped Beatriz to adapt to the problematic family situation that she lived at home, but, he achieved it at the cost of repressing and nullifying his emotional world. Strengthening one part, always leaves the other apart.
The objective of the therapy was to integrate the two parties, to enhance understanding and communication between them. for them to work as a team.
Perhaps, in the past, to survive, since none of the adults took it, Beatriz had to be in control of every situation, but as an adult, thanks to her therapeutic work, Beatriz was able to understand how the long-term consequences of this excess of responsibility had been tremendously harmful for her.
Neither party should dominate over the other. Mental health depends on there being a balance and a fluid dialogue between our reason and our emotion.