Posted On 10/17/2017 By admin

Below is one of several articles on emotional drivers.  It is about understanding the mental constructs within the processing perspective. Bringing the subconscious to the conscious level gives us clarity, control and conclusion for improved life involvements

One of the greatest challenges for those who have been raised in a family whose parental focus did not include conversations acknowledging emotional pain, is that a part of us never got “soothed.”  That part of us is still waiting for some type of affectionate nurturing or warm embrace. We don’t want to talk about the pain that surfaces, even if it is “every once in awhile.”

Sometimes the questions still ruminate, “Do my parents love me?” “Did they love me?” “Why do I still feel unloved?”  “What is wrong with me?” “Why is this void still here, SCREAMING at me?”

Pain, especially emotional pain, cannot be suffocated or covered with something else.  It will eventually elevate from its primal state wanting attention and demanding to be addressed. To compensate for this void and out of the need for survival, we excel at this game of self-soothing by licking the unhealed wounds and imagining that “we will be fine,” “they did the best they could,” or “we have all made mistakes.” Maybe we even create a storyline that suppresses the reality of unconditional love or unmet expectations. We try to create “made up love” for day-to-day work and social functionality.

Also, in this context of skewed perception, we may look for acceptance and love in the riskiest of all places in order to quiet the longing of love. Our behaviors may include interrupting every conversation through an entitlement narcissistic lens because all we want is to be loved, held close and told we have value.  Deeper inner conflicts may even result in “somatically agreeing” to a prolonged sickness to get attention. The human limitations and heart failings of being accepted and belonging remain.  Relief is nowhere to be found.

“Where do we get what we need if we didn’t get it when we needed it?” “When will ‘our worth’ be enough?” “Why are we so vulnerable to ourselves and others?” “Will the protective armored ‘hardness’ ever be softened enough to be opened up for love?”

Once our emotional lives get put on hold, we no longer see or perceive through healthy filters. The emotional and mental bridge that connects people to real love has been abandoned.  Its negative empowerment releases unhealthy deep-seated feelings about what LOVE supposedly is and how we are to handle its poisoned absence.

Fear of being truly loved causes heightened anxiety because we have never addressed the what, who, why and where LOVE resides in us. If we could ever dare to feel it, we would have to address the original pain from our loved ones that was never given, never received, and now, maybe never expected.

We want to believe we were raised in a warm and loving family. And maybe we tell ourselves that we were, but why is there this nagging, sharp voice still NEEDING something? The disappointing belief systems in our mind have convinced us that we still need to belong; still want to be accepted; still desire unconditional love. Then, because of the void, anger settles in to become our secret default remedy. After all, it is somewhat socially acceptable. It falsely relieves the pain transmitting to our limbic brain that says it’s okay to find anger in something and re-routes its “substituting service” to us via a hard-wired, maladaptive form of soothing. We may even feel guilty or ashamed because we have angry feelings.

Anger presents itself by making us believe that we are only loved conditionally; that we can never be wrong; we must always be PERFECT and ‘DAMN IT,’ we can never be vulnerable to anyone, EVER!  Perfection not only is impossible to attain, it is exhausting to pursue and ultimately leads us to further wounding within ourselves and to the people around us, our loved ones, our children, our friends and even our co-workers. Anger can become a cancerous, pathological state of generational strife displayed through hurtful behaviors.

Numbing anger with alcohol, food, obsessive hobbies or other toxic substitutes will only infuse it more within itself. It will be magnified into an animal that cannot be tamed. Anger is rarely felt alone. Anger can evolve in progressed stages through rage, revenge, resentment and entitlement. Anger can quickly cross over into a pattern of unhealthy abuse of oneself and others, especially when it is coupled with another unhealthy emotion:  FEAR.

Fear is powerful. Fear takes precedence over every other emotion. Fear can make something seem real when it isn’t. Fear can be addictive to our sympathetic nervous system and our parasympathetic nervous system. It is the highest cause of disease and sickness than any other emotion, under the label of “stress.”

Fear is expressed through a megaphoned voice that says, “if I am EVER proven wrong or weak in any way, then I will NOT be worthy of love!”

The recovery of this deep wound is to first become aware of what we are feeling, thinking and the motivational drivers that support them. “Coming home” to the reality of pain is actually an integral part of us, a deep inner self that WANTS restoration. We learn how to be vulnerable within ourselves and within our lives filled with blame and shame. We take ownership of the pain, forgive ourselves and those who did not give us what we needed, what we thought we needed or what we expected.

We change the perception of the fuel that drove the very thing that became distorted.

In this healthy journey, we begin to notice when we get angry. We look inward to understand what we are really thinking, how it is connecting our neural thought patterns for what is needed at the time: belonging, affirmation, love, trust, honesty, or whatever emotion that is “knocking at our door” to be soothed. “It” no longer controls us; we take charge of “it.” The awareness of our need for soothing is no longer clouding our heart for emotional comparative attention or triggered response. We replace the pain with truth. We honor this once unknown reality with understanding, perception and action.

The lack of completeness that used to dominate our very being has now been exchanged for an overwhelming sense of wholeness. The self-inducing trauma that once fed us has become a new strength from which we have catapulted, above and beyond ourselves. We can decide that we have been weak, wrong or wronged and we are OKAY. We are resilient. We are strong and we have a new foundation from which to secure love and to be loved.

“Being true to ourselves” is the soothing deliverable. The toxic “scream” has been suffocated into a state of calm.  Our comforted heart is open to love deeper and to love greater, with fullness and belonging. Our human needs have not only been met, but are drinking from the irreplaceable eternalness of producing love and giving love.

We BECOME loved. We ARE love, and we GIVE unconditional love.

Author: Ellen Hite, ZG Worldwide Consultant

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