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Emotional Education

How can we stop overlooking the most meaningful aspect of human experience?

By Morgan SweeneyPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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How do you study emotions?

I. A Familiar Scene

  1. A newly successful couple walks into the grand ballroom, admiring the white tablecloths covered with silver platters of roasted birds. The majestic golden-wrought staircases are swarming with high society, affluent adults dressed to the nines. The multitudes mill around the meal, absentmindedly discussing the weather or the wine, carefully sidestepping controversy. The couple, after a few missteps, learns to dance with pleasant politeness, no matter how inauthentic it seems. They return home early, exhausted, wondering why they had fought so hard to get to the top.
  2. A fifteen-year-old girl is scared to talk to the boy she likes at her first ever high school party. She covers her insecurities with makeup and a new blue skirt, pleated on the sides. Standing on her own against a brick wall, lips pursed to look pretty, she pretends to be too cool to be approachable, and turns away all the boys who ask her to dance. The one she likes doesn’t even try - why should he get rejected, too? She remains on the sidelines, staring at her phone, silent tears falling behind her red solo cup.
  3. A five-year-old boy pulls a girl’s brown ponytail as she runs toward the yellow monkey bars. She cries because he is hurting her. He hurts her because he was hurt when she said she wanted to play with her friends and not him. But he doesn’t know how to tell her this; he just keeps pulling.

II. Underlying Insecurity

Why are people so scared of deep conversation, so terrified of true connection? What is it about our true emotions that makes us so afraid of expressing ourselves to one another? What do we lack in these social situations that results in this massive disconnect???

Everyone wants to feel important, but no one wants to explicitly ask for validation. We’re scared that by sharing our insecurities with someone else, they will see us for who we really are, the parts of ourselves we don’t allow ourselves to acknowledge. Whatever adjective we associate with that insecurity: stupid, powerless, bad, weak.

Have you ever stopped yourself from crying for fear of being judged? Bitten back an angry retort, or swallowed hurt? Refused to express what you were really feeling because you were scared of being seen as a person you don’t want to be? I know I have.

So instead of letting others in, we build stone walls to keep them out, behind which we try to maintain the crumbling facade of perfection. And when someone starts to see us through the cracks, we act as though we are under attack. Dissociation, anger, retreat - these are common defense mechanisms people use to deflect attention from their insecurity, fighting or flighting in fear.

The limbic system is the part of the brain that controls the fight-or-flight response, that responds when we are under a perceived threat. Our conscious awareness is overridden as we move into automatic survival mode, trying to win the fight or get away. Our brains treat scary social situations identically to life-threatening attacks. While this was an effective way to escape predators millions of years ago in the verdant jungle, it is downright counterproductive in today’s concrete jungle, where authentic human connection is the most valuable commodity that exists.

The way people approach confrontation has greatly contributed to the world we currently inhabit - one that is rife with social isolation, depression, anxiety, fear of commitment and abandonment issues. These are symptoms of a society that perpetuates an unconscious core belief that we are not good enough. Look at the blonde girl in the magazine, the bulky guy on the billboard, your golden older sister. They seem to whisper, “You will never be one of us, you can never have what we have; you will never be enough.”

III. A Superior System

Just because something happened in the past doesn’t mean it’s doomed to be repeated. From what I understand, the theoretical justification behind teaching history in school is to inform the current generation of the past mistakes, so that they avoid repeating them.

Which got me thinking: I wonder what would happen if emotional education was introduced in schools. What if kids were taught how to feel when they were younger? What if people learned to express themselves in a creative, thoughtful way, because they were asked about their feelings and told that their feelings mattered when they were still young enough to create these fundamental feeling patterns?

The expectation seems to be that parents will teach their kids how to feel. But how many parents even express themselves? There’s nothing written into the process of becoming a parent that necessitates emotional maturity. On the contrary, many parents are so overwhelmed by the multitude of their responsibilities that they barely have time to deal with their own emotions. Between making lunch and cleaning the house and driving to and from their 9-5, when are they going to make time to teach their kids how to express themselves?

To master anything requires practice, and emotions are no different. We need more concrete research on emotion so we can establish emotional patterns that allow for expression, not suppression. The following proposed solution is one I have been exposed to through personal development programs and personal experience.

The only possible way to ameliorate a problem is through initial awareness of it. When left unacknowledged, simple problems deteriorate into major issues that are significantly harder to fix. The problem with people is their personal insecurities. If left to their own devices, personal insecurities can dictate subsequent personal decisions constructed to conceal the perceived flaw.

For example, if I am insecure about my intelligence and someone challenges a point I am making in a way that makes me feel unintelligent, my insecurity can take over. I will become angry and begin to debate with them irrationally. If I continue to allow my insecurity to go unacknowledged, it can take over the debate, shifting the focus from a search for truth to a forced acknowledgement of my superior intellect.

If I want to persevere in doing the things I initially set out to do, I need to be able to take the power away from my subconscious insecurities by bringing my emotions up into conscious cortical awareness. One way of doing this is through articulation - if I can say how I’m feeling, I’m able to think about it, take a step back, and ultimately let it go. This is something I have to do to in order to make the choices that will allow me to become the person I really want to be.

Feeling, accepting, and articulating one’s emotions is not a sign of weakness. Weakness stems from being controlled by these emotions. Flying off the handle at the kids for spilling milk as a way to cope with insecurity at work, or outsourcing frustration with city traffic on a good-natured waiter at a restaurant - these are examples of true weakness, where automatic behaviors cause a person to act like something they don’t want to be. But these behaviors don’t have to be in control - these are learned coping mechanisms one has been taught to use, whether consciously or unconsciously.

People learn by example, by memorization, and most of all, by practice. Relationships are the most meaningful aspect of human life, and relationships are largely dictated by emotional experiences. The ways people grow in relationships is through emotional awareness and communication. Many adults learn these mechanisms through a combination of past mistakes, positive role models, and self-help practices. What if all children could learn through the same, at a significantly younger age?

Emotional education is at least as important as the cognitive and physical education that is already covered in schools. Learning how to express emotions and create meaningful relationships in a safe, common environment could offer a great deal towards creating a future society of intention: where people do things they care about because they want to, not because they’re scared they won’t be good enough if they don't.

humanity
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About the Creator

Morgan Sweeney

Student, scientist, explorer, believer. Artist, lover, girl. 💖

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