Trained as children to abandon our emotions and our humanity

By the time we are 15yrs old, we have been subjected to over 23,000 Myths about our emotions telling us how our sad/mad/uncomfortable emotions are wrong/weak/ too much/ too sensitive, and are not safe to feel or communicate about. One example of these messages is "laugh, and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone".

And it doesn't stop here though. From these myths/messages, we learn to abandon our true emotions (our true nature and humanity), and we believe that we are bad/faulty/weak human beings when we feel this emotional pain. We learn to not trust our emotions, not trust our body, not trust ourselves, and doubt our worthiness as humans for love, connection, and belonging. The resulting sacrifice - we create new, more happy, less emotional, less burdensome versions of ourselves so that we fit the mould, and so that we stay safe and hold onto the connection and support we need in our families, in our friend groups, in the world to survive as children/young people. And we carry these beliefs and behaviours into adulthood and into every relationship.

To add more insult to injury, these messages/myths are not just training us about what is 'good' and 'bad' about our emotions and being human - they are also training us on what Love is, what is loveable (i.e. how to earn love from others), and what the 'right' ways are to love ourselves and others!

These Myths tell us - that when we feel emotional pain, we need to:

• Don't feel bad / Stop feeling bad as soon as possible

• Feel bad on your own / not burden others with it

• Be strong / be strong for others

• Replace the pain with something pleasurable

• Keep busy and distract ourselves from the pain

• Allow time to take away our pain (and pass time by following all of the above rules).

But what are these Myths TRULY telling us and training us to believe about ourselves and Love?

• Don't feel bad / stop feeling bad as soon as possible

  • your emotions are wrong and you are wrong for feeling them

  • you are too sensitive/too weak for feeling these emotions - buck up and get over it!

  • your emotions are silly and a waste of time, and feeling them or talking about them is a waste of other's time.

  • don't trust your emotions, don't trust your body.

  • Message about Love - being a loveable human means never feeling bad or getting over it as fast as possible.

    
    

• Feel bad on your own / don't burden others with them

  • if you need to feel bad, go be alone and don't bring it here to me (or others); your emotions are not welcome here.

  • Suck it up and get over it, or go be weak and pathetic on your own.

  • your emotions are a burden to others.

  • you emotions are not loveable/worthy of love and connection. YOU are not worthy of love and connection when you are feeling them.

  • Message about Love - Love is about not burdening others with our pathetic pain.

    
    

• Be Strong/Be strong for others

  • your emotions are weakness.

  • YOU are weak and pathetic for feeling this pain.

  • you need to ignore your pain to be strong to take care of others first

  • tending to the needs of others is always more important than your needs.

  • your ability to earn love from others (in sacrifice of yourself) makes you a good/successful human.

  • Messages about Love - Love is about sacrificing yourself and putting others first, especially if you are a parent/caregiver.

    
    

• Replace the pain with pleasure

  • to get rid of the pain you feel (so you are a loveable human again), you should do something that feels good/pleasant.

  • feeling pleasure will fix your pain/ heal your broken heart.

  • Message about Love - you are a more loveable human when you are feeling good; feeling badly makes you less worthy of love.

• Keep busy/Distract yourself from your pain

  • to get rid of your pain (so you are a loveable human again), keep your work and social agenda busy with productivity and serving others/things outside yourself.

  • being productive and serving others is always more important than serving yourself.

  • giving is always superior to receiving.

  • productivity and sacrifice is for winners. Emotions/pain and Rest are for losers/failures.

  • busyness / productivity will fix your pain. Busyness / productivity makes you a good/successful human.

  • Message about Love - if you are not sacrificing your needs to serve others or to serve the workforce / world systems, you are not a human worthy of love, connection, and belonging.

• Time heals all pain / Just give it time

  • do all the stuff above - keep busy, care for others, ignore your needs, feel pain on your own, don't feel or talk about your pain, be strong, choose pleasure over pain - and the longer you do this, the better you will feel.

  • all this 'doing' and busyness will heal your broken heart.

  • if you don't feel better, you haven't given it enough time. OR you are broken and depressed and need medication so you can get back to being a good, productive human.

  • Message about Love - if you are not back to your usual productive, serving self by the timeline outlined by your family system/ work system/ healthcare system, insurance system/ education system, then you are a broken, failed human who needs medication and a diagnosis to fix your brokenness. Because your brokenness is not worthy of love, if you don't fix it, you will live and die alone.

WOAW hey?! Feel unnervingly or painfully familiar?

And even though this list is rather long and intense as it is, it only scratches the surface of how these myths cause us to abandon our humanity, ourselves, and one another. It's utterly heartbreaking.

Let's take a stand for better.

Let's come back to ourselves and one another.

How did this land for you? Which one of these myths is the loudest in your life or in your family growing up? Feel free to leave a comment below :)