We are born with the neurobiology to connect. We need to become attached and form bonds with our caregivers. When this works well, we feel loved and connected, not only to the outside world, but as importantly, we feel connected to our own inside world. Thereby, the ego-self axis (the backbone of the personality) is laid down and all set to transmit messages. Feelings and emotions are the most common messengers. When we are loved and enjoyed by our parents, this burnishes our inner world and we feel a sense of wholesomeness, a full-hearted sense that it is a good thing to be us and a good thing to be alive. We have a place to belong and are worth something. Brene Brown did some research in this area and found that those people who have a sense of worthiness (also known as self-worth) have in common a wholeheartedness where they can put their whole self into life, loving and work. They have the following in common: courage which comes from the French word for heart, coeur, and she finds these people have the courage to be imperfect; compassion for themselves, their disappointments and mistakes which then extends to compassion for others; connection which arises from an authentic sense of self as opposed to the fronts that we might display socially; and crucially vulnerability which she describes as a beautiful quality – one that is neither comfortable nor excruciating – but is necessary.
Vulnerability means that we are prepared to suffer. We are prepared to invest in something, a relationship or a job or living in another country, that may or may not work – in other words to take risks where we cannot control or predict the outcome. We get better at being vulnerable with practice but we have to be prepared to be really seen by another. In Jungian terms, this means that we are prepared to own our shadow – the parts of ourselves that we don’t especially like – and when we can allow another to see us and even enjoy this part of us, then this reduces our anxiety and we are much freer to get on with the business of being happy. Clearly, if we go back to the idea of good parenting, then parents who can help their children to bear disappointment and failure, who love their children even because of this, offer a tremendous start to a place for vulnerability in life.
In my work as a psychotherapist, I often encounter people who have been wounded by love – the broken hearted. I see people who don’t feel as if they belong; rather they feel excluded and disconnected. These people may look okay in that they have learnt to function at work, for example, but in their personal lives they are afraid to be wholehearted because their experiences as a child have left them wounded or traumatised. Often there were no ‘big-ticket’ traumas. However, what these people experienced as children was a form of cumulative neglect – they weren’t enjoyed by their parents even though they may have been clothed and fed. Their inner worlds were neglected leaving them with a sense of shame and that there is something wrong with them. Their conviction is that if people really knew what they were like, they wouldn’t love them any more. This means they avoid truly intimate relationships in which their whole self can be accommodated and they end up feeling disconnected. When life is too much to bear, especially when they are little, then one of the best ways of coping is to switch themselves off. Those ‘emotional messengers’ get smothered in order to avoid imperfection and vulnerability. However, they can’t just switch off the bad feelings, so all the joy, creativity, loving and belonging also get switched off. They end up feeling numb and life becomes pointless. They wish they didn’t exist.
Our current society is the fattest, most addicted, over-medicated and indebted it has ever been. These are our collective methods of numbing ourselves. When we feel uncomfortable, we have something to eat, something to drink, zone out on our phones, spend too long at work or at the gym, buy something else we don’t really need…. This puts us out of relationship with our bad or stressy feelings and it also puts us out of relationship with our families and partners. We have no compassion. We lack the courage to change. To be vulnerable is too much to manage and life quickly gets out of balance.
Brene Brown sees the collective results of why and how we numb ourselves. She says that we try to make the uncertain certain. We can see this in politics and religion where debate is stifled and only one way is the correct way. We stop having thoughtful, considered discussion and ally ourselves with a political party where we are right and anything that goes wrong is blamed on the ‘other side’, thereby discharging pain and discomfort. She says that we perfect. Life isn’t perfect, it’s messy and to pretend otherwise is to be in a state of anxiety and disappointment which tips us back into our various addictions. She says that we pretend. We get caught up in living a front and behave as if our behaviour has no impact. Systems, set up to help people, are becoming so full of digitised bureaucracy that it is not possible to speak to a human being. These systems pretend to be helpful whilst causing us immense frustration and dissatisfaction.
We can make a start on practising the antidotes to misery and hopelessness which are to be joyful and grateful. We can take courage and attempt to reach the parts of ourselves that have been cut off and reconnect them. This will require us to be in a relationship where we can be vulnerable. This may be with a therapist or with a partner, but we need to let ourself be seen. We should practise kindness and gentleness with ourselves and others, where being us is enough. We can start noticing when we do feel connected and burnish that feeling until it glows.
Psychotherapy and Counselling 