Emotionally Retarded

The mind is constrained by our emotional capacity. What we feel incapable of feeling, we will sidestep with a mental reframe. We don’t even know we’re doing it. If something feels too emotionally dangerous to address, we’ll align with beliefs that justify it. We require illogical workarounds when we refuse to deal head on with emotional issues and this results in irrational behavior.

The person who refuses their emotions is compromising their maturity. Unresolved feelings from the past keep us trapped at the developmental age of the associated event and often cause adults to respond to stress in childish ways. We can easily become overreactive and unreasonable when our perspective is disturbed by childhood hurts.

We literally become mentally retarded when we cannot compute information that clashes with our compromised emotional position. We do not proceed in rational, sensible ways when we must avoid an unwanted feeling at all costs. Whatever remains unresolved in us can act as a circuit breaker to disrupt logical advancement.

Feeling our hurts isn’t widely encouraged so we’re inclined to cover them over with protective beliefs to save face. It isn’t healthy but it’s common. We all have an extensive web of false beliefs we’ve adopted to bandaid our pain.

If we felt on the outer at school, for example, we might mentally reassure ourselves with a story of greater power coming from independence. “I’m stronger on my own.” When collaborative opportunities present later in life and rattle our old unresolved feelings of being left out, we can sabotage connections by continuing to insist our protective belief is true. Our shunned 11 year old self demands isolation and dictates our future accordingly.

If we felt ridiculed in an early relationship, we might prop ourselves up by deciding there’s no such thing as true love. We consolidate that orientation in preference to feeling our early humiliation. As an adult we rebuff affection in a way that seems completely valid to us but ridiculous to others. Our wounded 16 year old self still calls the shots in matters of the heart.

No matter how old, we’ll always be emotionally tethered to that which remains unresolved in our past. The beauty of having others around to provide feedback means we have the opportunities for these false constructs to be exposed. Do we listen with curiosity when outside perspectives challenge our feelings or do we double down on our old position?

If I reach out with an offer to help, do you pause to feel what could be or do you default to your established lone wolf persona?

If I comment on how good you look, do you allow yourself to wrestle with the old feelings of self consciousness to let my words sink in, or do you persist with routinely shrugging me off?

If I offer feedback about your behaviour, do you allow it to stir in places beneath the surface or do you immediately shut me down?

New perspectives require an expanded orientation. Changing our view of the world inevitably requires that we open ourselves to new feelings. When someone isn’t prepared to adjust their known reality accordingly, their progress stalls. Emotional glitches create mental snags. Guarding our wounds with false beliefs invites problems to repeat in different circumstances. We live in a loop of our own mental constructs.

The irrationality of the triggered response is completely plausible for those who refuse emotional self reflection. An alternate position cannot be comprehended. No amount of rational explanation can compensate for the inability to feel beyond past experience. Rational propositions become fraught with danger. Sensible suggestions feel threatening.

They are unreachable.

To consider shifting from an orientation of isolated self-sufficiency requires the capacity to feel more care being possible. Until there is willingness to allow the new feelings, it will be very difficult to entertain a different mental orientation that could allow more receptive actions.

To consider changing jobs there must be flexibility to feel forward to a future place where there is opportunity for greater reward. If we have a feeling sense of what could be, then our mind is much more available to making decisions to pursue it.

To consider walking away from a relationship we must be able to anticipate a feeling of deeper love being possible. If our heart is guarded against feeling differently then our mind will rule with the same old story and we’ll stay where we are.

When people refuse to feel, they refuse to grow. Conversations can end up in the same grinding arguments. Someone may try time and again to explain an alternate perspective but the person who refuses to keep pace emotionally will be immoveable. There is a gap in emotional intelligence between the two people. When it grows too wide it eventually becomes impossible to reconcile differences.

Sharing our sensitivity can inflame the conversation.

A request for more intimacy is viewed as an impossible demand.

Expressing a desire for something different is taken as criticism.

No amount of rational intervention will convince someone who’s desperate to guard themselves against emotional exploration.

Can we continue with untouchable issues in the relationship when the chasm of misunderstanding cannot be bridged? When many issues accumulate over time it can become debilitating. Compromise serves neither. There’s a dullness that takes hold when we are at odds with people emotionally. Accommodating the stuckness in others affirms their constraint and dampens our potential.

But how many times do we favour preserving the connection over our growth? We’re often scared to forge ahead with allegiance to what we know to be true. And often convince ourselves that people will change in time.

If a desire for deeper connection is being explained to a partner who is afraid of it, the conversation will be stonewalled. No matter the eloquence of the person asking for more depth, the proposition will seem dangerous to the one who cannot address their fears. The emotional lockdown causes a mental barricade and discussions become futile.

If a request for an apology is made to someone who refuses to acknowledge guilt, the conversation will more likely become a battle. Their denial of uncomfortable feelings will have them cling to mental rationale to cover for it. It wasn’t my fault. It couldn’t be helped. You shouldn’t be upset. Any sensible challenge to their defended position appears like an attack. No apology, no resolution.

New ways of thinking and taking action simply will not get traction without willingness to expand into new feeling territory.

Are you willing to walk away? It could be a partnership, friendship or a work situation. The tricky thing to navigate is that the reason for the separation will usually be completely incomprehensible to the other party. Our position will seem utterly unreasonable. Rather than confront their own irrational position, they will tend to fight to defend or attack. If we go, it often means being seen as the bad guy because there is no way for the rationale of our position to be comprehended. It’s so nice when things can be talked through to a place of mutual understanding but this is not possible when one party refuses to feel the tangle that binds them to their distorted truth.

Changing the world requires changeable people. It doesn't pay to stay in relationships and attempt to build things with people who refuse growth.

Don’t let someone else’s baggage limit your reality.