A common experience people have as they enter therapy is this sense that there is something wrong with them, and that they alone have the experiences they are having. Not only are they distressed by their internal experiences, but they feel alone in them. They feel that these internal experiences are indicators that they are really messed up.
What is really interesting is that many of those experiences that they bring, are experience that everyone (including their therapist), has had. The reason why it is a shared experience or common experience is because our brains are wired that way. The structure of our brain has not changed much in thousands of years. So, as much as the world around us has changed a lot over the years, our brains have not. Our poor brains are trying to apply the same old system to an increasingly stimulating and complex world, and as a result of that we encounter difficulties. Here are just a few of the more common ones:
- Always Jumping to the Negative
Take your mind to the time of our ancestors. Imagine two tribes. One tribe doesn’t tend to jump to the negative. If they heard a rustle in the bushes they may have thoughts of ‘Oh it is probably nothing, just the wind’ or ‘Maybe it is a rabbit’ or ‘Maybe it is a family member’. They don’t pay much attention to the noise. They may notice the temperatures getting colder and it getting darker, and think ‘It probably won’t get too cold. It was warm yesterday, so I am sure we will be fine’. They carry on as usual.
The other tribe, does tend to jump to the negative. So when they heard a rustle in the bushes they thought it was a predator, and would ready themselves to fight or flee. When they noticed changes in light and temperature, they got worried because the last time they saw such changes, winter came and resources became scarce. So they started to gather and stockpile food. Which of these tribes would be more likely to survive?
The mind’s ability to notice and anticipate the negative enabled our ancestors to take action to protect themselves. It kept them alive. So, that tendency to jump to the negative comes from the protective place in our brains.
- Compare Myself to Other People
Again, if we go back to the time of our ancestors, they lived in groups. Groups allowed for the sharing of workload and resources. Being in groups assisted in protection and procreation. If a person’s actions brought threats or harm to the group, a person would face being kicked out. Once out of the group, if they did not then find another group, they would likely perish.
Imagine being placed in a group with your ancestors, how would you know what the group needs, or what is acceptable or not acceptable within the group? You would watch the other group members. You would notice what they are doing and how others in the group respond. You would compare that with your own actions, and adjust accordingly. So if a particular action seemed popular in the group, you may seek to recreate it or build on it. If an action was not favorable, you would steer away from it.
We still have that wiring in our brain. So it is not unusual to look to others to compare to see where we fit or don’t fit. It also explains why we can have intense emotional experiences in social situations because our ancestral brain interprets rejection from group as being very dangerous. But our social world is WAY bigger and more complex than our ancestors. Chances are you have more people on your social media than what your ancestors had in their groups. You are also likely to be making comparisons across multiple groups, and thus encountering different, and at times conflicting, norms.
- Never Feel Good Enough
Everyone has an inner critic. The inner critic is kind of a combination of these first two points- it is the negative mind often unfolding in a social comparative context to create a sense of not being good enough. The inner critic wants to help. It wants you to do better, but often its way of trying achieve this isn’t effective.
- Feel Emotions
I am going to come back to this one in a longer post later. There is a lot to this one, but I am going to put it in ridiculously simple terms here. As much as at times we may think that life would be so much easier if we didn’t feel, our emotions have a purpose. Just like our senses alert us to danger that we can then respond to, so do our emotions. Our emotions draw our attention to things we may want to move towards or away from. Here are a few emotions, what they are alerting us to and the movement they can create.
- Fear: alert to danger, and moves away from threat
- Anger: alert to danger or pain, and moves us away from danger or pain.
- Sadness: reaction to loss, and moves us towards replacing what is lost.
- Guilt or shame: alerts us to action that runs against what may be important to us or our group, and moves us away.
- Disgust: alerts us to something we don’t want, and moves us away.
- Happiness: alerts us to something we enjoy and moves us towards.
The other thing with emotions is, if you didn’t care you wouldn’t feel. If something isn’t important to you, you are not going to worry about whether it will go away, or be angry if someone takes it, or sad it is lost, or happy when you get it. It is impossible to get rid of the dark without also getting rid of the light.
Acknowledging that these processes are normal and a product of our wiring helps remove some of the self judgment and sting that often comes with them, and enables you to look at and respond to them differently. Maybe with a little more compassion, kindness and understanding.
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