Sometimes good or even fantastic things happen to us. We get a raise, a new job, or our company is finally doing well, we have a stable and healthy relationship, or things in our life are finally “falling into place.” and yet we feel that “something is not right”
It’s as if when everything seems to be going in order, an emptiness, fear, anxiety grows within us. Why is this happening? It’s not crazy?!
To understand this problem that affects so many people, let’s look at a specific example.
Miguel, from success to failure in a short time
Miguel is a person who works in the sales area and is doing quite well He has worked hard and strived to sell more and serve his customers in an extraordinary way. One day, at the annual gala dinner, his boss decides to name him salesperson of the year, with a new position and an excellent bonus. He had never reached this high in his career.
Miguel felt totally happy and grateful for the recognition, however a short time later he reacted negatively. He started arriving late for work, started having headaches and back pain for no apparent reason. He decided to delegate the tasks he did best to his subordinates and neglect his clients. His performance was declining and his evaluations were no longer as positive as before. His boss noticed the change and pointed it out to him. Miguel felt that he had criticized him strongly and he felt resentful. He soon drifted into a negative spiral of poor performance, frustration and self-criticism. He began to doubt his abilities as a salesman and wondered if he deserved his position. After having achieved what he wanted so much, it seemed like he was self-sabotaging every step. Why couldn’t he just accept the position and be satisfied?
In fact, This behavior has a psychological explanation All of us form a concept of who we are, however for numerous reasons (experiences, upbringing, defenses) we have areas in which we evaluate ourselves negatively. Instead of changing this negative concept of ourselves, we unconsciously adapt to it and create a certain balance around it, like a thermostat that is always set to the same temperature. It is our personal ecosystem.
When we receive a lot of love, recognition and admiration that contradicts our psychological and emotional balance, we feel anxious, since all this challenges the negative concept of ourselves. The anxiety or fear of “not measuring up” or of feeling out of place turns into hostility to manipulate circumstances or alienate others distancing ourselves from that “rise in temperature”, that is, love, admiration or recognition.
A defense mechanism that can sabotage our joy
This is called pseudo-aggression. Pseudo-aggression is a type of anger that is used to provoke rejection and create distance in others to restore psychological balance
Unusually positive experiences sometimes trigger deep sadness and other painful emotions that in turn trigger anger and hostility. I suspect that the legend that states that people who win the lottery tend to be unhappier than before has to do with this very thing.
Returning to Miguel and his difficulties
A good friend of Miguel’s very perceptively warned him that all this whirlwind of frustration, poor performance, and resentment against his boss seemed to come from the promotion and bonus earned a few months earlier.
This reflection made sense to Miguel: since he had won the award he felt that there was something about him that did not deserve it, he feared that all his boss’s admiration would fade if his performance dropped and he felt uncomfortable with the new source of attention. and praise. However, understanding the origin of his negative reaction made him gradually reverse the course towards job failure. He began to realize that the boss was not against him, that the clients were the same and that he had inadvertently neglected his work. It began to grow and adapt to its new concept and “ecosystem” instead of shrinking to be sent to the world where it was conditioned
Share with us: Has any good change in your life been a source of imbalance in your “ecosystem”? How have you been feeling and what have you done to adjust?
