You may have noticed that Human beings generally fear the unknown.. This is a primitive neurobiological effect that works in automatic mode, designed to protect us from danger.
When we are faced with a situation that puts us at risk, we feel fear. Fear acts as an alert that if we know how to read it will be useful to us, as a tool that will mobilize us to keep ourselves safe, initiating the physiological defense mechanisms of fight, flight or freeze. In this way we learn to read certain patterns from the environment that make us perceive what is everyday and normal and from which we are safe because the existing risks do not cause greater alert given that we have already learned to defend ourselves against them.
The opposite case occurs when something new arises, which is outside the pattern.. Faced with this new thing, not only do we not know what it is, we do not know how to face it; Therefore, we consider that we are facing a potential risk (emotional, physical, life-threatening and many more), and fear arises and with this we will react in some physiological way of fight or flight.
When we don’t know something, our first tendency is to become alert and fear arises.
This way of protecting ourselves operates in all areas of our lives. For example, when we are offered a new job position, when a new colleague arrives, when we start a new job or project, when we are invited to meet new friends, when a son or daughter is born, when we go on a trip, when we start a relationship. couple and every time we address challenges together, and of course, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, among many other possibilities.
AND The same happens with our inner world, with our subjectivity.. It happens to many people that it causes them a lot of fear and even refusal to look into their own inner world. Carrying out an EMDR psychological therapy process involves seeing yourself, confronting your inner life, learning to look and find what bothers you.
The feeling of fear when promoting self-knowledge in therapy
It is expected that fear will arise, since it is unknown. Usually no one teaches us, we don’t learn to relate to ourselves, only to the external.. They teach us that when we feel sorry we have to make it go away, “don’t cry,” they told us, “it’s no big deal, dry your tears and come to dinner, there’s no reason to be sad.” That is, we learn to avoid our subjective activity. Or we learn to deny what happens to us, like when it happened to us: “Dad, I have a problem, all the children carry a green backpack and I carry a yellow one and they make fun of me… that is not a problem, a problem is what I I have at work, go do your homework.”
By encouraging us to avoid, deny and also minimize our needs as children, it is expected that it will be difficult for us as adults to take care of ourselves, understand what is happening to us and solve our emotional states.
There are many people who do not know themselves, and I mean beyond the visible qualities or behaviors, (that is, I am intelligent, I have creativity, I like to sing, I get angry when people lie to me or I am sociable…). I mean observing our mind and noticing what emotions arise, what it feels like, what the body correlate is, what the thoughts are, the positive and negative beliefs about myself, the world, the worldview.
Achieving this involves relating to oneself, which is already complex if it has never been done. And trying to do it is overwhelming, since you don’t know how to proceed; In fact, some people feel ridiculous. And there is the “risk” that you could see something that you don’t want to see, because you wouldn’t know what to do with it or tolerate it, which translates into something unknown. Let us remember that we fear what is unknown, what is outside the pattern, because it puts us outside our comfort zone.
The issue is that we are directed more outward, with a locus of control placed in the other, and when difficulties begin to arise, we always notice what the other does or does not do to us, the defects of the other, “that the other He doesn’t love me, he doesn’t listen to me, he doesn’t know what makes me happy,” and we give more control to the rest of the people in our lives than to ourselves. We expect them to give us solutions or for the other person to change so that we feel loved, and since this does not happen, the discomfort continues and begins to become more evident, overwhelming and unmanageable.
To do?
To solve what happens to us we have to start by stopping avoiding, denying, minimizing our inner world, our real needs for love, our emotions and thoughts, and start by relating to ourselves, bonding, looking at ourselves, even if we don’t like what we see. Only in this way will we fully understand what is happening to us, the possible and varied causes, in order to seek solutions and make more appropriate decisions.
This is one of the initial challenges of EMDR psychological therapy, ensuring that the person learns to know themselves, stop avoiding, identify and address their self-care needs. Whoever manages to take the step, improves their quality of inner life and as a consequence changes the way they throw themselves into life.. Because her paradigm of how she perceives society, people and relationships, and how she perceives herself, changes. Thoughts and emotions are regulated, you stop feeling so much fear, anxiety, and sorrow. The negative beliefs of the “Self” are left with conviction, for “I am loved”, “I can achieve it”, “I am safe”, “I can overcome challenges”, among others, as the case may be. .
