Emotional Differentiation and National Survival
The patriotic thing might be to feel more and blame less
What is emotional differentiation, and what does it have to do with saving democracy in this era?
The term refers to mentally observing, distinguishing, and acknowledging the feelings that we experience as they occur. It is related to, but distinct from, the process of explaining our emotions (attributing them to a particular cause), which is often best done patiently over time. The former process lends accuracy to the latter. Differentiation helps us better cope with stress and achieve greater clarity, resolution, and emotional stability.
As E. B. Johnson, NLPMP, wrote in 2020,
“Differentiation stops negative emotions from getting worse by building up our confidence in facing them. It allows us to identify what we’re feeling and (eventually) why we’re feeling that way, which leads to true resolution and clarity and, thus, higher levels of happiness and contentment. When we learn how to see our emotions for what they are—and where they come from—we can accept them and then get better at managing them.”
Importantly, differentiation can enable greater self-honesty. The compulsion to justify our feelings—which, news flash, never need to be justified—can send any of us grasping for perceptions to rationalize what we feel. We then take the keys of comprehension away from objective observation and hand them over to emotional expediency.
Dr. Jonice Webb, in a piece entitled “3 Challenges for Kids Whose Parents Lack Emotional Intelligence,” describes the case of 10-year-old Jasmine, the daughter of two parents who’d been abused themselves in childhood. Though Jasmine’s parents were physically present, hard-working, and trying their best, they could not guide their children effectively through critical stages of emotional development because they had not been thus guided themselves. In other words, they couldn’t give what they didn’t have. Their own chronically low self-esteem made interoception a painful thing to avoid, which kept emotional intelligence more elusive for all concerned. However loving the parents tried to be, they could not respond appropriately to the emotional needs of their offspring. As is common in such cases, their children endured the complex trauma of long-term childhood emotional neglect.
Jasmine doesn’t know it, but this is only the beginning of her struggle. She will spend the next 20 years wishing that she had different parents and feeling guilty about it…and even though her parents love her, even at age 10 she knows, deep down, that she is alone in this world.
Emotional abuse (including neglect), whether ambient or direct, can come in many forms and contexts. Its severity and impact can vary in degree. But all of it is painful and damaging to the human spirit, with potentially cumulative effects if it’s carried on long-term. The longer the resulting trauma remains unresolved, the more patterns of abuse become the gift that keeps on giving from one person to the next.
So what do we do when victims victimize others simply because that’s all they know? Whom should we blame? In any case of parents and children, how many generations should we go back to punctuate the start of such abuse so we know exactly who the “bad guy” was? The internet is full of articles about identifying various toxic personality types and what we can do to protect ourselves from their influence. But when is life ever that simple in a world where emotional health is declining so much, and abuse and manipulation are becoming so prevalent, even among the best of us? A healthier perspective might be to dispense with the need for a clear antagonist (which is really about the need to assign blame), and realize that human beings are human beings all around. It is our sameness that makes human bonding possible and human behavior understandable. Where interpersonal conflict occurs, empathizing with our rivals (even without agreeing with them) is part of how we can reclaim their power over us.
As politicized rancor in the U.S. rises to unprecedented levels, more people are finding themselves on the defensive, emotionally, over what ought to be relatively neutral issues. If person A disagrees with person B about political policy—no matter what the reason—the odds are greater than ever that person B (and perhaps their friends to boot) might respond abusively. Tribal loyalties create the illusion of emotional safety, even when manipulation within the tribe is rampant. As suspicions about the “other” accumulate, the entire tribe becomes easier to lead astray. The farther from the political center we go in either direction, the more, “Where there’s smoke, there’s arson” becomes the prevailing rationale. Logically, that makes no sense. We, the People, should be smarter than that. So why aren’t we?
For years, we’ve been descending into a culture of normalized emotional abuse characterized by aggression and dismissiveness in turn, as feelings of guilt or shame make confirmation bias organic to emotional survival. We’re forgetting how to see each other as human beings, which makes us all the more vulnerable to manipulation coming from both inside and out. The confounding thing is that we still need our fellow humans to keep working with us as much as we need truth to prevail. So what do we do when we can really only make choices for ourselves?
Any time you feel shame, anger, distrust, or contempt rising rapidly inside of you toward a person you might otherwise like and respect, take a moment and realize the emotions you’re feeling are your own, and not necessarily being felt by the other person. Let go of the need to immediately assign a cause to your feelings, and just experience what you feel. Acknowledge your emotions as part of a pattern of self-acceptance. Notice what you’re feeling and when, and let the feelings run their natural course.
Accurate answers about causation can require time and patience. But meanwhile, we are all entitled to experience, identify, and honor even the negative feelings that arise in us, no matter what they are. Because we don’t get to pick what we feel—at least not directly—we don’t have to justify our feelings to anyone. Rushing to do just that can easily lead to misattribution based on what we need to be “true” at the moment to find the most immediate relief. This is such a natural human tendency, no one is immune to it. Little wonder that objective truth becomes harder to find as political rancor increases. Managing our emotions in healthy ways is essential to our own self-honesty—and by extension, to our national survival.
We all need sufficient joy, emotional validation, and emotional safety in our lives. And let’s face it, we also need appropriate outlets for anger, anxiety, and other negative emotions that aren’t dissipating fast enough on their own. Don’t repress them. They need to be openly and safely aired, validated, and processed. Avoiding unpleasant feelings for too long can lead to outward aggression (including passive aggression) against others.
Never tell yourself or another person what to feel. Where real pain exists, never tell yourself or someone else to stop feeling sorry for themselves—even if certain perceptions could use correction. Never tell any person—yourself included—that feelings aren’t real or important. Doing so is abusive and undermines bonding, appreciation, and emotional health. Where our minds go, so will democracy go.
We can’t do what we must for others emotionally if we’re not doing the same for ourselves. Please. Just. Feel. Choose courage when it comes to facing your own emotions head-on. Words and actions can be chosen separately.
