Participate, Not Anticipate: A Way to Enhance Your Relationships

           Human beings desire happiness and well-being. One important way that we can find contentment and well-being is by creating bonds and engaging in relationships at intimate and social levels. A major drive that motivates people to connect and maintain relationships with others is their need to belong and to be accepted. This is a strong need to belong and to be accepted and is attached to strong emotions. 

When there is a threat to the sense of belonging and acceptance people can get intensely disturbed. There can be many emotional reactions to a real or imaginary threat to belonging. Mark Leary, a well-known researcher in belongingness, says that there are two ways — social anxiety and jealousy — that manifest when you experience a threat to your sense of belonging. He adds that these two experiences are largely anticipatory, alerting people to the possibility that their relationships may be in danger.[1] Social anxiety occurs when you doubt whether you will be accepted by your friends, other people, or groups. Jealousy in a relational context assumes that the other person can steal someone from you. Both, social anxiety, and jealousy, can become chronic and excruciatingly painful. Your perception of losing someone or being rejected by them may not be based on reality. Often, it is how you anticipate in your imagination that you might be rejected, that leads to anxiety and jealousy. It could be a pattern that your mind has learned from past experience but is no longer relevant. 

You do not have to live in constant agony of the fear of being rejected. Those who want to leave you will leave you anyhow, and it is not worth investing in those relationships. You need to become aware of the people who really love and accept you. You need to participate in relationships and not anticipate rejection. The more you focus on participation, the more you will enhance and enjoy your relationships, and the more you anticipate your fantasized rejections, the more you will damage your relationships and invite unwanted misery to yourself. 

Therefore, to enjoy and flourish in your relationships, participate, and do not anticipate. 

            

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[1] Allen, K.-A., Gray, D. L., Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (2022). The Need to Belong: A Deep Dive into the Origins, Implications, and Future of a Foundational Construct. Educational Psychology Review, 34(2), 1133–1156. https://doi-org.blume.stmarytx.edu/10.1007/s10648-021-09633-6

Enough is Enough

Modern society boasts great advances in many fields, particularly in medicine, information technology, modes of travel, and infrastructure. Indeed, many amazing discoveries and inventions have been made in the last two centuries. We have supermarkets offering not only local but international products, restaurants offering varieties of cuisines, luxurious cars, opulent villas, monstrous TVs, smartphones and other gadgets, and more money (Gilbert, 2013). 

But are we humans happier? Are we happy with ourselves and with each other? Wars and conflicts, hatreds and fears, and rising numbers of people becoming anxious, depressed, and suicidal tells us that we struggle to experience happiness and peace. Why is that? 

One big reason is that we have not learned to say enough is enough. We have become willing slaves to money and competition (Bunting, 2004). Oliver James (2007) suggests that we are suffering from “affluenza — an addiction to affluence and a need ‘for more and more.’” 

We have lost the capacity to say no to what is extra or we never developed this capacity. Our society, and unfortunately our parents, too, might have brainwashed us to achieve more, to earn more, and to have more. Added to these influences, the marketing industry spends billions every year to ensure that we are not content and to make us feel we need more and more (Gilbert, 2013). Hardly anyone says this is enough, we do not need more and more. We live in a world that is driven by the philosophy of more and more.

Understandably, it can be hard to say no to the philosophy of more but it is not impossible. Our own experiences of frustration and lack of contentment despite having more should be our teacher. If we want to experience contentment, we need to get out of the mad race of having or doing more and start appreciating and enjoying what we already have. 

It is high time we say, enough is enough! 

Notes

Bunting, M. (2004). Willing slaves: How the overwork culture is ruling our lives. Harper Collins. 

Gilbert, P. (2013). The Compassionate mind. Robinson. 

James, O. (2007). Affluenza. Vermilion.

Running Away from Love

        Humans desire and depend fundamentally on love and affection. Yet, ironically, many of us can keep running away from love. Let me explain. 

Imagine that every time a child steps out of her house to play with her friends, her parents scold and punish her. This child will quickly learn that her desire to play with friends results in pain and punishment. Eventually, she will stop connecting and playing with her friends and even inhibit the desire to play or will become anxious if she feels such desire or sees her friends playing. Paul Gilbert (2013), a renowned clinical psychologist in London, confirms this phenomenon saying, “We can learn to become anxious about our feelings because of how others have responded to them in the past.” Thus, we can learn to become anxious and flee from desires and experiences meant to promote our happiness and wholeness. 

The same principle can apply to our desire and experience of love, too. If you were hurt and betrayed in the past when you loved someone, you are likely to feel anxious when you experience the desire to give and receive love. You can be overwhelmed by the anxiety and excruciating emotions attached to your past disappointing love experience. You can feel deeply disturbed and apprehensive at the possibility of giving and receiving love because of how your brain has linked love to hurt and betrayal. Hence, your desire and need to give and receive love, though legitimate and noble, can make you anxious at any such possibility. You can be cold and resistant and withdraw from persons and situations where love is offered. 

It is important to become aware of what causes you anxiety and withdrawal and to not act blindly driven by your fears but to grasp the present opportunities for love and affection with openness and hope. 

 

Notes

Gilbert, P. (2013). The Compassionate mind. Robinson. 

Growing as Happy and Authentic Individuals

Do you appreciate your children and others in your life? Perhaps you do. When do you reward and appreciate them? Probably when they do well in exams, win trophies, get promotions, or succeed. That is good — but not good enough! Appreciating individuals only when they succeed and do well can make them duplicitous and lead them to hide their true self. It is necessary that you also admire your children and dear ones when they share their failures and embarrassing experiences. It is essential that you let them know that they are loved and accepted despite their failures and disappointments. 

Appreciating individuals for taking the courage to be honest with you can enable them to become emotionally healthy, genuine, and liberated individuals. Conversely, appreciating them only when they succeed can give them the sense that they are accepted only if they win and stay on top of everything. They can begin to hide their faults and failures to be accepted and start to live their life driven by fear of rejection. One or two examples will be illuminating. Suppose your child breaks something in the house. If your child thinks that she will be scolded or punished for breaking the thing, there are high chances for your child to hide the broken item. Or, again, if you do something embarrassing. If you believe another person would disapprove of what you did, you will avoid talking about the embarrassing event.

This shielding occurs because we are afraid that if our faults and weaknesses are exposed there will be negative and unpleasant consequences. These could include scolding, judgment, or withdrawal of love and acceptance. Humans want to be loved and accepted. Therefore, you can begin to hide your failures and brokenness, and put on a seemingly pleasant and competent mask. You can split your life into two, one that is fragile but honest, the side you only know, and the other that is bright but fake, the side you show to others. Such a split in life creates anxiety and leads you away from reality.  

You will agree that everyone makes mistakes and fails. Hence, it is not possible to always succeed and to do well. Do have the courage to show your true self to people who care about you. In their moments of failures and embarrassments, can you assure your loved ones that they are loved and accepted as they are? Such experiences of love and acceptance can empower you and others to accept and love themselves despite their failures, to shed their fear of rejection, and to live with freedom and congruence. 

Self-Judgement Robs Happiness

            Our understanding and feelings about ourselves are greatly influenced not only by how we view ourselves but also by how we think others view us. We often evaluate ourselves judging whether we are doing well or poorly and the conclusions we draw can be linked to our perceptions of how others see us (Gilbert, 2013). If we think that others see us in a critical and poor light, then we can apply those perceptions to ourselves and see ourselves as inadequate and inferior. Feelings of inadequacy and inferiority can make us hide and become miserable. At certain times, we all feel inadequate. When we feel inadequate, we can withdraw and stop engaging in things we like to do.   

           An example will help to understand this better. Suppose two individuals take part in dance practice. One engages in the dance forgetting everything and enjoys doing so. The other is worried about how others might judge her dance. The more the second person ruminates about how others may not like her dance, the more self-critical she becomes, and begins to see herself as inadequate. She withdraws from dance practice and goes home feeling miserable. (Here, there is an implication for parents, teachers, and those responsible for the growth of others to help them overcome such self-defeating judgments.)

           Gilbert (2013) says that it is easy to become self-conscious, and to not show our efforts to others for fear of being judged, and finally to isolate ourselves by feeling depressed about ourselves. These self-judgements can rob us of the joy we experience by participating in activities that we enjoy. If we can suspend our self-critical system and engage in activities purely for the sake of enjoying them, then we can become free to enjoy life. With such freedom, we can grow optimally and find meaning in our lives. 

References

Gilbert, P (2013). The compassionate mind. Robinson.