Emotional Compensation

[10] Many of our human reactions do not have reason onto themselves. Instead they are emotional compensation for something else – most likely a deep-seeded hurt from the past, a knot in our life-script that is unresolved.

[9] The fear of being hurt is worse than the hurt itself; our memories of hurt give us the impetus to dodge the experience of repetition; this hurt is deeply imbedded in our minds – the past experiences of our lives, leaving scars in the dark corners of the subconscious.

The people who hurt us, the events that scared us, the places that frightened us… without resolution, their essence lives on beneath the surface of our existence.

[8] Soon the slightest of cues bring out the greatest of fears. Slights, smells, colours, people – the signals of the external world trigger a spark within: we are reminded of the past, a past that escapes our conscious mind, but that remains ever so powerful

We know at that moment that we are afraid, that we must run.

[7] As such, we hide, we avoid, we burst in rage – we do everything in our control to regain control

Control is the single most important commodity in the arsenal of human existence. Without control, we are nothing. Without control we fall into the abyss, and into chaos. It is control that brings about order. It is control that gives us the illusion that we can manipulate the external reality to our will.

[6] To regain this control we engage in the most basic of human reactions: emotional compensation

We attempt to compensate – so that our emotions can be re-set to equilibrium; we attempt to compensate so that for a brief moment, there can be resolution.

[5] This compensation takes on many forms:

We engage in hedonistic activities; we procrastinate; we sabotage our own enterprises – so to compensate for hurt and the fear of impending hurt.

We delay the engagement of an important task, leaving it to decay, so that we do not have to deal with our fears

We hide from people we must meet, eroding our relationships, so that we may avoid the pain of dealing with conflict

We drink ourselves to blindness, so that for an ephemeral moment, we forget the pain that we would rather bury from our minds

[4] We sublimate, and we displace – so that emotions can be set right; we do the opposite of what we rationally know we must do: for the right thing to do often puts us into a situation of lack of control – a situation of precariousness – a situation filled with the possibility of hurt – that brings back memories of which we wish to bury

[3] The experience of the human psyche is based, fundamentally, on a struggle between rationality and emotional compensation;

Reason tells us to do otherwise – to conquer our fears – to face that which we are afraid.

Our emotions pull in the opposite direction – not solving the fear, but instead compensating for the fear: through procrastination, avoidance, and hedonism

In the end, the fear is never resolved.

[2] This is the struggles that every person goes through.

This is the battle that defines a person.

[1] To win is to use reason. This is the only weapon.

© 2008