EI for Young Adults: Discussion 19
Victim: lying to yourself
Sometimes we feel in a bad state, we are being a victim of our circumstances. Even if we approach this situation from Emotional Intelligence perspective of thinking about our needs and how to meet them it doesn't work and we keep feeling stuck and miserable. Why is that?
It is because we never want to give up our identities, even if they don't serve us. Once you identify yourself with a victim you don't want to give it up. You want to keep status quo because you ARE the victim and killing a victim in you is like killing yourself. That's why even though we rationally think that we want to meet our needs and be happy, subconsciously we subotage it, because if you are happy you can no longer be a victim!
This is where lying to ourselves comes. For example, I feel unappreciated at work. So I think that my need for appreciation is not met, and all I need is to meet this need. This is lying to myself, because I don't WANT to be appreciated, in order to stay a victim, since this is who I am at that time.
Recognizing that we are lying to ourselves, that who we are being is not serving us allows us to start making sense of our world. Once I know that I am identifying myself with a victim, I can validate its need to continue being miserable, AND step away from it. I start dis-identifying from being a victim and getting my power back.
We need to make sure not to stay in this state for too long, because the more we stay, the more we are used to it and it becomes our default state. The harder it becomes to realize that we are lying to ourselves.
The challenges of school work
There are several challenges of school work:
Load
The overwhelm of the load of work we have to do results in procrastination. Doing the work is unpleasant so we delay it until we have such a big pile, that once we clean it up it may give a lot of positive emotions, but the price is high, it makes us very stressed. It is healthier to spread the work load over time, but for that you need motivation. Why would I do the work that I don't like right now if I can do something I like, and then deal with it later? The trick is to come up with some kind of immediate reward, because a long term reward doesn't quite work for people. It could be as simple as checking off items in your todo list and feeling a sense of completion.
Perfectionism
We may think our work needs to be perfect. We start overthinking and polishing our work and it takes so long that we may go passed the deadline or decide not to submit our work altogether because it's "subpar". It helps to not overthinking and do whatever you can do. Nobody is awarding you for the quality of your work, it's much more important to consistently do the work, and remember that ultimately it's not for the grade but for you. And you can also enjoy other things if you do good enough work on your work instead of perfect.
Emotional investment
Sometimes what we work on is so important to us, we really want to share our experience with others, and it kills us to see that nobody cares. It is a balance of not losing your emotional investment altogether, because it's a driving force and a motivational factor, and at the same time, not get too attached to others being emotionally invested in your work. Remember that YOU get a kick out of it, and that's what matters.
Being in an emotionally bad place
Sometimes we just can't function for some mental or phisiological reasons. In this case it helps to give yourself a slack, take a shower, treat yourself in some way. Don't kill yourself over not doing what you are supposed to do. Your body or your mind tells you that now it has some other needs, don't neglect them.
Discussing situations
Dry texts
My friend replies with a dry text to my message. The energy is mismatched and it bothers me a lot. I start thinking that it's me who wants too much.
It is really frustrating when people we care about don't match our energy and our understanding of how communication should happen. If it's someone who cares about you, express your feelings and needs.
"It is really important to me to get acknowledgement for my texts and I get to wonder if I am being annoying when I don't get anything from you. I would also like to get more than just confirmations. I understand that you may operate differently and I accept it, and I am going to continue expressing what I need and not going to give up on having the communication that works for me"
