EMOTIONAL SUICIDE is also called an act of self-sabotage.
It’s that moment when we kill our connection to ourselves, we go “offline.”
Remaining emotionally present to ourselves instead of abandoning and pulling the plug when we hit overwhelm takes an Emotionally Fit heart. Many of us resort to weapons of intellectual or physical “mass distraction” and disconnect from our heart’s truth when things get unpleasant.
Do you reach for something or someone as an external distraction when life gets unpleasant, instead of paying attention to what your heart really needs to say or do?
EMOTIONAL SUICIDE takes a few different forms. Some go into excessive people pleasing, playing the victim pleading for a rescuer to fix it, going mute and denying the issue (it’s all good) or pretending to be OK when we feel dead inside because we have pulled the plug and lost our passion.
When we are building our Emotional Fitness, sometimes, however, we do reach our emotional limit. We do have to build on our personal best times like an elite athlete builds their personal best training times. Emotional muscle requires the combination of both rupture and repair to build strength, as do our physical muscles.
When we are physically tender after intense exercise it is because we have extended and slightly ruptured our muscles, that is the burning feeling no pain, no gain mantra assures us. The same applies to building emotional strength.
When an emotional rupture takes place we feel energy like an inner volcano release. It might be anger, sadness, confusion or desire. For some people, one or all of these emotive states can feel unpleasant, and we will want to pull away, like disinfectant being put on a wound. However, situations arise for us all that it would be unhealthy to not feel angered, sad, confused or enticed about.
Some of us do not like to remain emotionally present when we are feeling a little fragile and emotionally tender.
Growing relationships do rupture, so we can learn how to repair them, and it is usually inconvenient and sometimes quite unpleasant. As long as we do not leave ourselves and emotionally self-abandon during challenging times, we intercept committing the act of EMOTIONAL SUICIDE.
If we are emotionally unavailable to ourselves, emotionally available people may be even more enticing to us short term. We kid ourselves that they might do our emotional homework for us because they are so good at it.
But emotionally available people are not co-dependent and will not enable another to shirk their emotional responsibilities. They will call them to show up and grow up. Thus emotionally available people become unmanageable for emotionally unavailable self-sabotagers long term, unless we become willing to do some deliberate work on our Emotional Fitness.
If we refuse to look at ourselves we are destined to continue to commit EMOTIONAL SUICIDE, killing our chances at healthy relationships with emotionally available others. We may find ourselves shaming emotionally available others calling them “too demanding” or criticising strong personal boundaries by calling them “too controlling” or “mean” if we dare to cross into their “no go zones”. Emotionally available people have healthy boundaries but are transparent and will willingly share their deal-breakers and deal-makers in relationships.
A few of my deal-breaking “no go zone” personal boundaries that I monitor and remain in full control of, giving nobody power to invade nor overrule are …
1. No violence
2. No challenging or disrespecting my discipline for absolute sobriety
3. No infidelity or emotional disloyalty.
If we do not or will not maintain our self-respect if others question or push up against our personal boundaries we are destined to self-sabotage the quality of our relationships. Yep, it’s EMOTIONAL SUICIDE!
So here are some EMOTIONAL SUICIDE quick review tips for you to consider if you like myself need a bit of work in this area.
1. When choosing intimate relationships select partners and friends that know clearly their deal-breakers, deal-makers, and live with integrity. If they do not honour themselves consistently they will be unable to do it for another.
2. If a relationship requires conformity, silence or pretence and we willingly remain in it EMOTIONAL SUICIDE is inevitable.
3. Rupture and repair are both necessary for emotional growth. If we are unable to resolve conflict and learn lessons with those closest to us we erode our emotional health and heartfelt intimacy.
In remaining emotionally present to ourselves when unpleasant feelings arise helps us get out of our own way and clear our fear blockages.
As Ralph Marston reminds us …
“There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path; don’t allow yourself to become one of them”
Lotsa love Cynthia xxx
© Copyright 2017 Cynthia J. Morton Emotional Fitness™
This Word Vitamin is an excerpt from my latest bookset “The Four Seasons of the Heart”. If you would like to order your own full set of Daily Word Vitamins one for each day of the year, in book form for yourself or as a gift for another just click on the shop tab to place your order. Happy shopping x
