![]() We were meant to care deeply – and not just about ourselves but about others too. ![]() Eliot pens in his poem, “The Hollow Men,” vulnerable feelings often go missing not with a bang but with a whimper. There are sometimes too many acts of uncaring for a human heart to bear in today’s ‘connected world’ when self centered actions dominate, combined with an absence of shame or fear, and no tears in the face of all that should make us weep. We were meant to develop a language of the heart, one that takes us towards civilized relating around emotional content.Ĭaring feelings are a luxury in a world that feels like it is coming undone. The three or four year old who suddenly bursts out with their words instead of their hits, “I frustrated! I need HELP!” reveals the developmental sophistication in this system. It is a quintessential human issue given our unique capacity to reflect on our emotions and assign feeling names, unlike other mammal species. The anthem of the emotional defended is, “I don’t care,” “doesn’t matter,” “that doesn’t bother me,” or “whatever” and resounds loudly among our kids (and many adults) today.īeing defended against vulnerable feelings is an equal opportunity problem not confined by geography, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or education level. Every brain comes equipped with the capacity to tune out what distresses, repress bad memories, dull the pain, suppress alarming feelings, and be divested of caring and responsibility (1). At last Freud’s theory of how we can be driven by unconscious emotions has gained its neuroscientific footing. Today we have neuroscience mapping out how emotional inhibition occurs within the limbic system. As Hank Williams lamented, “Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart?” The loss to human functioning is tragic as it is our caring that makes us fully human and most humane. ![]() From children to adults, emotional numbing is part of the human condition and reveals the inherent vulnerability in a system that was built to feel deeply. Hearts can grow cold and become hardened, something poets, artists, and musicians have always claimed.
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