The book is divided into two sections: Emotional maturity – part two. And emotional hurt – part one.
Part one: emotional maturity:
There is a difference between the body and the emotions – reaching maturity and full development. The body reaches full functioning maturity up to a certain age, the emotions, on the other hand, do not evolve automatically and they remain in an undeveloped state, even till the end of one’s life.
The emotions need to go through a particular process in order to go come from a raw state chaos and consumption to a state of inner organization and a balanced function.
When there is threat or actually a danger, or when we are attacked – we react in one of two ways; either we attack back (verbally or nonverbally), or we are lowering our profile, give up, trying to please. Both are the two opposite poles (or vectors) of the emotionally infantile – level. But there is also the emotionally mature level, there one reacts from the third vector, the neutral, the unbiased – vector; he is assertive, he can navigate his emotions, and this is completely the opposite to the other two (the positive and negative vectors) who are subjects, and biased, each, to their emotional polarity. He can decide if give up or stand on own his own, he has got a choice – for the emotionally infantile there is no choice, their emotional polarization decides for them, the emotionally mature does not have to react, he reacts if finds it the right thing to do, and this is in contrary to the emotionally infantile he reacts, first the emotion (aggressive or regressive) bursts out and only then he might realize what came out. The emotionally mature accept suffering and pain as of life, whereas the emotionally infantile feels: “what did I do to deserve that?” – he takes the failures and crises of his life – personally.
Part two: emotional hurt:
It seems that the subject of emotional hurt was not covered enough. Anyway, it was covered not in a direct relation to its place and especially, its importance – in the life of people.
The intention in this book is to paint a picture, wide as possible, but also specific – about emotional hurt in our life.
E.H. (emotional hurt) plays in our life the role of a secret agent. In that that: insults (interpersonal) and crises (personal) – are being caused by E.H. because the term itself: emotional hurt, is not embedded – so we have no point of reference. The main claim in this this book is that behind many personal crises and communication breakdowns – emotional hurt is responsible.
E.H. is more widespread than what we usually think. The lack of the relative relating to her is because we have the tendency to repress E.H. and this probably is the main reason for the lack of awareness and the lack of relating to it in public and interpersonal conversation.
The relating to E.H. is usually indirect, it has names like: Emotional distress, emotional abuse, angst, anxiety, panic attack, heartache.
If a person would say to another something like: “I have been hurt by you” (the word: emption is rarely mentioned in this context) “I feel hurt”. And there is an unwritten convention that says that if a person is saying that than we can put upon him the stigma: “you are too sensitive” (that says in subtext that you are imagining things), or: “it’s not true, I did not hurt you and if you ‘never the less, feel this way than it is your problem”. Or: “I don’t know where you invented from”.
All this is saying that repression from the hurt side, and denial from the one who was hurting – are playing a lead role in the lack of relating to E.H.
Few examples: divorce of a couple; it is indeed possible that the divorce is a result of continuous E.H. and for a long time, until the side that sees himself to be hurt, could not carry on anymore and he must free himself from this relationship, apparently, the hurting side does feel hurt, therefore he wouldn’t like t split.
A spoiled atmosphere at work, could also be connected to this, either because there are many sensitive people that could be easily get hurt, or of hurting people, but mainly when there is a quantity of the two types.
In relation to highly sensitive persons – they are mentioned in research literature as: ‘people without a skin’… and they might think that they have a problematic skin, but there is no doubt that the more a person is sensitive with a creative soul – the more he will be a target for those who might hurt him.
But this area of emotional hurt is not the monopoly of psychologists alone, it is shared by philosophers, mystics, play writes, novelists and more, all can say something about the depth of the human psychic.
I met this field of E.H. when I began to work with people who read my writings, mainly concerning consciousness development. And one of the most interesting things I encountered was the subject of E.H. and soon it became apparent that this phenomenon disturbed them in the process of self-observation, or ‘self-remembering’ as it appears in the ‘fourth way’.
And as this subject grew and became very influential, I decided to have a close look at it. And here the journey into the large domains of the subject – began.
Gabriel