As the psychology contests on how the childhood experiences lie at the back of our mind defining our behavior for the rest of our lives based on those assumptions, fears and untold stories. It is crucial to understand why this happens and how vital it is for all of us to accept people with the “icebergs” in their head. As I always say my opinions are all based on my observations about life through my lens, hence I don’t wish anyone or everyone to agree with me on this.
I remember years back in my college life; a close friend of mine was pissed-off at me because she thought that I won’t open up to one sole person but confide in different people for different things happening in my life. As if I was “compartmentalizing” on my emotional output channels to different people. And she wasn’t wrong because unconsciously somewhere in my mind I had realized this that you can’t open up all to a “single person” not because you can’t, but because you need approval of people on the stuff you think and believe in and thus everyone has different opinions to your diverse states in life. Obviously, at that point in time, I couldn’t explain this to my friend but after 15 years if I connect the dots I know where it was coming from and what was driving that behavior of mine. And I don’t know if it’s good or bad but I haven’t changed a bit in these times rather the “compartments” are more confined to me or very few people around me.
I am sure it’s just not me who took years to understand how my experiences with people were turning into an iceberg in my unconscious mind making me a person I am. We all come across such moments in our life where we can’t understand why we reacted to a variable in a particular way; where defining our own behavior rationally is difficult.
For all those who are a die heart fan of “Titanic” can understand that what a damage can be caused by an unseen iceberg. So ideally our beliefs and thoughts as we know are just the tip of the iceberg in the water above the surface making our conscious mind; whereas the base of the iceberg hidden under the water comprises of all resentments, regrets and repressed desires defining our unconscious mind. Therefore, every little bad memory, bad experience, our beliefs around which our mind is wired & each feeling that we suppressed at some point of time has turned into an iceberg in our unconscious mind over a period of time. Imagine how big would it be?
As per the scientific research every time a human mind makes a decision, the signal from the unconscious mind triggers a reaction in the conscious mind to opt for a particular action, without us having any knowledge. Just visualize what an important role it plays when we don’t even realize its presence or its role in our decision making.
Having a therapy session nowadays might be considered as a fashion symbol but guess it’s obligatory to have a breakthrough personally and professionally. It’s as important to take care of your mental health as you take care of physical health. Nevertheless, it all comes down to a point that people pay someone to listen to them to help them break their mental blocks and those icebergs because someone who doesn’t know them much will not judge them. Most of the people have a successful breakthrough at the end of sessions understanding the underlying factors driving their behaviors.
Hence that brings me back to my point that you can’t confide in a single person whom you know personally because paying to a third person makes it easier because we don’t need our therapist’s(strangers) approval on our life but we do need our loved one’s approval on every aspect of our life, fearing not to be judged or abandoned.
Isn’t it WEIRD? Shouldn’t it be otherwise?
Photo by Jay Ruzesky
