Self-Knowledge (Essay Books) by The School Of Life

Author:The School Of Life [Life, The School Of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The School of Life Press
Published: 2017-09-26T17:00:00+00:00

Learning to Deal

with Emotional

Inheritance

Maturity involves accepting with good grace that we are involved in multiple transferences, along with a commitment to try to disentangle them rationally. The job of growing up means realising with due humility the exaggerated dynamics we may constantly bring to situations and to monitor ourselves more accurately and more critically so as to improve our capacity to judge and act in the here and now with greater fairness and neutrality. The idea is to grow a little wiser as to where our troubles come from and around what areas of our lives we need to be especially careful.

Traditionally, family trees didn’t just exist to tell people about themselves; they were public objects intended to convey to strangers what they needed to know about us. Before grand people got married, they would carefully scan each other’s trees to know what was at stake. An emotional family tree would have a similar value in letting others know more about us in contexts when they might still be sympathetic, before we’ve had a chance to damage or enrage them with our inheritance. Knowing the risks of transference prioritises sympathy and understanding over irritation and judgement. We can come to see that sudden bursts of anxiety or hostility in others may not always be directly caused by us, and so should not always be met with fury or wounded pride. Bristling and condemnation can give way to compassion for the difficulties all of us have with our pasts.

In a perfect world, two people on an early dinner date would swap beautifully drawn family trees called, perhaps, ‘My Emotional Inheritance’. Such a tree would also be something to give at a wedding and would be required at work, as a supplement to a CV. Having a complex Emotional Inheritance would not be a source of shame; the pride would be that one understood its constituent parts. We don’t need people to be perfect; we simply need them to be able to explain the greater part of their inherited imperfections calmly and in good time, before we are enmeshed in the sufferings they can otherwise cause us.

Fully getting to grips with your Emotional Inheritance is a long-term task. It takes a lot of time and involves asking ourselves questions again and again. So, it is worth wondering what the point is of realising the ways your Emotional Inheritance has shaped your current identity. There seem to be three major benefits of this therapeutic exercise:

1. We become aware of ways in which we are a bit crazy (that is: puzzling to others and inappropriate in our responses). We can catch ourselves before we do too much damage. But we also grasp why we are like this. We don’t have to hate ourselves; we can become more sympathetic to our awkward legacies and realise that we have learnt a few somewhat counterproductive ways of coping.

2. We can more calmly explain ourselves to others. Even if we can’t entirely change, we can flag up what might be challenging about living around us.

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