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“That which makes us ashamed of ourselves may be what makes another person fall in love”
Adriana Royo
In “Ethics of the ruthless” the therapist and writer Adriana Royo explains why sometimes we forget ourselves and only think of others
Adriana Royo, therapist and writer, says she almost “vomited” “Ethics of the ruthless” (Ediciones B), an essay in which he immerses himself in an uncomfortable subject, but no less present for that: why we prostrate ourselves before others and forget ourselves.
The writer raises in the introduction to the book a clear basis on those people to whom the essay is directed. Because if the seven evils enter us when they sneak into the super queue but we don’t say anything, when someone gives an opinion about us that we haven’t asked for, when they call us to sell us something and we don’t know how to cut the call or when we open a bag of potatoes and is
half empty it is clear that, according to the author, “we have not come to fruition with our interior.”
We all feel anger, guilt or aggressiveness and there are many who do not know what to do with what they feel and choose to take one vulnerable and helpful position in front of others even if they don’t want to. «We fear our own anger, we accept submission, we beg for love and we believe power relationships in which we are dominant or submissive», Says Royo. And it is that sometimes we are afraid to accept what we feel inside and everything begins to go from bad to worse. We spoke with the writer at ABC Bienestar about how avoiding conflict affects us and we learn to understand that “taking anger by the horns” may be the solution, although it is not easy.
Whose fault is it that we are so helpful and accommodating?
Not all of us are, but there are people who “sin” to be. Human beings have guilt, anger … but there are those who tend to be more complacent, and that is influenced by the way they educate us when we are little. This figure varies, but in general, from 0 to 7 years everything we see around us influences us. What is said about “nothing happens, if the child does not find out” is not true because … of course he finds out!
It can also happen, for example, if I am born into a family of very ambitious and upright people. If I am very sensitive I will feel judged by my family and relegated for not being able to join them. Here it can happen the other way around: that we tend to be more narcissists the handlers.
On the other hand, if we grow up in fear of rejection and they make us ashamed of ourselves, we will be helpful in earning the love of others, But let’s go to lose self love.
Do we tend to rationalize the problems we live in order not to face them?
It is not conscious. Normally, when a child is small, two years old, for example, and hears his parents arguing very loudly, he reacts by tense. When things like this happen, what we do is dissociate ourselves, we disconnect from an emotion to be able to live, especially when you are small and do not even understand that emotion. So if as children we have experienced what we can call “minishocks” it is likely that as adults we do not remember. This happens with women who have been abused as children and do not remember it. There comes a point where the body, in order to survive, go to work, lead a normal life, needs a defense mechanism to desensitize it.
The problem comes when you reach 40 years old and you are so “frozen” with yourself, that you cannot empathize with the pain that you have felt, and many times we throw that pain against others. For example, we can talk about a case of a homosexual boy who grows up in a homophobic family. He grows up hiding it and thinking: “disgusting”, because he wants to be loved. He has a part of his own that makes him very angry. That is why later he is going to be homophobic and he is going to hate homosexuals, because he hates what he has inside. That is, to sum it up a lot: the dissociation it works to protect us, but at the same time it does the opposite.
In the book, he talks about emotions such as guilt, anger or aggressiveness… Is it difficult for us to control them because, as they scare us, we avoid them?
If we think about it, we usually don’t sit down to analyze the guilt or anger we feel. And it is something basic, because they are emotions that, if we do not learn to control, they control us. It is important to understand this “energy” within us, and learn to control it, not “badly”, but in the “jedi” and “samurai” sense (he jokes). In this way, we have control over them and we close the door to abuse, to situations that outrage us. The point is that, by not knowing how to respond to them, we end up paying for our anger and our discomfort with others. I know it’s a bit utopian to think that we can all sit down and understand these emotions, but if we did, the world would be better.
This book is really about going to the origin. I realize that 100% of the patients I have (we are talking about people who always have a minimum economic level and live in the city), come for consultation because they feel insufficient. This is always common, that feeling that we are not attractive, intelligent, interesting enough … and we build our lives on that feeling of insufficiency.
Are we ashamed of ourselves?
To sack! (Serie). For example, I have an internal judge, who is with a stick all day reminding me of all my mistakes. There are people who have this “judge” more or less active, and this also has to do with whether their parents have been very “judgmental”, or if you have gone, for example, to a very strict school. There a “monstrous self” is created: if someone judges you, and you feel ashamed, you feed and at the same time we hide it. It’s easy to know what someone is ashamed of; if we look at what it boasts, we will know what it wants to hide.
We are the first to be ashamed of our parts, it happens to us that we have an ideal of what we should be, which is perfection, and every time we do not arrive, we punish ourselves internally. We think about what we consider a defect and we hide it because we believe that no one is going to love us for that defect, but it is the other way around. If you think about it sometimes, when we meet someone we like, we try to give an image that we know we are not.
He says that what we brag about shows what we are ashamed of. In the book he also comments that what we hate says a lot about us….
Everything we see that reminds us of what we hate about ourselves is going to be the target of our hatred. If there is something that produces you indifference, you don’t waste time hating it. Usually hating demands true love, because if not, you don’t waste all that energy. In fact, you hate so much that the bond of hate is almost stronger than the bond of love with someone. Hate unites sometimes more than love. The worrying thing here is that we are not aware of looking at what parts of myself I am rejecting. If I discover the hatred I have, they will see that I am powerless, and that I feel that way. And what do I prefer? Exercise power against others to feel above me. Those vertical relationships of abuse of power that I talk about in the book, both in the couple, as in the family, as well as at the social level, hide a brutal impotence, because we do not want to feel ashamed, nor do we want to feel weak, since we believe that they abuse us. The problem is that it is misunderstood, and the weak is the one who exercises power or violence against another.
How does this tendency affect us to be helpful and try to look good when we are looking for a partner?
Even if I know someone, and show them a very careful version of me, with time and intimacy, that version turns into something else. It is not only what we sell, but what they buy from us: this is a matter of two. You can “sell” whatever you want, but when you meet someone, that falls; there is nothing better than someone looking at our shame, and looking at them with love.
Of course, it is sometimes difficult, you are not going to be vulnerable on Tinder (laughs), but we can buy time by learning to love ourselves better and not sell something that we are not. This is difficult, and it costs a lot, but in the end when we tell what we are ashamed of, we feel much better. Also, we must think that what we are trying to hide is what we do not like, but we do not know the ideal of the other person. Maybe we miss an opportunity with someone because we hide something that that person likes a lot. Maybe that which torments you to another will make you fall in love, and that is wonderful.
He says that (sexual) passion is linked to aggressiveness … Is this always the case?
La aggressiveness can create internal conflict, because we think we are going to hurt someone, but this can be a source of passion, creativity y self-assertion. It’s all very energetic: if we are, we don’t have energy, we don’t have power, but when we are angry, we go out, because we want to express energy.
There is a certain part of aggressiveness that is destructive. And since we are afraid, we hide it and then at the same time we explode: this inside, that cannot be good. If we take that anger without fear it is better, aggressiveness in the end is a vital energy and if we repress it, it affects sexual life.
Two people cannot have sexual intercourse without a certain aggressiveness: it is necessary psychologically and physically. So, if you don’t have a connection with this part of you, or it scares you, we are going to have repercussions on the sexual part and on the creative part. The two go hand in hand: it is that you are arguing with someone and then you get turned on. Well-conducted aggressiveness can be a source of passion and activity. For example, many of the people who have strong depressions have the inhibited aggressive part: have so much accumulated aggressiveness that they are anesthetized. It is interesting to see aggressiveness not only as destructive, but also as a source of passion. Many couples, for example, never lose their desire because they have the ability to create conflict, to argue a little, not badly, but to stand up to some things. There are couples that do not work because they avoid conflict, for fear of abandonment, and from there passion is not born.
In a relationship, is empathy for the other, or for ourselves, more important?
I wrote the book because I was wondering this, and I still have a hard time putting it into practice. I call it empathic confrontation. I think the first step is empathy with yourself. It is difficult, almost an oxymoron, this of empathy with oneself, but we must go raising it. For example: my partner has told me something that has made me feel terrible. If you are angry and you keep it inside, smile and do not say that it bothers you, it is the beginning of the end. You are not being empathic with yourself, because you have an emotion that you have ignored, and you do not give the other the opportunity to get to know you. You are selling a part of yourself that is not real to the person you want to love you; it’s a bit absurd.
So how do we go about not creating a big problem out of such a situation? The first thing is to express the rage that we have inside and have the confidence that the other person accepts a rejection or a conflict. If we don’t, this comes out in the form of passive-aggressive behaviors, or hidden anger. You have to control that anger and express it. We must start a dialogue, because if we don’t say anything, it will happen more times. Conflict is difficult to deal with, we are not used to it, nor are we used to it. rechazo. But you have to practice assuming the critical, because if not, we get stuck. It is essential to set empathetic limits, to take care of ourselves, and to take care of the other.
About the Author…
Adriana Royo (Barcelona) is a young therapist and writer. Specialist in stress and behavior, she follows a strategic model of emotional reprocessing and brief therapy, with which she helps to overcome fears, traumas and various psychopathologies. She is the author of the book Falos y fallacias (2018), which focuses on self-deception in relation to sexuality within the current narcissistic social context. She researches human behavior and is an advocate of critical thinking. He has been writing for years on his blog, where he explores different aspects of human psychology such as sex, emotions and social dysfunctions.