Recently, a terrible unhappiness from my past, deeply buried and securely tucked away, was dredged to the surface against my wishes. I apologize for that slightly sensational opening – but it’s offered in the spirit of fair warning, as we are going to cover some heavy ground today and in the coming weeks.
You may have had a similar bad experience in your past, one which someone hurt you to the extent that it is difficult to recollect without pain. Perhaps you dealt with it in the same way as I did, which is to say by compartmentalization (emotionally severing the experience from current reality) and containment (suppressing my feelings about that experience so I can continue to function day to day).
If so, you can imagine how having that vault involuntarily opened unleashes heavy emotional burdens that cannot be processed without meaningful psychological cost. Sometimes, as in my case, this process of prying such feelings open can also involve being reluctantly dragged into re-examining a relationship already saddled with complicated feelings, directional confusion and intractable inner conflict.
To make things worse, I was already going through a somewhat difficult time, so not only was the sudden confrontation unexpected, and the timing unfortunate, but the engagement was unwelcome, the experience unpleasant, and the process unsettling. But that does not mean it was unnecessary or unhelpful.
Over the coming weeks, I will use this forum to pull what transpired apart and examine it more closely, to reflect on the emotional mechanisms triggered, the conflicts worked through, and the insights gained. Most people would feel awkward talking about this in public. I do too. This is the sort of thing people keep private and talk to their therapists about. And that’s probably the right answer for almost everyone. But I’ve chosen to share my thoughts with the small audience I have for a couple of reasons.
First, I see my writing as an antidote to the poison of social media. My LinkedIn profile, like every other such profile, projects confidence and competence. I have a “great” job. I went to “great” schools. I do “interesting” things. Not two weeks ago, I was chairing a panel on AI at the World Bank meetings in Washington, D.C. If that’s all you know about me, you might mistakenly believe I breathe rarified air. But that’s not true. I breathe the same air as you, and everyone else. And writing about this is how you know.
Second, over the past few months, a few colleagues and former colleagues reached out to ask if we could meet, prompted by something I have written. It gives me a deep sense of purpose and great joy to walk together in our experiences. My current circumstances make it difficult for me to commit to volunteer work or civic engagement on a regular basis. And so, I am grateful that, thanks to you, I have found a way to create, and engage, in community in a way that works for me. For everyone who has reached out to encourage me or to let me know that something I have written has helped you, I so much value your engagement in our small, Deeply Boring, community.
Ok. So let’s talk about emotional pain: why it exists, how we deal with it, and the role it plays in our lives.
Hurt. We all hurt. We all cause hurt. Some hurts, while real, are more glancing in nature – an acquaintance who pretends he didn’t see you in the supermarket, or a colleague who fails to acknowledge your contributions. We might forget them by the time we go to bed. Other hurts run deep enough that we carry them through the day; they color our thoughts and feelings. These include a toxic work environment or deteriorating personal relationships. Dwelling just below the surface of our everyday experience, such hurts cause us to feel disjointed or disconnected, as if we are not ourselves. They may adversely influence our decisions and behavior; such patterns should not be allowed to persist for too long.
But some hurts run even deeper still. They are so recessed, so hidden, that we are sometimes not even conscious of them. These hurts may lead to distorted thinking and avoidance behaviors. They can create unhealthy driving forces, or act as barriers to greater intimacy and authenticity. Such can be the case with childhood trauma, abusive interactions, betrayal in adult relationships, communal rejection, or social ridicule. These kinds of experiences share something in common – they deeply violate our sense of personhood; they perforate our wholeness, and strip whatever shreds of innocence might remain. My hurt – the one which was painfully dredged up recently - fell into this latter category. In fact, this particular hurt created some of the fear and anger which I occasionally write about. I have done a lot of work to confront these driving forces in my life, to limit or curtail the power this submerged pain has over my decision-making.
But the underlying hurt exists nonetheless, throbbing ominously in the dark.
It was, as I said, compartmentalized, and contained.
But why do such feelings run so deep and have such great power? And how do we deal with them?
Let’s talk about that next week.
Until then, I wish you grace, and peace.
J
Thank you. It is brave of you to take the armor off in public. I prayed after reading this - for you and your family but also that all your readers including me sincerely accompany you on this journey and learn much from it.