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Emotional Connection & Detachment
By: Alexander the Xanderman

Birth

When a human being is conceived he or she begins existence in a state of unparalleled intimacy. The body of a mother holds the child in continual contact as the child’s body develops. For months the child remains in this safe and constantly embracing space. The initial occurrence of separation takes place in the experience of childbirth. Children feel the first painful rejection when they get forcefully disconnected from their original sanctuary of perfect safety.

From the moment of childbirth we begin social interaction. We are born fragile and utterly dependent. We must rely on our caregivers for everything. Others provide us with all of our needs and protect us from all dangers. Our survival requires great vigilance. Under their supervision we experience our most intense psychological and physiological development.

This is our first opportunity to develop trust. This is a skill that we will use for the rest of our lives. In the best of circumstances our caretakers will be trustworthy guardians. While in the worst circumstances our caregivers will take advantage of our defenselessness. We are born without boundaries and without the ability to defend ourselves. The best caretakers will create healthy boundaries for us.

Those who develop their ability to trust earl in life will have a much easier time creating trusting relationships throughout their lifetime. While those who suffer trauma, betrayal, neglect, abuse or abandonment will have a long and sometimes nearly impossible road towards developing trusting relationships.

Those of us, who are fortunate, are born into a situation that is conducive to forming strong emotional attachments with other people. Good caretakers will provide us with all of our basic needs and protect us from all preventable harm. This behavior will allow us to trust in them as we grow, mature and develop as physical and emotional beings. This gives us the inclination to view the world as a trustworthy place. Trust gives us confidence in our ability to handle the world.

Sympathy

As we grow we become more consciously aware of social dynamics. This capacity relies on our ability to recognize the emotions of others. Social intimacy involves being in touch, in communication and in synchronization with other people.

Being in touch with the emotions of another person depends on our capacity for sympathy. Sympathy is our main ability to know what the other is feeling. We know what the other is feeling by a process of experiencing emotions like those that another is experiencing. This often takes place without any conscious intention. It normally does not take a lot of effort to know what the other is feeling. This is a body sense that operates all the time. It is a form of non-verbal communication.

This communication can take place between different individuals or between individuals and groups. We have probably all had the experience of walking into a room with a group of people where you could cut the tension with a knife. We instantly know the emotional state of the group. Our ability to know what emotions other human beings are feeling is a beneficial ability. This allows us to function well as a group. Schizophrenics, as one example of the opposite, often lack the ability to “read” a social situation and have emotions that are inappropriate to it.

When we are in synchronization we are literally sharing time as one. We are together in the same exact moment. This involves very rapid non-verbal communication. Dancers in synch moving together appear almost magical. On the other hand, two figure skating partners a moment out of synch can have a disastrous performance.

Estrangement

Estrangement is the state of being out of touch, out of communication and out of synch. Emotional detachment can stem from a lack of capacity to be sensitive or a willful intention to be insensitive. Estrangement is being as distant as you can be from another, separated in every way possible.

For example, our capacity for sympathy is usually diminished towards strangers. We do not pick up on their non-verbal communication as quickly as we can from people with whom we are familiar. This experience often produces tension and anxiety. Young children who usually act outgoing may suddenly act shy and withdrawn in the presence of unfamiliar people because of this feeling of anxiety.

Our ability to experience sympathy for another can also get diminished by choice. We can choose to become insensitive to the feelings of others. This can function as a highly focused insensitivity that targets only a single individual or it can be generalized to specific groups of people. This willful insensitivity can also be directed against yourself.

The experience of connection and disconnection can operate independently from physical proximity. Two who stand right next to each other can experience absolutely no connection. While those who are intimate, even while on opposite side of the planet, can stay in touch with each other.

Touch

What does it mean to be in touch? We touch objects each and every day, but this is significantly different from touching another person. When we touch a cup, a plate or a book we experience a sensation, but the object has no experience. We know the object, while the mindless object remains ignorant of us.

When we touch another person we have our own sensation while they have their own sensation. We are both instantly active participants in the process. We both do the action of touching and are the recipient of being touched simultaneously. One receives information in the same moment as the other receives information. One body can be passive while the other is active, as one partner gently caresses while the other remains still. Or both bodies can be active, moving while touching one another.

Touch takes two separate and independent systems and transforms them into a new singular and interconnected system. We become one system with two bodies when we touch.

A tired child seeks out the comfort of her mother’s touch when she raises her arms, asking to be carried. We hug a friend who has received devastating news in an action far more reassuring than any words could ever be. People feel calmed by gently stroking the fur of a pet.

Yet if one stops touching by moving away, then the connection is broken. Two bodies once again become two systems. Then the two can become one again once they get back in touch. They can reconnect and become a single system again. This is the dance of intimacy.

What of those separate systems the never get in touch, that always remain out of touch from one another? They will experience no communication, no connection and no synchronization. They will never experience togetherness.

Touch can also serve as a metaphor for emotional connection. We call sentimental events touching moments. When something emotionally moves someone we say that it touched his or her heart. We might call this our subtle touch.

Genuine emotional intimacy, real closeness requires a lowering of ones guard. Two clad in armor cannot touch one another. One in emotional armor cannot touch or be touched by one who is emotionally naked. Only two, fully exposed, completely vulnerable, can experience complete emotional intimacy. This remarkable trust and trustworthiness between two individuals creates the daring, heady, revitalizing, thrilling, and almost supernatural experience of true love. Suffice to say, this is rare.

Community

A community is a group of people who trust one another and connect with each other. Connection is dependant on trust, so trusting each other is the first step to creating a community. Distrust severs connections and prevents new connections from forming. Distrust can utterly break a community. This kind of community disintegration has been dramatically highlighted during incidents such as the Salem Witch Trials or the Red Scare.

Being a member of a community is a large influence on shaping one’s sense of identity. The focus of one’s sense of identity widens to encompass the community. When you connect with other people you become something greater than just your physical self.

We avoid harming those with whom we identify. “He is one of my people. He is one of ours. He is one of us.” When you detach, disconnect and separate yourself from your victim that makes it easier to harm him. You can accomplish this by excluding him from your community. This can be accomplished in an absolute method by excluding him from the human community, in effect dehumanizing him.

Connection discourages violence, while disconnection enables it.

In the modern age in industrially advanced countries we often lack a strong sense of belonging to any kind of community. We feel disconnected and detached. This is a stressful and painful state. Too often we look towards instant gratification to fill the hole left by the absence of genuine connection with other people. This is a short-term solution with diminishing returns. We have to amplify our gratifications in frequency and often in kind to compensate for this buildup of tolerance. As has been said, “We cannot get enough of what we truly don’t need.” No amount of gratification will substitute for our genuine need for connection and attachment with other human beings. The drive to connect is tied with our drive to survive. We know that the only way we can survive is to connect with other human beings. Connection and community have always served humanity to ensure our continued survival.

The Force of Habit

There is a force that influences us to repeat an action or a choice, over and over, again and again. This is the force of habit. The force of habit operates uninfluenced by the harmfulness or the beneficial consequence of our behavior. A habit is a passive choice, an automatic choice usually made without any conscious intention. When we operate under the force of habit we don’t actively think, we just act.

A harmful habit can have the exact same force as a beneficial habit. Discerning the harmfulness or the beneficial nature of a habit is a task for our attention. We can easily ignore the consequences of our habits, operating on autopilot.

We can change a habit only by making active, deliberate and conscious choices in a situation where we normally allow habit to make the choice for us. The force of habit can be compared to gravity. As we change a habit its gravity initially works against our effort and then works to aid our effort as we establish a new center of gravity.

Apathy and Sadism

Emotional detachment helps to enable our capacity for willfully administered harm. Strong emotional detachment can be called apathy. Apathy is an inability to feel sympathy for another’s experience. This makes the administration of pain to others significantly less consequential. “If I will hurt you, then I will feel nothing.” This can be the result of deliberate and active refusal to feel as the other feels. This can also be the result of a habit, a passive choice that is the result of so much deliberate refusal from the past. When you are in touch with the pain of another, then it is more difficult to willfully cause them pain because you hurt when they hurt.

Apathy toward those you harm can include the experience of dominance. “If I hurt you, then I will feel stronger than you.”

Staring from apathy a relationship can also develop into sadism, “If I hurt you, then I will feel pleasure.” Apathy is subject to the force of habit and like all habits it can be difficult to break.

Internal Detachment

One of the fascinating things about emotional detachment is that an individual can be detached not only from the emotions of others. A person can also be disconnected from their own emotions. This can extend beyond a temporary period. A single individual can live in a prolonged state of estrangement from his or her own emotions. They may develop increased insensitivity to their own feelings. A person who is estranged from their own emotions is also more likely to be disconnected from the emotions of others.

This kind of emotional disconnection can be sustained for years. Being detached from your own emotions is not without cost. There is an ever-present anxiety created by the hidden emotions. For while emotions can be ignored, ignoring them won’t make them go away. The emotions remain, unresolved.

Boundaries

The cell membrane provides us with a model of healthy boundaries.

Boundaries keep two regions of space distance from one another. Without boundaries two spaces become one space. The basic boundary between two individuals is the ego. Each individual has an ego that bounds his or her own space. The boundary of this space operates like a cell membrane selectively accepting some things while blocking out others. A cell needs nourishment from its environment and so do individuals need nourishment from their environment. Yet there are also toxins that try to get into the cell that must be blocked from entry. Likewise there are toxins in the human environment.
Toxic emotions can penetrate into our space making us feel uncomfortable or violated.

An emotionally toxic environment where no nourishment is available can lead to a buildup of blocking habits. The individual in an emotionally toxic environment can learn to block out all outside inputs. Then the nourishment gets rejected along with the toxins. The person is closed off from everything.
Discernment helps us to identify what is nourishing and what is toxic. Or as short hand what people are likely to give us nourishment and what people are likely to give us toxins.

Training

The power of the force of habit can be used to our advantage. With care we can train ourselves to engage in those habits that provide us with the greatest benefits. We can train ourselves to be in touch with our own emotions. We can train ourselves to be trust other people. We can connect with others to form communities. Caregivers can develop the best habits and pass those habits to their children. We can connect the world.

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

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