Further Journeys to the Emotional Frontier Within - emotional defenses
Further Journeys to the Emotional Frontier Within - emotional defenses
“Perhaps the most common story telling diversion is to get very involved in the details of the story ‘she said. . . . . then I said. . . . then she did. . . . .’ The details are ultimately insignificant in relationship to the emotions involved but because we do not know how to handle the emotions we get caught up in the details.” “We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional.” “Some people tell stories about other people. This is the stereotypical Codependent of the joke about ‘when a Codependent dies someone else’s life passes before their eyes.’ They will respond to an emotional moment by telling an emotional story about some friend, acquaintance, or even a person they read about. They may exhibit some emotion in telling the story but it is emotion for the other person, not for self. They keep a distance from their emotions by attributing the emotional content to others. If this type of stereotypical Codependent is in a relationship everything they say will be about the other person. Direct questions about self will be answered with stories about the significant other. This is a completely unconscious result of the reality that they have no relationship with, or identity as, self as an individual.”
On this page is a column by Spiritual teacher/codependence therapist about a very prevalent emotional defense mechanism - story telling.
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Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney is copyright 1995. Material on Joy2MeU web site (except where otherwise noted) is copyright 1996 thru 2021 by Robert Burney PO Box 1028 Cambria CA 93428
(The Column “Further Journeys to the Emotional Frontier Within” by Robert Burney originally appeared in the Information Press of San Luis Obispo California)
Originally published at https://joy2meu.com/emotional-defenses1.htm