Hajja Salesjana Apr-June 2019

H AJJA S ALESJANA by Marlene Cauchi D.CounsPsy Reclaiming parts of ourselves 20 Whatever are we talking about here? Let us go on a little trip down memory lane. Do you remember, as a little child, being told that feeling envious was bad? Or that you should not cry? From a very young age, we are socialised to believe that some feelings and attitudes are far more acceptable to have than others. Being jealous was associated with being bad, as was being angry. On the other hand, being kind, generous, reliable, and hard-working were acceptable. Things start getting more complicated when we think about the differences between the attitudes considered more acceptable for boys but not girls, and vice versa. Imagine, for example, a little boy crying after having fallen and hurt his knees. How often have we heard it said, that “Only little girls cry!” Conversely, whilst it is considered normal for boys to be angry and get into fights, the same behaviour is considered more problematic in girls. Imagine the child’s confusion when we couple the prohibition of envy with the glorification of being first in class; when we say to them that they cannot be jealous of each other, and yet we compare them to each other all the time. We are thus suggesting, implicitly or explicitly, that they should aim to be better than others. How does this sense of competition sit with the instruction not to be envious? The easiest thing for the child to do, perhaps, is to deny the envious part of them, in order to conform to the view that adults want to have of them. The same applies to such emotions as hatred and resentment. How many of us would actually admit to having such feelings? We are thus socialised to believe that some feelings should be kept at bay. Essentially, we are taught that it is not ok to be a human being with the whole spectrum of feelings it involves. We act, sometimes, as though the shadow part of us does not exist, alongside all the other acceptable feelings. And yet, we cannot be truly human unless we embrace the whole tapestry that makes us the persons we are. Indeed, we cannot be truly kind unless we accept our potential to be mean. We cannot love freely unless we recognise that there are also cruel elements within us. That is how we make a real choice. Instead, we sometimes operate on an illusion, where we Photo by Joshua Earle on unsplash.com