The real reason relationships fail

-

This comes from a great video I watched recently. It is linked below and I found it very insightful. 


There are Four Basic Negative Emotions in all people. 

- Anger (amygdala)

- Disgust (insula) --> something that will hurt you. telling you that you should avoid it. It is biologically directed towards pathogens, but politicians use this to control people. Eg Wuhan virus, or republicans vs democrats

- Sadness (dorsal anterior singular cortex) --> stems from losing something or someone you love

- Fear (amygdala)

Negative does not mean bad. It means these are the things that signal threat to us, from the outside world.

Contempt is a combination of two negative emotions - Anger and Disgust

When you express contempt / disgust, it is interpreted by the brain of your partner as "you think I'm a pathogen, and I need to be cast out". Even if you dont mean it. So dont roll your eyes, dont be sarcastic.


When you are feeling that coldness that comes with Contempt, that is when you need to move towards your partner, not away. Your relationship will not survive, if it is not controlled largely by your frontal cortex. In other words, you need to be intentional in your relationship.


This is relevant not just to romantic relationships but to all relationships. Even professional relationships. Cancel culture is a culture of contempt. It is basically saying that when someone says something obnoxious, that it is a threat to you. Terms like micro aggressions, safe spaces, makes it seem impossible for you to express something without expressing contempt.


In good relationships, you need to control contempt. You need to allow for a lot of competition of ideas, but without expression of contempt. We need to realise that sometimes we express contempt because it feels really good to be 'right'. So expressing contempt rewards you but you have to realise and remember that you feel good because of there neurotransmitters in your brain, but what you're doing could be very harmful to the relationship.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHAKqYwN9cQ

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brugada Syndrome

-
Image
I don't think I will ever be a plastic surgeon. Not because I like plastics any less but because I cannot let cardiology go. Today I started studying cardiology cases for my exams and came across a segment on Brugada syndrome and the ECG patterns that are typical to this condition. I was surprised to see that this condition was discovered and described as recently as 1992 by a family of Spanish Catalan doctors (the Brugada doctors). I love finding 'new' cardiology information because the problem with being so interested in something is that I sometimes run out of novel 'findings' to keep me interested in the field. Lately I have been reading about microvascular dysfunction (related to womens cardiac conditions) and today Brugada ECGs. I think I could do this forever.
Read more

Reflections

-
The number of times I have felt slighted because of my gender has been countless. The number of times my male (and female) counterparts have silenced me, or taken me less seriously, are many. People will not acknowledge a problem that exists, if it does not exist in their world. If they do not experience the slights because they are any combination of rich, white, or male. We have come to a point where people will accept the presence of 'White Privilege' as a concept, but they do not truly believe that their accomplishments are any easier to come by as a result. And they do not care. Why would they when the establishment is in their favour? I have come to learn many things about being female. I have learnt that some times we play a role in our own destruction. We wait to be rescued, or to be handed a hall pass, because for many years we have not been expected to excel on our own merit. We wait for mentors, without realising that mentors pick people in whom they see something ...
Read more

Reflections - On whether I am on the right path in life.

-
I have spent the past 3 months working with a particular resident at my hospital. Some times when you walk around the hospital it is like walking in a Marcs/Country Road/CUE showroom. Many of our doctors come from affluent backgrounds - whose fathers, and sometimes mothers are doctors, university chancellors, business-people, lawyers, politicians. I often wonder if they have ever had difficulties in life. If they know what it means to earn your keep, and to actually have to work for their 'achievements'. Many of them live at home, or in homes paid for by their wealthy and protective parents. Their biggest problems is probably divorce between those parents. They travel extensively, with numerous photos of their exotic exploits posted onto Facebook. They are athletic, intelligent and beautiful. They will often go on to marry other wealthy individuals, usually surgeons, cardiologists, lawyers. They have massive impractical heirlooms on their ring fingers. They are entitled. They w...
Read more