Today's Great Epidemic (And How To Cure It) - Teal Swan -

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The collective consciousness of mankind has been evolving in it’s own right over the course of history. We have seen many dark ages and many awakenings. And today, we are in the middle of the Emotional Dark Age. Most people on earth do not understand emotions; they are not terribly conscious of them, they do not know what function they serve, they do not know what to do with them. This is a serious problem considering that emotions are the very basis of every person’s life experience. Part of this emotional ignorance is a thing called emotional neglect. It is so widespread that it is literally the great epidemic within society today. In this episode, Teal discusses emotional neglect as well as what to do if you have suffered from this epidemic yourself.
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Kuan Yin's Mantra (c) 2002 Lisa Thiel - used by permission http://www.sacreddream.com

Today's Great Epidemic

Hello there.

The collective consciousness of mankind

has been evolving for
centuries and centuries.

We have seen many dark ages

and many awakenings.

And welcome to today.

We're in the midst of one such dark age.

The name of this dark age

is the emotional dark age.

If you're even see in this video,

you're in the process of awakening

from this dark age.

So what exactly is the emotional dark age?

It's the age of ignorance
relative to emotions.

Most people on earth do
not understand emotions.

They're not terribly conscious of them,

they do not know what function serve,

they do not know what to do with them.

This is a serious problem

considering that emotions
are the very basis

of every person life's experience.

There are many awakenings

which must occur

when we awaken to the idea of emotions.

But today I'm going to trigger

one of these awakenings for you,

because this particular

dysfunctional or emotional ignorance

is at the very basis

of our adult dysfunctions

in our day to day life.

I'm going to call this type
of emotional ignorance

The Great Epidemic.

Because it quite literally is.

It is to blame

for more clonic unhappiness and suicide,

than all other causes combined.

Many of you who are
watching this movie today

are aware of emotional abuse.

This like deliberate threatening, shaming,

humiliating, exploiting and isolating

to name a few.

But there is another form
of emotional abuse

that goes towards people which
is harder to recognize,

and it leaves even deeper scars.

It is this form of abuse

that is today's epidemic

and it is called:

Emotional Neglect.

The best way to understand
emotional neglect is this:

It is trauma that is created

by what is not done,

instead of trauma that is created

as a result of what is done.

Now, keep in mind,

that your traditional forms
of emotional abuse

can go hand in hand
with emotional neglect.

But a person can be
emotionally neglectful,

without ever being

overtly emotionally abusive,

in the traditional sense.

Yes you guessed it,

emotional neglect like most things,

begins in our childhood,

and so we are going
to begin in childhood.

But not before we examine
the life of someone

who did suffer emotional
neglect in their childhood.

The person who we are going to study

is named Mary.

Mary holds a very successful position

at a law firm.

So, her life is pretty comfortable,

especially financially.

She came from a very
small town in Colorado.

A town which was peaceful.

She is the last of three children.

When she looks back at her life,

things seem pretty good,

her childhood never had

any real identifiable trauma,

associated with it.

Her family was financially successful,

she never wanted for anything,

her parents who are still married
to this day, never argued.

They had low tolerance for
negativity of any kind, in fact.

When any of the children
would wine or complain or cry,

they were promptly sent to their rooms.

So Mary is confused about why she is

the way she is.

She's confused about why she
goes to bars on the weekends

and drinks until she blacks out.

She's confused about why

she can't seem to create a
successful relationship with a man.

She's confused about why she
often fantasizes about suicide.

You may confused as well,

but let's look at Mary's life,

but this time, under the lens

of emotional neglect.

It is a parent's responsibility

relative to their child,

to be attuned to that child's needs.

Now it's quite obvious,

the physical needs that a child has,

things like food, and shelter,

and water, and clothing, and bathing.

But what about emotional needs?

Chances are when I just said:

"What about emotional needs?",

your first response was:

"What are emotional needs?"

If that doesn't tell you

just how deep in the dark
age of emotions we are,

I don't know what does.

That being said,

we all have emotional needs.

Every child has emotional needs,

and if those needs are not met,

we end up feeling empty.

For this very reason,

if you struggle with emptiness,

I want you to watch my
video on YouTube titled:

Emptiness

When a parent does not meet

their child's emotional needs,

the message that they're
unintentional sending that child,

is that the child is unimportant to them.

This child does not feel
seen, heard, or felt.

There's no intimacy in the relationship

and so this child lacks the knowledge

about how to form intimate relationships.

When a child is shamed for having
emotional needs from the parent,

the message the child receives is:

"There's something wrong
and unlovable about me."

And this child grows up
being completely blind

To his or her own emotional needs,

as well as being very afraid
of their own emotions.

It's a parents job to establish
emotional connection with their child,

to give undivided attention to their child

seeing them as a unique
separate individual,

who has a right to feel the way they feel,

and to use this emotion
connection and attention

to respond to the emotional need

that their child is currently displaying.

This can sound like a tall order

if you yourself have never experienced

someone being emotionally
attentive to you.

But it is my promise that you can learn.

Now when we look back at Mary's childhood.

We can easily see

how her well meaning parents

unintentionally taught her a lesson,

and all their children,

which is that if they have
something emotional

going on that's negative,

or negative thoughts,

they had better keep them to themselves.

Negative emotion was bad
and not to be tolerated.

Every time Mary had these feelings

she would feel ashamed of them,

Should isolate herself and not
let anyone else see them.

she would try to escape them by drinking,

And she was so intent on hiding
the shameful aspect of herself,

believing that if anyone saw
this side of her that felt bad,

they would abandon her,

that she never got past
the third date with a man.

She was lonely and regardless
of whether or not

Mary's parents did actually love her,

she did not feel loved as a child.

Remember of course that
we know a parent loves us

without feeling that a parent loves us.

Mary felt isolated did from the world.

Like she was on the outside looking in

and like no one really knew her.

And so, she often thought:

"What's the point of being alive?"

And one day when Mary was feeling
lonely enough, she did commit suicide.

And no one saw it coming.

It was a shock to everyone,

because no one knew how
much pain she was really in.

Mary's parents did in fact love Mary.

As well as all of their other children.

In fact, from the outside,

her childhood looked idyllic,

even enviable.

But the real truth,

which no one could see,

is that underneath that veneer,

these parents had no idea

how to emotionally parent their child.

They didn't know how to meet
their emotional needs.

And as a result,

quite unintentionally,

their children, Mary included,

Mary especially,

was taught lessons,

that led to her death.

Most people who suffer emotional neglect,

either suffer in silence,
keeping that internal world

away from absolutely
everything and everyone,

or they go from
psychiatrist to psychologist,

trying endlessly to figure out

what the hell is wrong with them.

When they look back at their life,

they can't see what possibly
could have happened

to make them the way that they are.

So there must be something
wrong with them.

This is because emotional neglect

is not what you see.

It is what you don't see.

It is the encouragement
that didn't happen.

It is the comforting that wasn't given.

It is the loving support
that wasn't offered.

The loving words that were not said.

It is the sense of belonging
that was never granted.

The understanding that
was never reached for.

You can't see what isn't there.

And so you can't remember
what isn't there.

And until you see what
could have been there,

you wouldn't even know
that anything was missing.

At this particular point in history,

all parents will emotionally
fail their children

on occasion.

It isn't these occasional failures

which corrode the very foundation

that a child life is built on,

so as to make their adulthood crumble.

It's the chronic failure

to meet emotional needs.

Now I can promise you

that the more aware you
become of emotional neglect,

the more you're going to beat
yourself up as a parent.

Because you're going to see the ways

that you're emotionally failing your child

because you'll suddenly
recognize the way that you

were emotionally failed as a child.

Just why is this such an epidemic?

It's an epidemic because it is rampart.

Not only that,

it is passed from generation to generation

to generation, and everyone

is completely unaware of it.

They are unaware of it

until the day that one person becomes

aware and conscience of it.

If your emotional needs
were not met in childhood ,

you'll have a very difficult time

meeting your own needs in adulthood.

That's why emotional neglect is in fact,

the number one cause of
codependency in adulthood.

Now, if you're the kind of person

who heard that just now and said:

"Whoa wait a minute, I'm the most
independent person that I know.

"I must not have been emotionally
neglected, thank God,

because, definitely not dependent.

You can go ahead and think again,

because independent people

tend to be the worst
at meeting their needs

for intimacy and close
connection with others.

These are still needs,

still needs that you have.

We tend to swing to one
direction or the other

when we have experienced
emotional neglect.

We either become extremely dependent,

or become extremely independent.

There are many many symptoms
of emotional neglect,

but here's a list of some common things

that will occur in adulthood

if you have suffered from
emotional neglect in childhood.

Feeling like you do not belong,

feeling chronic shame,

feeling an insatiable sense of emptiness,

difficulty asking for help,

chronically unhappy relationships,

or the inability to form
lasting relationships,

you're either too dependent on others,

or pride yourself on being
completely independent,

the feeling that you're a fraud,

feeling either like you're safer alone,

or that you absolutely
cannot stand being alone,

judging yourself more harshly
than you judge others,

having a hard time figuring
out what you're feeling,

what you're feeling you are
on the outside of life looking in,

suicidal feelings or thoughts,

difficulty calming yourself
or self soothing,

feeling a great deal of
self blame or self hatred,

feeling as if something in you
is defective or unlovable,

"there's is something wrong with me",

feeling either like you
are too self disciplined,

or that you struggle with
self discipline and are lazy,

having difficulty nurturing others

or providing adequate affection,

you feel unhappy for no obvious reason.

If you suspect that you
were emotional neglected

in your childhood,

I implore you to watch the video

which I created on YouTube titled:

Meet Your Needs!

The more aware you become

of what your emotional
needs actually are,

the easier it is to identify

how those needs were not met in childhood,

and thus the specific type

of emotional neglect that you suffered

in your childhood.

Learning how to self care

and also how to let others care for you,

learning how to meet your needs,

let other people meet your needs

and meet other people's needs,

is an important part

of overcoming emotional neglect.

Also it might enlightening for
you to do a little research

on your own time,
about emotional neglect

and about the many different
family dynamics and circumstances

that are emotionally neglectful.

You may just finally be
able to connect the dots

between what you've experienced,

or should I say, didn't get to experience,

and why you feel the way you feel.

If you have suffered
from emotional neglect,

do not despair.

You can in fact,

heal from this particular trauma.

The first step,

is to dive directly

into the world of emotions.

Obviously with emotional neglect,

emotions is the aspect of our life

that we'll struggle the most with.

So what we have to do,

is to become aware of our own emotions.

We have to start noticing how we feel,

caring how we feel,

we have to look into the
purpose of emotions,

what to do with them
when they come up,

how to express them.

We need to develop our
emotional intelligence.

If you want some assistance in doing this,

you can seek out a Somatic Therapist

or a Hacomi Therapist

in your area.

You also may want to watch
my YouTube videos titled:

Positively Embrace Your Negative Emotions,

How To Emotion Your Emotions

&, How To Heal The Emotional Body.

Next, you need to learn about emotions

and relationships.

If we want our society to improve,

and emotional neglect,

to no longer be a function
of Human Society,

we must learn how to meet
our own emotional needs,

meet each other's emotional needs,

and let our emotional needs be met.

For this very reason,

I want you to watch the YouTube video

that I created, that is titled:

Emotional Wake Up Call.

Since emotional neglect
affects our ability

to be authentic

and our ability to be intimate,

learning how to be authentic and intimate,

is a key ingredient

to overcoming emotional neglect.

Keep in mind that intimacy

is not about sex.

Intimacy is about seeing another person,

feeling them,

really listening and hearing them,

understanding them.

It's about touching the internal world

and conversely it's about being seen,

being felt,

being understood,

being heard,

allowing people to touch
our internal world.

In this universe,

there is simply the presence of something

and the lack of that very same something.

This is the true polarity that exists.

So one could say,

that darkness is nothing more,

than the absence of light.

The vibration of lack

is the furthest vibration

from the vibration of source

or what many call God.

Therefore, it is emotionally

the most painful vibration
you can experience.

More damage can be done to you

by what is not done,

that was ever done to you,
by virtue of what was done.

It is my desire,

that by becoming aware of this

epidemic within the human race,

we can shift our focus

to the awareness of emotions.

We can shift our focus

towards meeting our own needs,

meeting the needs of our children,

and meeting the needs of each other.

And it my hope that you live long enough

to see what becomes of this society,

when we achieve this state.

Have a good week.

Subtitles by: Isabelle Montigny &
Tanya Duarte (www.tanyaduarte.com)