The water in which we praise: Why do you see things more than you think?

In the example of David Foster Wallace, two small fish swims when a older fish passes and says: “Morning, boys. How is the water?” Young fish continue to swim. After a while, one of them turns to the other and asks, “What is hell is water?”

The goal of the proverb is simple but deep: it is easy to overlook the elements that bring our world together, because they are woven in our procedures, our language, and our expectations for others and ourselves.

As a clinical psychiatrist and an attached researcher, I study the reality that was often overcome by how we are recognized by caregivers in times of distress on our lifetime-or Steadfastness– To suffer.

This is the water in which we are welcomed.

waters

When I was about nine years old, I was playing back with my best friend – one of those games where luck plays a big role like skill. Double Sixes – this means that I am about to win the game – and I started jumping up and down with joy. But my friend insisted that he was six and five. This difference is one point that has cost me the game.

We argued back and forth. I felt frustrated and asked him to leave. I couldn’t deal with the fact that my best friend did not believe me – he didn’t admit what I was sure I saw.

I sat alone in my room, smoke, harm, and frustrated. Then my father came. He did not ask what happened. He did not ask what I felt. “If you continue to send your friends away, they will end up without any friends at all.” Then he came out.

Not shock A moment. It was, in fact, almost normal. This is the point: We are not only formed by rupture of a big life, but through regular quiet moments – repeatedly repeated – when our struggles become invisible.

Some wounds are hidden. But when they are constantly reopened, especially by the closest to us, they come to determine the emotional water in which we live. I was not realistic to go deep over time.

I now know that my father was not trying to harm me. He was carrying his waters – in the form of his life, parents and time – and made his best with what he had. But as a child, why do I care? What I felt most is the gap between what you faced and what he did not have knowledge.

These quiet wounds have become water.

Where everything begins: the first relationships of the infant

Attachment theory, presented it John Bulby And expanding Mary Einsworth and others, teaches us that infants are not looking for food or physical comfort only; They are looking for emotional communication. Evolutionary perspective, behaviors such as crying or reaching adaptive strategies: they indicate the need to recognize them and respond to them by caregivers. Without this confession, the most vital needs of the infant are not met – and through the evolutionary history, children who failed careful providers who failed to recognize their distress and respond to their distress is less likely to survive.

Looking at one of the first behaviors is a healthy newborn exhibition: crying. The child’s cry is not just a reflection, but the demand for recognition – I’m here. I am Bardan. I am hungry. i need you. I can’t stay alone. Can you respond immediately and effectively?

When these signals are constantly meeting with warmth and compatibility, the child begins to form a set of expectations that someone is available, lives, and is able to calm them in times of need. These expectations are the basis of what the attachment theory describes as a safe attached relationship.

In this case, more than that is better. Our research has shown that children develop safe attachments relationships with multiple care providers – that is, the relationships in which they expect recognition and response in times of need – to show them Licker behavioral problemsand Stronger language skillsAnd better social performance.

Why do we continue to swim in the same water: memory texts

What is great is how these early experiences are only behavior, but also memory.

To understand the world and preserve the limited mental ability we have, our brains shorten the so -called shortcuts Text programs –Mental molds formed through frequent experiences. These text programs help us predict what will happen in the familiar situations in the future.

The same applies to emotional life. When the child is constantly Acknowledged their sponsorship providers– That has been met, understood, and calm in times of need – develop a A safe base scenario This looks like this: “In times of distress, I think the available father will be to recognize the pain, and effectively calm me. ” This becomes a general expectation that is implemented in adulthood, and it constitutes how we think, act and feel under narrow.

When acknowledging their emotional needs are absent or inconsistent, children are likely to develop texts that lack the expected sequence of events in which these needs are identified and met. As adults, they become More prone to depression Often Less romantic relationship experienceBecause they do not expect effective care from the closest to them. They are also more likely to connect their low -sensitive children, relying on the same textual programs that once led their behavior.

Can we see again?

If you ask the ordinary person how to treat “Business”, many will describe it as a process in which one brings a life problem for the processor, which then provides a way to fix it. From the perspective of attachment theory, treatment rarely works in this way. The suffering does not arise directly from the problems of life, but of low quality, or the lack of a safe basic text.

anxiety? There is no need to worry about negative future events as much as our accompanying expectations because others will not be available or effective in their sedatives in times of need. depression? It is not lost and it cannot be restored as much as it is the belief that the efforts made to seek help or rapprochement with others are useless.

To a large extent, we can develop faith in recognition during times of emotional distress – and the transmitted therapists, this belief is sowed through consistent and contradictory presence – the treatment from us who grew up can help lack a recognition of a sense of vision.

So what is water?

Water is the emotional climate that we adapt early in life – the stream of recognition (or its absence), which constitutes how Lonely We feel when life problems appear.

Through the repetition Providing care Experiments, we are building text programs that direct our emotional lives – the domains that determine whether we are communicating, how we deal, how we are parents, and whether we believe that we can really see.

This Backgammon game remained with me because it is the distillation of the essence of Miahi. The treatment did not erase this past, but it allows me to see it as it was: it is not a defect inside me, nor in the life itself, but rather a reflection of the water that I previously learned to swim.

Sometimes, this is enough to start swimming elsewhere.