“Where have all the grownups gone?” ~ Robert Bly, The Sibling Society
Emotional regression is a person and social unconscious return to our history when our buttons are pushed, or we get triggered and we react instead of respond. Regression gives us the sense that we are small, or little and not the powerful adults we are much of the time.
When we regress, we leave our new brain, our prefrontal lobe and hide in the limbic brain until the threat and emotional or physical harm has passed. It is in this very old part of our brain that we only have three choices – fight, flight, or freeze. Any one or all, of these choices are usually adolescent, infantile and primal.
When I wrote my book, Growing Yourself Back Up: Understanding Emotional Regression, I focused solely on how regression in our personal lives usually equaled regret. Regressed men and women will say or not say, do or not do or let be done that we may regret for days, weeks, or even decades. Trust me; I know; I’ve seen my own regressions too may times. That’s why I wrote the book as well as to help others with this misunderstood state of mind. I’m sad to recall one time something my then-wife said, and I took my wedding ring off and threw it across the room. I remember it as if it was yesterday, and I still regret it.
With all of this said, I want to turn my attention to the undeniable regression that our society is in a mass regressed, unconscious, adolescent and infantile state as I’ve ever witnessed. We are in a collective trance spun by malignant hypnotists.
Alright! Enough! We must leave their trance knowing we’ve lost touch with our feelings, our bodies and souls. We must leave our limbic brain and head back to the halls of our hearts and Congress by way of non-violence and stop acting, shooting, hood-wearing, and hate spewing.
How do we do it? Here’s what I said for coming out of regression in our personal relations, and perhaps these will apply to our social interactions:
- Get attention from our support system.
- Get and give empathy and compassion from those who understand what we are going through.
- Release the hurt, tears, fears, angers, sadness’s we’ve stored in our bodies and collective psyches.
- Pray, meditate, march to stop the terrorists in their tracks.
“What do you think of Western Civilization?” “I think it would be a good idea,” said Gandhi