Human nature in the grasp of two antagonistic instinctual forces

Have you heard about the two instincts that Freud notoriously used to explain human motivation? Termed Eros and Thanatos, they are opposing urges. Eros stands for one’s life vitality, ability to love, connect, and create. Its opposing pole, Thanatos, is the instinct of death, destruction and compulsive repetition of negative experiences.

I strongly agree with Freud and believe that all our actions and intentions reflect either the force of our Eros or Thanatos. Do we act constructively and for the good of self and others or do we cave in to our destructive urges and cause damage to self and others?

However, it is possible to enhance our Eros and with it our strength to transform the damaging and unproductive parts of ourselves that no longer serve us.

It saddens me to see…

… individuals who have given up on themselves. Their negative beliefs have ballooned and taken possession of their thoughts, emotions, body and comportment. The torment and grief have prevailed and contaminated all aspects of one’s life and personality; the person feels powerless and hopeless, and sees no way out.

I can sense their thoughts: “It will never be better. I don’t believe that I can climb back up. Maybe I don’t even want to. It is too late. I am too fragile and different from others. They are stronger and better. There is something very wrong with me.”

Like a cancer in the fourth stage, depression possesses the person and its grip is fatal.

The question that persecutes me is why people don’t seek help or haven’t found help earlier.

My only logical answer is that their life and growth oriented Eros has been conquered by their Thanatos. The battle is finished.

(Exempt are people with a diagnosed mental illness that has severely changed their brain’s functioning and their capacity to heal).

And what are other reasons why we hold on to our distress and self-defeating beliefs?

Envision you were told repeatedly when growing up how lousy you are at school. How you aren’t as capable as the neighbor’s child. How you did this and that wrong. What do you think your beliefs and emotions about yourself would be?

Then, you watched your parents’ and other important people’s reactions under stress; you could sense their insecurities and saw what they did with them. Likewise, you witnessed their emotional reactions in various circumstances.

I can tell you that this had a tremendous impact on how you feel or act now. Often, our anxious, depressive and unstable states stem from our experience with our parents. A child is by default attuned to and internalizes the inner mental states of his parents.

Thus, what we feel or think now might not be “ours”, but it is the activation of the internalized metal states of our parents.

For the most part, how our parents felt about themselves and how they made us feel (our relational experience with them) has made us who we are today: what beliefs about self and others we have formed, the way we regulate and process emotions, our level of self-esteem and what behavioral patterns we exercise.

Moreover, our inner world reflects our parents’ demands and expectations towards us. We apply the same judgments on ourselves as they did to us. Internally, we still try to meet their expectations.

Unconsciously, we want to preserve this attachment to our parents. We still need them. However, we are not free. Our self-beliefs can be negative and detrimental to our well-being. Yet, sustaining them is an expression of our loyalty to our internal parents. It lends us a sense of familiarity and predictability.

There is a way out.

We can liberate ourselves from this negative or, even worse, disparaging heritage and enhance the power of our Eros, which is saying yes to life and our evolution.

Reinforcing our Eros: developing resilience and positive orientation towards self and world

- Create a detached and observing self

We are so much more than our distress, negative beliefs, anxiety or perturbing emotions. We identify and cling to it excessively and it can forge our identity.

But then, we have a part of ourselves that is concerned with how we feel and wants us to evolve in a positive direction and be happy and stable. It can be perceived as our inner voice or intuitive insights. Maybe we don’t feel this part enough because or we don’t want to listen to it.

Often, we ignore it and continue to obey and execute the program of our negative beliefs. To be able to notice and combat this, we need to activate the self-caring part of ourselves; we need to start observing what is going on inside us.

Mindfulness is one of the most easily learned and efficient techniques. You don’t need to be a Yogi or like meditation to practice it. It is a way to enter yourself and become aware of the undercurrent of your thoughts and contents that run in the background, but which are the most significant and influential.

We want to enhance our capacity to self-observe and influence our inner world. So far, we might have felt that we haven’t had much influence over what we felt or experienced.

Building an observing self, will , firstly help us to perceive our inner negative talk about ourselves and others (it reflects our beliefs and convictions). Secondly, we will be able to reflect upon, explore, understand and eventually evolve what we are feeling and thinking.

- An observing self should be kind, compassionate and accepting of whatever it observes and perceives

There is a history and there are reasons behind why your negative beliefs, thoughts and feelings were created, and judging or rejecting them will only increase their influence.

Cultivating an accepting and a loving kind observer is already the beginning of healing. Bringing the light and warmth to dark aspects of our psyche will lay foundations for self-compassion.

We have become used to our negative self-talk, self-criticism, self-rejection, shame, and guilt, and when we caress these aspects of ourselves with empathy and compassion, we begin to be more accepting and caring to ourselves, even to our dark side.

We can succeed in establishing and fostering a kind, loving and compassionate observer that will become an integral part of ourselves. It is there to take care of our well-being; it will point to our negative self-beliefs and areas that obstruct our happiness and connection with others.

- Learning to live with our dark side – past and present

Things happened. We hurt others or ourselves. We can be endlessly beating up ourselves and have regrets, but this will not change our past, nor is it healthy for us.

Life represents all shades of experience; a day cannot exist without a night and happiness comes with its other pole—unhappiness. What we can do is to not wallow in our dark moments. They came, or we evoked them, but we can also climb back up.

When we reconnect with ourselves (through mindfulness or in other ways) and activate self-observation, and we embrace our inner experience with loving kindness and empathy, the door will open further; we can explore why our feelings are there or where they come from—their roots.

Secondly, our emotions will subside more quickly if we are compassionate towards our experience and allow it to be.

We will also be able to detect critical thoughts in the background. They are a part of our heritage and constructed beliefs, but we shouldn’t condemn them for being there. We are now empowered to handle them differently and to learn about their origin.

Changing is a gradual process: we will make two steps forward and one backward, we will advance but also fall. What is important is that we are evolving, regardless of the speed.

- Our lives’ ups and downs are meaningful

Life is about learning; new situations and people will arrive and challenge us. If you can meet them with self-compassion and self-acceptance, you’ve got “your best friend” along with you. It is a caring part of yourself that will furnish you with strength and resilience, and guide you through the challenge.

We can transcend our negative past or present if we can draw meaning from it.

The meaning lies in learning, evolving and getting to know oneself better. It is the path that counts. Remind yourself, especially when the negative feelings cloud you, of the things that you have already surmounted or understood about yourself. Be proud of it and be proud of yourself! You might have endured a really hard-time, but now you are here. You have survived with all the bruises and scars. But there are also bits and pieces of wisdom and new insights.

You couldn’t impact things then and there, but maybe you can now, even if just for a bit.

To become more caring and tolerant of oneself is a fine start!

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