Hi,
Dr.
Denise Webb here,
Clinical psychologist.
Welcome to my video on emotional neglect.
Today I'm going to talk about emotional neglect and how it can make it so hard to recognize your emotions as an adult.
I'm going to explain to you exactly how you can develop the skill for yourself now in your current life because you absolutely can.
Now the first things I want to talk about are number one,
Why the skill is so important,
And number two,
How it is that you are missing it.
Why?
What is the connection between emotional neglect and not knowing what you're feeling as an adult.
So first I want to explain that emotions are literally messages sent from our bodies.
They are sent from our bodies to our brains and they are bringing you messages all the time that will help you to make good choices.
Messages to tell you to protect yourself.
Messages that guide you to care for yourself.
And many other vital,
Vital functions in our lives are driven by our feelings.
Just as hunger is a feeling in your body that tells you that your body needs sustenance,
For example,
Anger is a feeling in your body that is telling you to protect yourself.
This is why feelings are so vital to us.
Childhood emotional neglect,
Unfortunately.
Sort of disconnect.
The.
The sort of circuit that is meant to go from your body to your brain.
When it comes to your feelings,
So that you can have feelings in your body,
But your brain has no awareness of that,
Or very little awareness.
It's one thing to know that you're having a feeling and it's another to know what that feeling is.
All of this gets sort of disrupted by childhood emotional neglect.
Leaving you unaware of your feelings and lacking the ability to tune in to them,
Listen to them,
And act on them.
And how does this happen?
It all goes back to the way your emotions were treated in your childhood.
For example,
If your parents don't ask you what you're feeling,
If your parents don't respond to your feelings and react to your feelings as if they matter,
As a way that communicates to you that your feelings are important.
And they have meaning.
And that they bear attention.
They're worthy of attention if you don't get enough of that in childhood,
Which is exactly what childhood emotional neglect is.
Then your child brain interprets this absence of attention to your feelings.
The message that your feelings are irrelevant and unimportant and perhaps even to be hidden.
And when you receive this message all through your childhood,
You end up treating your own feelings as if they are irrelevant and unimportant.
And basically,
You build a wall that just blocks them off.
So that your feelings won't bother your parents,
They won't bother other people,
They won't even bother you.
However,
They do bother you,
You're just not aware of it because your brain is disconnected from it.
So basically you grow up and you just learn how to treat your feelings as if they're nothing.
Sort of like the stuff you put in the trash yesterday.
You've forgotten about it.
It's unimportant.
You decided you didn't need it.
You threw it out after all.
So it's out of sight,
Out of mind,
Not to see again the light of day.
And this is how people who grew up with childhood emotional neglect end up treating their own feelings.
This wall and this disconnection from your feelings.
Is a major problem.
Even if you don't realize it,
You are missing out on a vital source of information about who you are.
What you want.
What you feel,
What you need,
What's important to you.
Your feelings are meant to inform you about all of these really important things in your life.
Basically,
When you're disconnected from these feelings,
You end up being disconnected from your deepest self.
You are disconnected from the deepest,
Most personal,
Biological part and expression of who you are.
And this is a major,
Major loss.
And it's a serious disadvantage to go through life.
Disconnected in this way from your deepest self.
You end up losing touch with Knowing what you want knowing what you need and since our emotions are our memories are anchored in our feelings you may end up doubting that your memories are the right ones for you.
You may end up doubting your own experiences.
And doubting yourself a lot and relying on other people to validate you.
You basically become ungrounded from yourself and disconnected from your own truth.
And that makes you vulnerable to other people telling you who you are,
What you want,
What you need,
And what's best for you.
And it can lead to some Sadly.
Wrong choices for you.
Going in the wrong directions for yourself.
Missing out on opportunities that would be great for you,
Or choosing something that takes you down the wrong path that just doesn't feel right for you.
Your feelings are your mooring in life.
There you're grounding.
When you are tuned into them and you use your brain to process them,
You get so many important messages.
Let's say,
For example,
You feel regretful about something.
If you're aware that you feel regretful.
You have a chance to give that some thought,
To process it with your brain and to go back and say,
Wait a minute,
Why am I feeling regretful of this?
I wonder if there's something I could do.
To turn that ship around,
Go back and correct this.
Go back and change it for myself or get a new perspective on it that will help me live with it and make the most of it and move forward in my life.
The same thing about guilt the feeling of guilt as long as you're feeling it at a time when it makes sense now guilt isn't one that that can go overboard and Some people with emotional neglect can have way too much guilt.
So if this is you I don't want you to act on all this guilt.
A lot of it is probably unnecessary and But the feeling of guilt in the way it's meant to be used is very valuable because it will drive you.
If you listen,
It will say,
Go back.
Apologize.
Fix this.
Try to make amends.
Try to go back and smooth something over or fix what went wrong.
Regret and guilt are feelings that are very useful and give you the opportunity to make changes in your life.
Just as hurt.
Tells you someone's harming you,
Watch out,
Take care,
Take care of yourself.
All of these feelings Even if you get glimmers of them,
If you're not getting them fully from your body,
You're missing out on some very important opportunities in life.
The great thing is it's not too late.
You can absolutely learn this skill now.
And I'm going to tell you right now exactly how to do that.
You can.
Three times a day.
Or however many times you can.
Manage it can be once a day It can be even once a week if it's all you can manage or it can be 12 times a day Whatever works for you Stop for a moment.
Close your eyes.
Turn your attention inward and ask yourself,
What am I feeling right now?
And sit with that question.
Keeping your mind clear of all other thoughts,
Focusing in on your body,
And asking yourself,
What am I feeling in my body right now?
Even if you come up with nothing,
It's okay.
Keep doing that exercise and as you do that,
You are forging that connection back between your body and your brain so they can come together and start to work together again.
The more often you do this exercise,
The more you're rejoining that circuit.
And eventually you will start tuning into some feelings.
So I really encourage you to do this exercise.
I'm really curious what you have to say about it and if you feel like you are tuned into your feelings or if you feel like you might have been separated.
Please do let me know.
Leave your comments.
On this video.
We'd all like to hear from you.
I will see you then at the next video.
Take care
