Stiffness and guilt threaten your mental health
If we focus on the recurring points of negative emotional states, we will find this mental inflexibility and it will appear regularly in many cases, you could even say that in many cases they are among the main agents that maintain these negative states.
- Mental rigidity refers to the inability to change your mind.
- Even if everything proves otherwise.
- And to observe a situation from different points of view; in this way.
- These people treat reality on the basis of very strict principles and with few nuances.
They have defined and rigid cognitive patterns that experience any event that breaks their expectations is a source of anxiety.
The origin of the blame has been extensively studied. It can be said that in some societies of Judeo-Christian tradition, guilt permeates the way we deal with painful events; In fact, when we head to Genesis, we find Eva guilty of biting that damn apple.
Guilt has its positive side in that it imposes an exercise in reflection and helps us to correct any problems; on the other hand, it shows its negative side when it weighs on our shoulders like a dead weight, which prevents us from moving forward and poisoning our minds. Moreover, when presented in general, guilt is a totally destructive feeling: it is not useful, it is not healing and it is not creative.
These two factors cause a “rumia”, a concept used in psychology to refer to the inability to stop thinking about something. Excessive rumia is associated with psychotic disorders, neurotic disorders, eating disorders and many others.
This relationship makes sense: if we can’t see different events from different points of view, if all our preconceived ideas don’t match what we live in, we need to find out where we’re failing. And we ended up thinking a lot, but without solving anything. This rumia is a mental self-harm caused by ourselves.
We end up feeling guilty about this inflexibility, the demands of the environment in which we live, our belief that we are always wrong because we do not act according to our ideas. With these two aspects working in our minds, you will acquire a “frantic, anxious and useless” activity.
To see how sharp these two knives are that damage your mental health, it’s best to look at an example:
Imagine a woman who received enough information to take into account a prophecy: if she were a mother, she would be generously rewarded for her social circle, and your brain must constantly process the same information: the birth of your child will be something cheerful and irreplaceable, devoid of contradictions and moments of doubt.
Your mentality about motherhood will be rigid, inflexible and utopian: motherhood is beautiful because it is instinctive and I will know how to be a good mother because she is beautiful, natural and will make me happy at all times. In your mental scheme, doubts about this idea are unacceptable and dangerous to your well-being.
This woman, who is experiencing the great change of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum, may feel disturbed, her pregnancy was full of physical discomfort, she was not as happy as she thought and childbirth and postpartum were not a rewarding experience. A feeling of deep existential emptiness appears that directly confronts your expectations and your mental pattern of a mild and pleasurable pregnancy.
If your mental pattern leaves no room for other thoughts that can alleviate what it feels like, such as the hormonal changes that normally occur at this stage, the fact that fatigue is exhausting and it’s normal to feel “strange,” it will evaluate all of this in this way: I’m not a good mother to not just feel joy and I’m guilty of it.
This person can act in two ways: continue to blame himself for not feeling what he should, or on the contrary, relax his belief system to understand that motherhood is a wonderful but at the same time complex experience. You must accept all sentimientos. de pain and realize that this moment you are living is made of pain and joy.
Therefore, you should not fight against feelings that you believe should not pass through your mind, but fight against this system of beliefs and guilt that prevents you from living this experience in a healthy and harmonious way.
There are several ways to combat these two great enemies of well-being in different fields and forms, from the most theoretical to the most practical, here are some of them:
Your sanity will thank you for daring to face these two knives, in doing so you will notice the positive changes that will occur in your relationship with others, is it not good news?