Crying irritates our brains, alerts us and attacks the subtle balance of our emotions. Unfortunately, this form of harmful communication based on an altered tone of voice is very common in many families, so discomfort and invisible aggression affect people, with a very deep intensity. Consequences.
The great Jardel Poncela said the one who has nothing to say screams. However curious it may seem, there are people who do not understand any other form of communication: they shout to ask for the clothes in front of them, to get the attention of the child next door or even to comment. the TV show he sees with the family. There are people who can’t communicate without anxiety, theirs or those they project.
“Men scream so they don’t listen to what they say. ” Miguel de Unanmuno?
“I can’t help it, ” they’re justified. They can’t help you; raising your voice is out of your control because it is the timbre and tone you have heard since childhood, because through crying they managed to make themselves noticeable, they marked the territory to show authority and also, why not, to channel the anger, frustrations and egos contained in search of escape valves.
We know there’s no point in screaming to be heard, but often you have to scream because it’s the only frequency you know to communicate, if you scream it’s very likely that the other person will react in the same way, giving way to a messy and coercive relational dynamic.
Something that unfortunately happens in many families?
The cry, far beyond what may seem, has a very concrete purpose in nature, both for humans and for other animals: to defend our survival and that of the group from danger, let us set a simple example: we are in the middle of the jungle walking, enjoying a natural balance, and suddenly we hear a cry , is a cappuccino monkey that emits a high-pitched cry that hits our brains.
Now, this scream doesn’t just work for alarm? For your own flock. Most jungle animals, like us, react with fear, with expectation. It is a defense mechanism that controls a very specific structure of our brain: the amygdala. Allow this small area of the brain to interpret it as a threat and activate our sympathetic nervous system to activate the escape.
Knowing this and understanding this biological and instinctive basis, we can deduce that when a person grows up in an environment where screams are constant and where communication is always done with a strong tone of voice, his brain is in a state of constant alertness. Adrenaline is always high, the feeling against which you have to defend yourself puts us in a state of chronic stress, permanent and disturbing anxiety.
What intensifies this reality, however, is that an aggressive communicative style usually generates defensive responses with the same emotional burden, with the same offensive component, so we consciously or unconsciously fall into a vicious circle and a destructive dynamic where everyone accumulates sequels in this complex jungle of human relationships where the quality of communication is fundamental.
Laura is 18 years old and she just realized something she hadn’t noticed before: she speaks very loudly, your college classmates always say that your voice is the most listened to in the classroom and that when you’re in a group, the way you communicate seems threatening.
“Every cry is born of loneliness. ” ? Leon Gieco?
Laura wants to control this aspect of her personality. He knows it won’t be easy, because at home his parents and siblings always communicate like this: with screams, there’s no need to argue, it’s just the tone of voice he grew up with and got used to listening to. She also knows that in her she is the one who hears, and that we must raise our voices because television is always on, because everyone is distracted by their affairs and there is no harmony.
In this case, Laura must understand that she cannot change a family dynamic overnight, she cannot change others, her parents or her siblings, but she can and should change, what she can and should do is cognitively control her own verbal style to understand that anyone screams to attack another. No one needs to raise their voices to be heard and often a calm, calm voice produces better results.
With this simple example we want to make something very clear: sometimes we can’t change who educated us, we can’t change our past or erase those family dynamics where crying was always present, if only to ask ourselves the time or how we did the test.
We cannot change the past, but we can prevent this style of communication from characterizing us in our present, in our friends or as a couple, at home, remember that the one who shouts is not always the fairest, it is often smarter to know how to shut up and listen, and even wiser to know how and how to communicate.