There are two things I know about time and human resilience – we underestimate their power and strength.
Let’s start with time. We don’t realize it, but it’s our best friend. Time (and space) from certain things allow us to think clearer and figure out what we truly want. I have to disclose that I’m speaking from personal experience at the moment.
What humans don’t realize is that by giving things time we allow ourselves to find out how we really feel. I just recently watched a documentary called, This Emotional Life, which is about the different aspects of emotions in the human experience. If you haven’t heard of it, check it out! It’s on Netflix Instant Play!
In one of the sections of the documentary, a study was portrayed in which a group of individuals were asked to choose between having only food or water if they were lost for two days. They asked two different groups of people: one group was asked after they exercised and the other group was asked before they exercised. The results showed that a majority of the people who were asked after exercising said water but most of the people who were asked before exercising said food.
How do they interpret these results? People who were asked after exercising were thirsty, so they chose water. That’s pretty obvious right? The scientists in the documentary basically explained that our brains think of the future and how we will feel in the future based on how we feel in the present. Therefore since these people felt thirsty at the time they were asked, they thought they would also feel thirsty in the future, so they answered “water.”
It comes down to this: our brains can’t believe that we might feel differently than we do now. So when we feel sad, broken hearted, in pain, happy, joyful – it’s like our brains think this is how we are always going to feel. I think this applies the most to sadness and broken hearts. We seem to forget when we are sad or depressed that in time we will heal and feelings will change.
There was also a term called “Hedonic adaptation” that was stated in the documentary. It’s the idea that human beings get accustomed to adapting to positive changes. It explains why we end up buying more and more “things.” I can definitely relate – I remember how excited I was for the Iphone 3GS and now that I’ve had it for a year and a half all I can think about it is getting a better version. I’m sure many of you can relate. I think that this can be applied to resilience and allowing time to heal our sadness. Our hearts will always heal with time and eventually, positive changes will come about even if we don’t want them to, and slowly we will adapt and the sadness will fade.
Whether you need to clear your head, heal your heart or “figure things out” – taking time and space for yourself is always your best bet.
If you take anything out of the post I want it to be this quote:
We overestimate the duration of emotions and underestimate our capacity to adapt.
Thank you.
3 comments:
Awesome!! When you have a broken heart, especially from a death, it does seem like the pain will last forever, do it?
so true!! always the pain seems endless, but eventually, when you less expected....your heart begins to heal..and you can see the colours of the universe again....it only takes TIME....
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