We spend years in school sitting behind a desk learning how to read and do math but have no capacity to uncover our buried emotional drivers. There is a reason for this. It is difficult. Reading and math are important. No arguments there. But our emotional immaturity shows up everywhere we look: Politics. Business. Relationships. Health.
We spend all our time thinking and not enough time feeling. We see our feelings as burdensome because it does not do what we want. We feel icky when we need to focus. We feel angry about something stupid. Shameful about someone’s judgement. We try to sedate or suppress. But the difficult charge always bubbles to the surface. It continues to do this until we integrate it.
Our charged and difficult emotions ruin things for us because we cannot seem to contain it. We do not even have the self-belief that we can face it without crumbling. We have no capacity to transform what Thich Nhat Hanh calls garbage into compost. Garbage is the destructive emotion. Compost is the transformed nourishment.
We can try to avoid emotional growth and focus only on mental capacity, but the unfortunate truth is that suppressed emotions are at the root of all destructive patterns. Our emotional immaturity shows up everywhere we look.