When we think of first aid, the first thing that comes to our minds is treating physical injuries such as cuts, wounds and abrasions. We have emergency first aid kits to treat these. However, many of us didn’t consider a different but interesting perspective of emotional “injuries”. We tend to take less notice of them as compared to physical injuries, but just like physical injuries, they can worsen if left untreated.
The book covers seven common types of emotional “injuries” - namely rejection, loneliness, loss and trauma, guilt, rumination, failure and low self-esteem.
What I really like about this book is that it tackles the problem quite effectively and covers a wide range of examples on how we can use the tools needed to solve the problems and how and why these injuries exist.
Some interesting points worth noting would be the following.
Emotional injuries are more common than we think and surprisingly, very easily triggered. For example, a study shows that when three people are in a waiting room and two are throwing a ball among themselves, even if they are strangers, the third person may feel a sense of rejection.
Also, some injuries are more harmful than we think in terms of their effects, which could lead to other emotional injuries. For example, rejection is a more common reason for violence than gang affiliation or substance abuse. Low self-esteem can be a cause and effect of other emotional injuries because others such as loneliness or failure can cause us to believe that there is something wrong with us, and it can be a cause of other injuries because it can reduce our immunity to adversity. As such, it can be easier for us to feel rejected. As ironic as it sounds compliments can be a cause of low self-esteem because they contradict people's perceptions of themselves, which causes them to be dismissive of them.
With respect to rumination, another interesting point is that we can ironically strain our relationships with the people who offer the best emotional support. That is because we tend to rely on them the most and the relationship is all about us and not about them. A relationship that is all about one person’s problems is not healthy because there isn’t any growth, and it can potentially lead to burnout from bearing a big burden. Not that people who ruminate are burdens, but there’s a limit to how much others can do for us and they have their own lives to live. If they spend all their time on listening to others talk about their problems, that isn’t going to benefit their growth. As such, we need to find a different approach to prevent our friendships from being strained - that means seeking alternative sources of emotional support and talking to different friends, but it’s not just about sharing our problems. We also need to show that we care about them by checking in on how they are and showing interest in their lives too. A too one-sided approach isn’t beneficial, and chances are our friendships may end up going nowhere.
With regards to items in our emotional first aid kit, some common tools across the board are recognising our self-worth, arguing against self-criticism and re-framing our perspective.
Recognising our self-worth is important because we tend to overlook our strengths and look at the negative aspects of our character. One way to do this is to look at things that we are strong at and write a brief essay on a positive aspect about ourselves that we appreciate. We can also pick out things we may have in common with others, and perhaps use that as a basis to build friendships. For example, the book shared a story of a boy who had a genetic disorder but ended up making genuine friends because of their common interest in supporting the Yankees, and instead of seeing himself as a “loser” or “weirdo”, he saw himself as a Yankees fan and it really improved his mood.
Arguing against self-criticism is mainly about asking ourselves, “is there any evidence that contradicts these negative thoughts that I have?” Many a time, emotional injuries cause us to ruminate and get negative thoughts about ourselves, and particularly rejection and loneliness can cause us to have thoughts like “I’m never good enough” or “I’m just a boring person whom people couldn’t care less about”. However, a lot of these thoughts are usually exaggerated and we get caught in the spiral of overthinking. Hence, it is necessary to assure ourselves that these thoughts aren’t necessarily true. One way to be kinder to ourselves is to view the situation from a distant perspective and ask ourselves what we would say to a friend who went through a similar experience. This is easier because when we view things from a distant perspective, we don’t take things too personally and tend to be kinder to ourselves, just like how we are kind to friends who went through something similar.
Reframing our perspective of the situation is more about asking what the situation can teach us or how we can view it differently. We may be able to come up with good in the situation or instead of using it to hurt us, we can use it as fuel to motivate us to do better. With regards to the first point, many families of victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001 paid tribute by helping with the planning of memorial sites related to the victims. As for the second point, Michael Phelps would use rivals’ taunts in press conferences as motivation for him to perform even better on the grand stage instead of ruminating on the truthfulness of their remarks. Failure has a number of ways, such as reflecting on what we have learnt, the progress we have made, and the fact that success is more meaningful after a failure. Thomas Edison famously said, “I have not failed, I just found 10,000 ways that don’t work” after he invented the light bulb. Progress is necessary because even if we may not have achieved our goal, being able to inch closer to it is already a success in itself. For example, if we got an initial E grade in an examination and we wanted to get an A grade but we got a C grade at the next attempt, that would be something to rejoice in because we have done better than the previous time. Perhaps a fitting quote would be “I am not happy where I am, but I’m happy that I’m not where I used to be”. Failure makes success more meaningful because it requires a lot more effort and the resilience to bounce back from setbacks.
Moreover, guilt can be resolved by effective apologies that need to have three components - validating the other person’s point of view, acknowledging that we have fallen short of expectations and offering atonement or compensation. Validating the other party’s perspective is important because they will be more receptive when they know that we know how we feel. When we’re ranting about something bad that happened to us to a friend, “that sucks” or “I’m sorry to hear that” is one that makes us feel better rather than one saying “Why are you feeling this way?” That is for the simple reason that we want others to know how we feel. We also need to acknowledge that we didn’t live up to expectations because it allows them to see a side of us that’s very good. Apologising is easy, but we must show that we are genuinely apologetic by doing something to compensate for the mistake that we have made. For example, if we lost our temper at a friend, we could make sure it doesn’t happen again or at least we’re making the effort not to let it happen again by starting to engage in mindfulness meditation or finding healthier ways to channel our anger such as writing out our thoughts rather than venting it on others.
Another way to resolve guilt is to re-engage in life and strive to refrain from repeating the same mistakes we made in the past. Self-forgiveness is important because it is more doable than expecting others to forgive us. Sometimes, we feel chained by certain types of guilt, but we need to remind ourselves not to let it hold us back. For instance, those who suffer from survivor guilt, such as those who lost a friend in a car accident, could remind themselves that their friend who died wouldn’t want to see them limiting themselves because they feel that since their friend died and they survived, they don’t deserve to engage in activities that bring them joy. Another example could be a parent of a child with special needs who needs time away from them, but that is reasonable because taking care of others can’t be done if they can’t take care of themselves.
With regards to low self-esteem, self-help programmes aren’t the best way to solve them because they tend to make us distort our memories of how our lives were before it. Affirmations also need to be done with caution, because if they contradict what we think about ourselves, they tend to make us feel worse. Trying hard not to feel or think a certain way usually makes us feel worse, and we usually end up feeling it instead. However, appropriate affirmations would be those that remind us about our rights and things that we know are true, such as “if I lend others money, it’s only fair that they pay me back on time”.
All in all, the book was an insightful and interesting one that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and one that is extremely relevant and practical because we will all encounter emotional injuries at some point in our lives. I would say this book can be recommended to anyone because it allows us to cure our emotional scars.
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