Stress has become the go-to word for everyone in the modern word. It has become the reason for being unnecessarily cranky at work or for being emotionally unavailable to family and friends and the reason for the failure of a lot of modern day relationships. The fact that the governments from all over the world spend billions in studies about stress is a clear indication that the problem is real.
Growing up, I never really figured out if I was an introvert or an extrovert. I hated going to social occasions with parents but I used to host school events and even became a school captain. I was known for being boisterous, loud-mouth guy who always had something to say. Maybe I overcompensated for never talking about my feelings with my family. Stress has become the go-to word for everyone in the modern word. It has become the reason for being unnecessarily cranky at work or for being emotionally unavailable to family and friends and the reason for the failure of a lot of modern day relationships. The fact that the governments from all over the world spend billions in studies about stress is a clear indication that the problem is real.
I grew up feeling vulnerable to emotional pain and so I always felt being emotional was a sign of weakness and I ended up being a brut for most of my young age. ‘Feelings’ made me weak, so I created a hypothetical switch in my head, that for so long made me cold to emotions. But the switch could only handle teenage break-ups and embarrassing slips in public but was useless for the real knockout punches that life throws. After continuous failures, I removed the switch or to be honest it just ceased to exist.
Now, I binge watch TV series back to back and desensitize myself to emotional challenges that I have to go through frequently. But occasionally, I meet people who either see right through me or those who change the way I look at life. These people turn on my emotional switch which I had painstakingly buried. This makes me feel like I am lying on an operation table, partially awake with knowledge that the doctor is operating on me. It is scary but I guess it’s all about trust, if I trust the doctor, no matter what the outcome, I’ll feel safe in the moment.
We all need these types of people, the believers who see the world differently than we do. The people who can see the pimple faced scared kid inside all of us and still choose to listen than berate our incompetencies. All of us have these types of people in our life and we know who they are. They blatantly scold you for being an idiot and love you for the way you are. If you are lucky, you already have them in your life, if not, you’ll find them or you know what, they’ll find you! They’ll not take away the stress but you’ll feel a lot lighter even if you just end up sharing silence with them.
Heart to Heart with Malvika
Sushan is micro-biologist at Unilever Quality Assurance
