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the emotional bank account
Guest writer Dr Norberto Peralta of Alternative therapy tells us about the Emotional
Bank Account and how we can use it to improve our wellbeing. If you’d like to be a
guest writer for The Review, email us at [email protected]
We all know what a financial bank account
is. We make deposits into it and build
up a reserve from which we can make
withdrawals when we need to. An emotional
Bank account is a metaphor that describes
the amount of trust been built up in a
relationships. It’s the feeling of safeness you
have with another human being.
If I make deposits into an Emotional
Bank Account with you through courtesy,
kindness, honesty, and keeping my
commitments to you, I build up a reserve.
Your trust toward me becomes higher, and
I can call upon that trust level and that emotional reserve
will compensate for it. My communication may not be clear,
but you’ll get my meaning anyway. You won’t make me
“an offender for a word”. When the trust account is high,
communication is easy, instant, and effective. But if I have
a habit of showing discourtesy, disrespect, cutting you off,
overreacting, ignoring you, becoming arbitrary, betraying
your trust, threatening you, or playing little tin god in your
life, eventually my Emotional bank account is overdrawn.
The trust level gets very low. Then what flexibility do I have?
None. I am walking on mine fields. I have to be very careful
of everything I say. I measure every word. It’s tension city,
memo haven. It’s protecting my backside, politicking. And
many family are filled with it. Many marriages are filled with
it.
If a large reserve of trust is not sustained with continuing
deposit, a marriage will deteriorate. Instead of rich ,
spontaneous understanding and communication, the situation
becomes one of accommodation, where two people simply
attempt to live independent lifestyles in a fairly respectful
and tolerant way. The relationship may further deteriorate
to one of hostility and defensiveness. The fight or flight
response creates verbal battles, slammed doors, refusal to talk,
emotional withdrawal and self-pity. It may end up in a Cold
War at home, sustained only by children, sex, social pressure
or image protection. Or it may end up in open warfare in
the courts, where bitter ego decimating legal battles can be
carried on for years as people as people endlessly confess
the sin of a former spouse. And this is in the most intimate,
the most potentially rich, joyful, satisfying and productive
relationship possible between two people on this earth.
Our most constant relationships, like marriage, require our most
constant deposits. With continuing expectations, old deposits
evaporate. If you suddenly run into an old high school friend you
haven’t seen for years, you can pick up where you left off, because the
early deposits are still there. But your accounts with the people you
interact with on a regular basis require more constant investment.
There are sometimes automatic withdrawals in your daily
interactions or in their perception of you that you don’t even
know about . This is especially true with teenagers in the home.
Remember, building and repairing relationships is a long term
investment. Suppose you have a teenage son or daughter and your
normal conversation is something like, “Clean your room. Button
your shirt. Turn down the radio. Go get a haircut. And don’t forget
to take out the rubbish!”
Over a period of time, the withdrawals far exceed the deposit. Now
suppose this son or daughter is in the process of making some
important decisions that will affect the rest of his life. But the trust
level is so low and the communication process so closed, mechanical
and unsatisfying that he simply won’t be open to your counsel.
You may have the wisdom and the knowledge to help them, but
because your account is so overdrawn, they will end up making their
decisions from a short-range emotional perspective, which may well
result in many negative long-range consequences.
You need a positive balance to communicate on these tender issues.
What do you do? The emotional deposit begin in the moment
that you born, your parents give to you good deposits, you will do
the same with your child. If you don’t receive enough emotional
deposits, you will see the consequences in your adult life with
your relationships. The emotional bank account is something that
transfers from generation to generation. You need to understand
that you have in your life two circles permanently around you; a
circle of influence and a circle of concern. If the circle of concern
is bigger than the circle of influence, you will not feel comfortable
with yourself. If you increase your circle of influence your wellbeing
improves.
You have 3 steps to choose from: you have direct control (in yourself
only), you have indirect control (in your family, job, partner etc.)
and you don’t have control (on the weather, neighbour, government
etc) Only your direct control gives the opportunity to incr X\