Kareena Kapoor Khan not too long ago shared a cryptic publish highlighting how life’s hardest moments can change one’s perspective. Her phrases concerning the humbling nature of real-life experiences come simply weeks after her husband, Saif Ali Khan, survived a violent assault at their Mumbai residence.
Whereas the publish she shared doesn’t explicitly reference the incident, it touches on how private struggles — be it marriage, parenting, or loss — can solely be totally understood when one goes by them firsthand. “You’ll by no means actually perceive marriages, divorces, anxieties, childbirth, demise of a liked one, parenting. Till it truly occurs to you, theories and assumptions of conditions in life should not realities. You assume you might be smarter than most till life humbles you when it’s your flip,” the actor posted with a coronary heart emoji on her Instagram story on Saturday.
Troublesome experiences typically problem our assumptions and drive us to see issues otherwise. Many individuals imagine they’ve all of the solutions till life throws them into surprising conditions, making them realise how little they really knew.
Why do folks typically wrestle to empathise with life challenges till they expertise them personally?
Gurleen Baruah, existential psychologist at That Cultural Factor, tells indianexpress.com, “Individuals typically wrestle to empathise with life challenges like marriage, grief, or anxiousness till they expertise them personally as a result of true empathy isn’t nearly understanding — it’s about feeling. Till somebody has lived by a scenario, their thoughts processes it in a indifferent, logical manner slightly than an emotional one. It is because our brains depend on previous experiences to interpret feelings. If we haven’t felt one thing earlier than, we are likely to underestimate its depth or complexity.”
The mind protects us from pointless misery by maintaining intense feelings at a distance till they develop into private, she provides. Social conditioning additionally performs a job; many cultures emphasise resilience, making folks dismiss struggles they haven’t encountered firsthand. However as soon as somebody experiences a problem, their notion shifts. “They now have a visceral reminiscence to connect to it, making them extra compassionate in the direction of others in related conditions. It’s not that individuals lack empathy earlier than experiencing one thing — it’s simply that actual understanding typically requires residing by the feelings, not simply observing them,” states the psychologist.
How going by a traumatic occasion modifications an individual’s notion of themselves and the world round them
Going by a traumatic occasion can depart deep psychological scars, reshaping how an individual sees each themselves and the world. Baruah notes, “The amygdala, the mind’s concern heart, turns into hyperactive after trauma, making the world really feel extra harmful than earlier than. Even in protected conditions, the mind might keep on excessive alert, scanning for threats, resulting in heightened anxiousness, hypervigilance, and even emotional numbness. This shift isn’t simply psychological — it’s physiological. The physique and mind adapt to trauma by rewiring responses to guard in opposition to future hurt, however this may additionally result in emotions of alienation, mistrust, or a way that life is completely modified.”
Self-perception typically takes a success, too. Baruah shares that trauma can shatter an individual’s perception in their very own resilience, “making them really feel weaker, damaged, or essentially completely different” from who they have been earlier than. Some wrestle with guilt or disgrace, feeling they need to have responded otherwise, even once they had no management. Others would possibly dissociate from their previous self totally, as in the event that they’re not the identical individual.
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Baruah mentions, “The mind’s reminiscence techniques — particularly the hippocampus — may also be affected, making the previous really feel like a blurry mess or, conversely, trapping somebody in vivid, intrusive flashbacks. Over time, trauma can reshape id, resulting in both a lack of self or, in some instances, post-traumatic progress, the place people discover new which means, resilience, or function within the aftermath of their struggling.”
