Why “SUCK IT UP” is wrong to utter:
Yandiswa Xhakaza kaRadebe
Social Innovation | Impact Investing | Monitoring & Evaluation | Ecosystem Builder
Encouraging kids not to feel their feelings results in adults that lack empathy, as they don’t understand why or how people even feel, it’s something they do not understand or relate to and therefore cannot offer sympathies. When we occasionally say these words, we reinforce a culture of suppressed emotions, we tell kids they are better without emotion than with it, we ask them to be cold and brutal, we ask them to erase the very thing that makes us human. When you cannot feel your emotions, you lose your internal compass & get lost in the world, possibly the worst thing to happen to anyone is to get lost in the world. Emotions are guides that lead us where our souls know we belong, without them, we are truly lost as people and so I ask that we don’t loosely throw around terms, like, “Suck it up, get over it, move on…” that rather; we encourage people to sink in the deep ocean of emotion and feel everything they need to feel, so that it may pass through and not clog up space in the body (which could lead to illness).
MEd Candidate ? UJ | ICT Facilitator ? Wits Enterprise | Scie Instructor ? St Barnabas SOS | Tutor ? IEB & CAPS (Gr 10?11?12)
2 年I am a product of such upbringing and now have a lived experience of “…losing my internal compass & getting lost in the world, “ and I can confirm that indeed “it was the worst thing to happen…!” One is lucky if they turn their world around as young adults, we heed the call. Thank you ????
SDGs 3, 4, 5 &10/Literacy/Training/R&D/Coaching/QA/ESL
2 年We've seen the very negative effects that this approach has, especially on young lads. I'm currently going through literature on how 'the body keeps the score'. I think it's important that we stop thinking of emotions as fluffy, unimportant things. Emotions that are not felt and resolved/desolved with the event do in fact get trapped in the body and cause psychological and physical illness (vagus nerve).
Host of Education Matters Podcast
2 年A straight to the point note. Thank you for this. I definitely want to add. A response that lacks empathy also speaks volumes in terms of how we choose to relate to each other: surface level. Yes, not every person wants to lay their vulnerabilities loudly, but to care enough to let a person be is helpful. In that way, we recognise our humanity, to feel. There is acknowledgment and visibility in that. There is also an element of carelessness when teens are taught to “suck it up”, “get over it”, etc. We tend to react to the outcome of sucking it up; when it is much more difficult to have the ‘feelings’ conversations. When teens have been heard through addictions and unhealthy coping mechanisms. When conversations of feelings require a third party to be clearly heard.
Chief Revenue Officer at Zaio | Expertise in Growth Marketing
2 年This is so insightful Yandiswa Xhakaza kaRadebe thanks for putting it together. It’s quite evident in the current working culture working where we are met with different generations working together, I personally found that colleagues simply don’t have the tools on how to deal with various emotions and often just revert to “sucking it up”