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Actually, all behaviors are both repressive and expressive; some are overtly repressive and some are overtly expressive. However, the overtly repressive behaviors and attitudes have an expressive bent, while overtly expressive behaviors and attitudes have a repressive bent. The dynamic which influences which combination will dictate an individual’s behaviors and attitudes are genetic and experiential and are as unique to the individual as one’s fingerprint, but they are thoroughly established during the individual's attachment experience years; roughly within the first three years of a person's life. The tremendous energy being consumed by these repressive and expressive behaviors and attitudes is energy wasted on dysfunctional enterprises. Beyond this waste, repressive and expressive behaviors and attitudes alienate the individual from their Self and others. Beyond this alienation, repressive and expressive behaviors and attitudes create world-wide false realities; realities that are countless degrees removed from authentic life.
For myriad sound and rational reasons, the shy individual has been conditioned by life experiences and genetics to direct aggressive and destructive emotional energies inward. The shock and awe of caregiver behavior during the individual's attachment experience years is internalized and usually undetected by external observation. Often, this repression is praised by the caregiver because the child is now doing what the caregiver wants the child to be doing. Nevermind that the child is traumatized. It is the caregiver's world the child must adapt to because the caregiver assumes supremacy. The individual has internalized his or her debilitating experiences. The shy individual’s behaviors and attitudes are also expressive; they are expressive of this inner carnage; the ramifications of containing destructive emotional energies within are externalized in varying degrees of tentativeness, non-social behaviors, Self-deprecation and subjugation.
For myriad sound and rational reasons, the aggressive and violent individual has been conditioned by life experiences and genetics to direct aggressive and destructive emotional energies outward. There is a repressive element, however. Debilitating patterns of experience that began during the individual’s attachment experience years have impacted the individual, but for reasons subject to the mathematic laws of physics, this individual is unable to contain the shock and awe, thus causing the child to repress his or her childhood needs and assume the role of protector. The ramifications of this individual's inability to contain destructive emotional energies within, is a very visible display of destructive emotion. That children do a less than adequate job protecting themselves is no surprise.
Internal or external, repressive or expressive, Adult-compromising behaviors and attitudes are horribly destructive to the individual. Both are caused by a continuous pattern of caregiver behavior that states very clearly in relational body language that the child is insignificant, lacking value and worth. Thus demoralized, the child rejects their Self, and to survive, attaches to the caregiver. The individual's True Self is being buried alive. [see: Security Systems] We are all thus affected to one degree or another. All this destruction of relationship results from a person’s inability to understand, accept and Love his or her Self. Whether this pain of Self-rejection is expressed inward or outward is of no consequence to the war raging within the individual. Each is equally destructive and debilitating. Gather enough of these poor souls together and what you have is an aggressive nation fueled by the breeder reactor nature of Self-rejection, Self-hatred and Self-despisement. Gather enough of these sorts of nations and what you have is a pretty big mess!
All Adult-compromising behaviors and attitudes, whether repressive or expressive, are caused by the rejection of our True-Self; every last one of them. The single element common to each Adult-compromising behavior and attitude, is fear; little fears that grow into monstrous fears; little childish Boogey-men that grow into paralyzing, Adult-compromising, grotesque, hideous, horrifying, larger than life, Adult-Boogey-men. Let’s take a look at a few of them. Now would be a good time to take a break and watch the movie, "Boogey-Man."
One of the most common Adult-compromising behaviors, is, anger. Who of us has not been angry at one time or another? Who of us has not been the victim of someone who is angry? We have been told to be angry, but sin not. If we are to believe sacred accounts, even Jesus got angry. How can one not get angry when they find themselves being abused and injured by another person, or when someone they Love is being abused and injured by another person? How can one not get angry when the innocent are ravaged by the powerful? What is so compromising about anger? Heck, with a little imagination, I could get angry just hearing someone telling me anger is Adult-compromising!
Anger is not bad, and it is not good. It's not right, and it's not wrong. Anger is simply a body's response to the dynamics of a situation. Anger should not be repressed. When one is angry, that anger should and must be owned. The anger, and thus the roots, the source, of that anger, belong to the individual and nobody else! Whenever anger rears its head, however, it is appropriate and healthy. It is the way the body was designed. But, most important of all, anger is a messenger from nature with a message about you, the individual who is experiencing anger, and not the other person, or situation. Society's problem is that it has never learned how to read these messages. [see: From Attachment Experience to Adult Relationships]
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