We Turn Cold to Survive
In the end, almost without knowing how, that day comes when you turn a bit colder, a bit more cautious so as to start remembering what that thing called self-love was. However, those around us do not end up understanding this necessary inner change. It is then that the “magic” happens: others start to value the person you were before.
Whoever says that people do not change is wrong. Human beings do not vary their behaviors nor their personality type from one day to another, just at the snap of a finger. The process of changing is something more intimate, deliberate, and even unpleasant, because more than changing, we grow. Something like this can only be achieved by being fully aware of our limitations and black holes.
Even the most infatuated heart gets tired of being heart, and then it becomes a bit colder, with more walls and barbed wire. It is at precisely this moment that others start to value the person you were before.
In our complex journey through life, turning cold is not much less than a turnaround. It is a simple defense mechanism. Because our existence does not imply only facing the complications of our daily lives, it is essential for us to be capable of creating our own survival processes in order to be the true protagonists of this adventure.
A cold heart and the absence of the little things
Jeffrey Kottler is one of the best-known popularizers of change psychology. With books like “Alone with oneself,” he teaches us that one thing is clear: people change out of need and in order to survive more efficiently.
So then, there is one detail that never stops being really interesting. For example, when we go a while without seeing a person and upon seeing them again, we notice a certain change in their attitude, we wonder, “but what could have happened to them?” Just as Doctor Kottler indicates to us, people do not go through great transformations, nor is it necessary for us to experience sudden events with a great impact in order to change.
The gossip in daily life is enough, the mundaneness of little letdowns, of words said or not said, of absences, of continual rejections, and of giving everything without receiving anything in return. They are little specks of sand that little by little create veritable emotional deserts, providing at the same time a change that is clearly needed: starting to prioritize oneself in order to survive.
Defending ourselves from the selfishness that stalks us
A cold heart is a mind that has become tired of waiting. It is our self-esteem setting off the alarm and our concept of ourselves going out the emergency door in search of a solution. Being a little colder is the temporary response to the dissonance of life. It is putting up red lines so that our self-love can sprout again.
So then, the most likely thing is for the people closest to us to perceive that change and to wonder what is happening and why we are no longer the thoughtful and manageable people that we were before. It is also possible that far from understanding said change, they feel bothered by not finding that lock in our heart where, before, all our doors opened up to satisfy their selfishness.
This transformation also allows us to dig deeper into various aspects that we will point out to you below.
Things that a cold heart has learned
A person with a slightly colder heart – that is not dead nor destroyed nor turned off – has understood that things cannot always be the way we desire. We have to accept them as they are and act accordingly.
We also know that life sometimes is not fair and that people are not always loyal or respectful. Therefore, before focusing our existence on what others do or stop doing to find self-validation, let us discover that it will always be better to set to one side what we feel so that our self-love is not always sacrificed.
Every letdown experienced, every blackmail experienced, and every void stored has made the “spark” of negative thoughts in our mind go off rather often. As such, after having achieved some calm and seen things from the picture window of a heart that has become slightly colder, we understand that there are only two options: to hang onto our own negativity or to disinfect it. We choose the second.
Sometimes everything that disappears and dies within us returns us suddenly to reality. A slightly colder and more prudent heart looks at things with greater moderation, to decide what is staying and what is leaving our lives, and whether we believe it or not, there is nothing bad about this.
Because changing is growing and gaining dignity. A natural process thanks to which the light finally shines through our scars.