My Greatest Achievement: Achieving Emotional Autonomy

One of the greatest personal successes for a man is the achievement of total emotional autonomy. It is the moment in which we obtain full awareness of ourselves, no more toxic addictions, no longer needing to be accepted by someone in order to fight with dignity and security for what we want and deserve.

It’s not easy. Emotional autonomy is a goal in one’s growth path that not everyone is able to achieve in an authentic way. This autonomy, defined as the ability to make decisions according to one’s will, is surrounded by thick walls, barbed wire and a fierce army of guards. External pressures and our internal saboteurs try in every way to make us miss the target.

This psychological construct actually drives many daily dynamics that may be more or less familiar to us. Each parent, for example, tries to propitiate proper emotional autonomy in their children. A know-how that can make them much more competent when the time comes to think, feel and decide goals, knowing how to assume the consequences.

Many books have been written on emotional dependence and relationships in which one member of the couple exerts power while the other is undergoing out of fear, blind love, or even pressure from a certain culture. The other side of the coin is an aspect that is not talked about much and that, indeed, is often absent in self-help manuals: emotional autonomy.

We invite you to reflect on this fundamental aspect.

The cryptic networks of control and domination

It is good to reflect on the fact that it is precisely people who are unable to control themselves who need to exercise control over others. We are talking about those individuals who lack a real emotional maturity and who, in turn, feel the need to control those they love to strengthen their self-esteem and place themselves in a position of power.

As said earlier, it is very difficult to get out of these dynamics, especially since there is almost always an anchor that holds us still, allowing us to overcome the tendency to depend on some power figures: fathers, mothers, partners … The networks of control and domination are the most delicate and at the same time the most resistant, since they feed on the most tormented love that exists: we are referring to that love that takes away oxygen, life and light.

Life does not always allow us to enjoy total and absolute personal autonomy, yet what we will always have power over is the ability to speak.

. As we develop adequate mental clarity to recover our voice and dignity, we will be able to say what we want and when we want it, what we don’t want and who we don’t want in our life.

Only then do we develop a personal and indisputable position of power towards us.

How to get our emotional autonomy

Raising ourselves to skilled strategists of emotional autonomy first of all implies mastering what is called self-efficacy. Building a strong identity that supports our integrity, that knows how to make decisions taking responsibility for the consequences and which, in turn, leads us to a positive attitude towards life, implies embarking on a very special journey. A journey into our interior to be aware of different aspects.

We invite you to begin this journey through the following stages.

The basics of self-efficacy

If someone chooses for you, you cannot feel effective. If they solve your problems, if you wait for someone to approve your ideas, give you permission, or tell you where to go and where not, you will never develop adequate self-efficacy. So remember to act only and only for your will, even if you doubt, even if you are afraid or do not feel capable.

• One of the greatest enemies of emotional independence is undoubtedly “compromised autonomy”.

  These are those complex situations built above all in the couple relationship, in which the two partners live in a situation of extremely destructive self-deception.

It happens when we say to the other phrases like “do as you like”, “do as you think”, “what you say is fine with me”, “go out with your friends tonight if that’s what you want …” when in reality that we want to communicate is the exact opposite. It is a series of implicit commands that we must learn to manage in order for emotional autonomy to be authentic and full within the relationship.

Emotional autonomy also tells us that no one has the right to decide what state of mind we should have. “You are good where you are”, “this is what you should do, what makes you happy and not the nonsense you have in your head.”

• Another aspect to think about is the fact that many of us know all too well the fundamental components of building emotional autonomy – we know what self-esteem, assertiveness, resilience are … Yet, even if we have them clearly in mind , we continue to struggle with an infinity of emotional blocks.

Sometimes we should take the advice that Erich Fromm left us when he said “have the courage to be free”. Often, in fact, it is only about this, to take risks, to take a step forward to become who we really want to be.