As the flurry of expat Indians arrive and depart India, I have been hearing incessantly from both sides about the impossible limitations of the other. Can’t help noticing though, that even as the expats noisily complain how their local cousins will never understand how hard it is to live abroad, the locals double their efforts to point out what an easy life these expats have relative to their own, reinforcing the expats' conviction that the locals will never understand. Watching this dance, I am reminded of other dyads--mother and child, husband and wife, lover and lover--where this same process takes place: one person extricates an emotion from another, convinced that the other will never give them the reaction they desire--and in doing so, loses the opportunity for that desired reaction.
Extricated emotions are feelings that we prevent other people from having by verbally and emotionally denying their ability to have it. Yung-Hi uses this example to explain what extricated emotions are: when a mother says to a child who has accidentally broken something “you’re not sorry at all,” she extricates the capacity for remorse from the child, thus reducing slightly his ability to feel and express it. The child in turn may respond (despite feeling sorry) “you’re right and I’m glad I did it”.
I think we extricate most often when we have a continued need to hold onto a belief despite the possibility of something else. Hard as it may seem to believe, there are times when we need to stay angry or depressed or believe that our expat cousins have an easier life than we do. Holding on to moods or beliefs helps us to justify our own choices or to avoid complexity (for example the thought that expats have their own difficulties versus just having a better life is a complex one).
There is of course the reality that sometimes people are impossible or not sorry at all. Yet, pausing to consider the possibility that we are extricating an emotion from others allows them (and ourselves) the possibility of change. When we project our feelings we miss the opportunity to know ourselves emotionally, it’s a personal loss. When we extricate emotions we miss the opportunity to know another—a relational loss.
