Ep. 1 Analysis: Russel Brand: Getting Over His Exes Part 1: Time
I’m a judgmental man, especially when it comes to celebrities. I never cared for the idol worshiping of celebrities and just saw that as another religion of false gods that allows people to fall into their destiny of creating their personally curated hell. It’s the same way people function in romantic relationships.
What I’m trying to admit is that I was moved by a video I saw of him speaking about break-ups. I watched a man mingle with truth due to his experiences and you can watch him forming new words and thoughts as he spoke to us through his camera.
The emotional weight behind what he says is real. But, let’s take apart each point he makes to see if we can back up what he says and generalize it to the majority of people, or if what he was speaking about and the advice and wisdom he was giving really would only work for him.
Here is the link to the 24 seconds we are going to be analyzing psychoanalytically: https://youtu.be/NgvpqcS8kV4
The First 24 Seconds. The Majority of us are Hung Up on our Past Relationships
I couldn’t find a credible psychological statistic to show that over 50% of single people are living in the past obsessing about their exes, but from a professional point of view, I’d say he’s correct. Also, to say over 50% is a pretty safe statement to make because that as long as it’s 50.01% – 100% of people the statement is true. His odds are 1:1. Maybe I’m getting into semantics there, but it matters to me.
But let’s take a step away from the “rationality is king” medical model psychology leans on.
The thing about us humans is that we are always living in the past. Even worse is that there is no such thing as the past. Everything that has happened to us is happening to us always. Our physical bodies hold the superstitious concept of time, but not our unconscious minds.
Psychoanalyst Carl Jung, a man who deeply researched love and who himself had an exotic love life said that there is no time in the unconscious mind.
But this boundarilessness of time for us in the unconscious is a part of the reason why we can love. We love someone because what they did in the past exist in us and is alive today and, through faith, tomorrow.
I love you because I lived new and loving experiences with you in the past which now eternally live in me today and I have faith they will be with me tomorrow which is always today.
But what happens when time collapses in our minds?
Time Collapse
Time collapse was spoken about by Vamik Volkan (1997) in Bloodlines. From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism. Not exactly a book on love.
“The emotions and perceptions associated with the past begin to be experienced as if the trauma had just occurred, and they are even projected onto the future. What is remembered, felt, and expected come together. In the setting of large groups, time collapse might exaggerate the need and justification for taking revenge for old injuries to the group’s collective (Akhtar, 2018,p. 287).”
This is what happens when time collapses in your conscious mind where the past, present, and future are to be separated.
I hate you because I lived a new and destructive experience with you in the past which now eternally lives in me today and I have faith they will live in me tomorrow which is always today.
This is why we can’t get over our exes. We forcefully keep them alive within us, like souls we have stolen.
Another part of the puzzle on why we are stuck in our past and can’t get over our exes is due to Time Dominance which was termed by Morton Beiser’s (1997) article in the Journal of Operational Psychiatry called Coping with the past and future: a study of adaption to social change in West Africa.
“The predominant valence of a particular era (past, present, or future) in an individual’s psychic life; in immigrants and refugees, the past continues to dominate the present and there is little affective investment in the future (Akhtar, 2018,p. 287).”
Let me mess your mind up even more. When the unconscious mind, which usually has no time, breaks down time into parts and a certain era of time dominates the unconscious mind, then there can be no future for a person. When you are so dominated by the experiences and impulses of a past relationship and what that past relationship represents, then you have lost your free will to move on from that past. What drives you are the stolen souls of your unconscious past that you are allowing to dominate you. That’s what common tongue calls “baggage”.
When you’re dating someone with baggage you’re dating a wraith, a vengeful ghost, who will see you for who they need you to be, the person or people who unconsciously dominate their past, instead of who you are.
If you have baggage, you’re a wraith, and you will treat everyone as if they are your previous partners because you don’t want to let go of those previous partners.
I know we have wandered far from the initial question if 50% of us are obsessing over our past relationships. I’m making the point that 50% is conservative.
That should frighten you.
The person who has delved deeply into themselves has put themselves first in their life and can approach a relationship knowing that the other person they are looking for is to be a compliment in their life and not their everything. They approach love with conscious and unconscious time in its place, and it’s horrifying.
Once you’ve reached that horror, and dealt with it, you can sit at a bar and see all these people mingling, but they’re all wraiths. You can recognize the wraiths by the way they talk to you, by what they ask you about and by the feelings you get from them. All of those whispers become as loud as chains rattling in the dark. And then you can look back at yourself and wonder if you’re just a wraith too.
Let me answer that for you.
You are.
Adam Ayala is a Psychoanalytical Psychotherapist who helps women who are suffering from the aftermath of divorce, or the end of a long-term relationship, overcome the hell of separation, loneliness and dread, and get back to the place where they feel happy, confident, and ready to find the perfect person to spend the rest of their life with once more.
Adam Ayala also works with men to understand their SMV so they can stop chasing destructive women and build up themselves so they can find a woman who compliments their life.
You can catch him writing for Thrive Global, Youtube Channel, Parler, Twitter, and his Discord chatting with his community when he's not working with clients.
References
Akhtar, S. (2018). Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. New York, NY: Routledge.
Beiser, M. (1997). Coping with past and future: a study of adaption to social change in West Africa. Journal of Operational Psychiatry, 11: 140 – 154.
Vilkan, V. (1997). Bloodlines. From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.