Wounds That Heal With Ice Cream
The scene, not archetypal, stops being repeated and imitated. A couch, a blanket, and a big tub of ice cream. In the head a storm of dark clouds and the feeling that in that small soft cabin there is the only place on the fringes of earthquakes, bombs, attacks or other emotional catastrophes.
It is the cold and sweet taste of ice cream, compared to the warmth of the blanket, which serves as an ink to write the first tenuous attempt at reconciliation with the world. A raft where to identify and re-calibrate all the schemes that have been threatened. Schemes that, whether they are many or few, what they are is important.
The power of cold
Ice is one of the most powerful anti-inflammatories and anesthetics that we know of. When we have cold feet it is as if we do not feel them. When we have a muscle injury, the first thing they recommend is ice to reduce inflammation, preventing even more blood from concentrating in the damaged area.
Taking distance, getting out of that state in “hot” also allows us to cut a stream of incessant thoughts that only increase the size and the bulky of our emotional wound. In addition, getting out of conflictive situations, in which we feel that the dynamics of the atmosphere drag us, also prevents us from saying what we do not want to say, or at least saying with that anger or lack of care.
If you think about all the words you’ve said and later regretted, I’m sure most of them have been hot, in the midst of that inertia we talked about before. An anger or sadness that at times blinds you and plays with care and affection the way you express yourself.
The cold is used to regain calm, then prevents the wounds from healing
If we permanently keep that ice on a fibrillar tear, the blood will not come, and therefore that tissue will not receive the necessary nutrients to heal. The same thing happens with emotional wounds, the cold from the ice cream is fine for the first afternoon, for the first hours, then it is the warm and enriching human contact that can best help us heal that wound.
Even the contact with us, a look inside ourselves, the one that we have not looked at for a long time because it scares us. In fact, if we keep that cold, worry and sadness become enraged: they make their home in us. Later they will be more complicated to cast. Hence the importance of having a social circle that is aware of us and is part of our emotional immune system.
Our mind, so wonderful and magical, works in this way. It has mechanisms that are adaptive when used in a limited space of time, such as denial in the event of the loss of a loved one, but that turn against us when they threaten to settle in perpetuity. Thus, like ice, any disconnection from reality must have an expiration date so that the performance it offers us in the short term is not outweighed by the damage of maintaining it.
We have used the analogy of the afternoon in pajamas, with a sofa and ice cream, but there are more subtle escapes such as long walks alone or the irascibility with which we try to push away anyone who tries to get close. We’re not really angry, but we don’t want anyone to bring us back what we have declared war on.
We don’t want to pay it with them, that’s when the guilt adds up. Because we don’t know how to do it, no one has taught us to ask for space and if some people have taught us they understand that just the opposite resides under this request. That is why emotional intelligence resides in subtle people, because it is a matter of nuances and rules that bend until they reach the breaking point. Use it to your advantage and think, when the ice cream runs out, that it is time to go back to the world, not to buy another.
