Therapist Jerry Wise: “Over-seriousness is a reactive state…when we become immature, naive…when we enmesh through seriousness and intensity. This lessens our self-differentiation and clouds our self-awareness.”
“So often, people are talking and someone becomes very serious… If we are the ones becoming serious, it doesn’t feel funny. We don’t see the humor. We’re not flexible. We’re not loose internally. We’ve become solid and rigid. This reflects lower self-differentiation. It tends to freeze us and we become paralyzed inside and we have fewer options mentally and emotionally. Enmeshment and fusion hinders intimacy and calm in a relationship.”
“Over-seriousness is too much intensity, which inhibits relationship fluidity and the healthy relationship dance. Once someone becomes over-serious, it stops the interplay between two people in a relaxed and fluid way.”
“When we become over-serious, it’s like grabbing the lapels of someone else in the relationship. We miss the process of the relationship and we focus on the content.”
“We can get caught up in our own emotional thinking process. We’re not ourselves. We’re a cause or who we think we should be. If you want to find people become over-serious, talk about politics or religion. Some people will become over-serious, preachy, or defensive or reactive, which leads to emotional cut-off and indicates low self-differentiation.”
“When my son called me the worst parent in the world because I wouldn’t let him see his friend Tommy, I said, ‘Yes, I am the worst dad in the world.'”
“In the world of self-differentiation, we don’t want to allow our buttons to be pushed. That gives someone else too much power. When we grow up in dysfunctional families, we tend to have too many buttons to give our power away.”
“When we become overly-serious, we become less self-aware.”
“Let me use the example of the skin. It’s a good organ to think of how we should be. The skin should be moist, supple, smooth, flexible. If it becomes hard, brittle, blistered, dry, solid, then it does not function as well. Our sense of self needs to be smooth and supple, not hard and rigid.”
“Resist, own and resolve your own over-seriousness. When you become over-serious, identify what you need and want because often you probably haven’t done that. Ask yourself, what would I lose or what would be the downside of not being over-serious about this? What fears would I have? What problems would that cause for me?”
