Emotional Banking

"The metaphor I’ve used that I have found very helpful to people is an Emotional Bank Account. It’s like a financial bank account into which you can make deposits and take withdrawals. And if you get into a situation where you are constantly making withdrawals" ... "you get an overdrawn Emotional Bank Account. And we all know what happens with a bank relationship when you have an overdrawn account. It kills your freedom, your flexibility, and your credit capacity." - Stephen Covey

People often wonder why I tolerate what I do from other people. My response is usually, "I tolerate a lot of negative in someone for the positive I see in them." While this is true, I find that I'm deeply ingrained in emotional investment, and possibly gambling. From the start, when I invest my energy into a person, it's because I see in them some spark of something that I value whether it be kindness, intelligence, talent, or a combination of this and more. At that moment of investment, I decide that I want to see this person happy, healthy, and reaching their potential.

The concept of emotional bank account is an exchange, though, and all relationships should be a fair exchange of goodwill and energy. However many things can become unbalanced. People make deposits and withdrawals to their personal emotional bank accounts with other people. It's okay to withdrawal now and then, that's what friends are for, but it's different when someone is always withdrawing and depositing very little. This is when we often seek to close our account with someone and disconnect, before we just start bleeding energy into someone who gives nothing back.

This is the general concept of emotional banking, but there's another aspect that people don't see, and this is probably where people don't understand why I tolerate what I do. You can do something for someone, thinking that you are making a deposit, but the value of that deposit is completely up to the interpretation of the other person, which is also the case with a withdrawal. The "Love Languages" come into effect and determine the rate of exchange on someone's actions. A kind word may seem like nothing to you, but at the right moment to the right person it might be a life changer. Also an unkind word or an unconscious action that seemed benign, might really hurt someone and make a huge withdrawal. It's all up to the person on the receiving end.

For my 20th birthday, my dad decided to smoke steak for me. Sounds like a deposit right? The problem was that the reason was not because I liked steak (at the time I did not like red meat much less steak), the reason was because my father liked steak and he had just gotten a new smoker he wanted to try out. So while it would have been what my father would have wanted, it wasn't really what I wanted, and so the deposit was not as high as he would have thought. I suppose at least I was not vegetarian.

Then there's another concept in emotional banking which I have noticed, maintenance fees. This also is pretty much in the hands of the account holder. Some people just need more input on a monthly basis than others to keep a positive balance. I'm fairly low maintenance in this area, being an introvert, but I do require a little bit from time to time as well.

So with the concept of emotional banking illustrated, it's easier to explain why I put up with things from people that perhaps others might not. Those things I see in people I love, I invest in, which means that they immediately have more in their account without doing much. Combine that then with low (although not absent) maintenance fees, and someone has to start withdrawing pretty heavily to really affect things.

Mostly it boils down to... I see some stuff that people on the peripheral might not be seeing. I take into account what someone is going through. As someone who has been through hell, I try to be understanding if someone is speaking out of pain. Perhaps I don't always succeed, but when I'm watching someone go through a hard time, I try not to take some things too personally. This certainly lightens the withdrawals. On the flip side, there are often some deposits that they might not see. Someone being there for me, when I felt I had no one to turn to, probably doesn't get widely publicized. Late night cry sessions and a shoulder to lean on, aren't something that others might see. That hug that kept me from giving up, or when they dropped everything just to listen and keep me sane were big deposits ... likewise the people who didn't want to hear it were big withdrawals. To me, these are beyond measure. So yeah, those are people I still value even through lots of bad. There's an exchange still going on there, and it might not seem fair to you, but it's still important to me.

Also someone making an effort to make things right goes a very long way with me, and is as important to me as any deposit itself. Blame shifting, Denial, Excuses, and any other form of BS or emotionally abusive diversion is just another BIGGER withdrawal and gets people in deeper in debt than they ever were to start with, in my eyes. Lies are just about the worst withdrawal you can make with me. Tip the diversion scale there and a person finds themselves on the fast track to a closed account. But a person owns up to their mistake, and tries to make it right, that amount of sucking up one's pride is HUGE to me, and counts toward a very large deposit. Personal responsibility is a very valuable quality across the board, and if you don't appreciate it for your own accounts, you might want to reassess.

Another factor is that I realize I'm not perfect. (Shocker, I know! HA!) There's a lot of inconvenience with my social anxiety, PTSD, and well just being human. So I know that I'm going to be taking some withdrawals now and then probably unintentionally, even if I'm just bopping around doing my thing and do something stupid like open my mouth. I suppose I'm Golden Ruling it a bit. I would hope that other people would be understanding with some of my issues and situations, so I try to be understanding toward others concerning theirs. People are people. I don't expect anybody to be perfect, and God forbid anyone expects it of me. It's just a matter of what one can live with based on your own exchange rate.

It's kind of funny, because to me it makes sense. I know what I see, and I'm surrounded by many wonderful and talented people. Don't think for a second that when I look at them that I'm just ignoring the bad. I see it. Everyone is a combination of good and bad, but I just hope that with the right emotional investment backers, that the bad will fall away like dead leaves, and the good will get a chance to flourish. It's a bit of a gamble. I've been disappointed many times in my life, whether I was just presented a lie, or invested in the wrong people. That's energy and time I will never get back, and that... sucks. There's no way to sugar coat it. However, when I see the friends who have flourished, the ones who are in happy, healthy relationships, or fulfilling passion projects, or just doing something amazing out of the goodness of their hearts... that right there is the pay off. And in that moment, it's all worth it.