Let’s Talk About The “boiling Frog Syndrome “

Sometimes we tolerate harmful situations and people for too long, just because we have to follow the command “if there is no other solution, then you have to tolerate it”, just like the frog in our history.

And we really can not ignore the fact that many of us suppress our emotional well-being for other things. It also often happens that we can not think only of our well-being, because there are other people who are dependent on us in some way.

We can also endure tough situations for a long time due to emotional dependence, a destructive relationship, or perhaps because we lack the emotional intelligence required to know what is normal and what is not.

You may tolerate situations until you burn up, without ever being aware of the need to jump off the ship in time to save yourself. This is why we want you to learn about the frog syndrome who did not know he was cooking, an idea first explained by Olivier Clerc.

Boiling frog syndrome

Put a frog in a pot full of water and start heating the water. As the water temperature begins to rise, the frog will adjust its body. The frog adjusts its body temperature as the water temperature rises.

When the water has reached its boiling point, the frog can no longer adjust itself. It then decides to jump. It tries to jump in can not do so because it has used all its strength to adjust its body temperature. The frog will die very soon.

What killed the frog? Think about it? I know many will say the boiling water. But the truth is that what killed the frog was its own inability to decide when to jump.

We must all adapt to both people and situations, but we must know when we should adapt and when we should continue to move forward. There are times when we have to face situations and act.

If we allow other people to blow us up physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually or mentally, they will continue to do so.

Let’s decide when it’s time to jump! We will jump while we still have the strength for it.

What this metaphor says about us

The boiling frog syndrome has many implications for different situations in our lives, for our relationships, our work, our personality, etc. The people who are trapped in a relationship that does not give them anything good, will constantly adjust themselves to their partners’ desires. and opinions for not rocking the boat so to speak; they think they can tolerate it or they have no other choice.

But tolerating things this way for too long will only lead to problems and difficult situations. When we least expect it, we will encounter an extreme situation, and we will not be able to control it anymore, and we will have to jump, flee, or at least come up with an escape plan from that situation or relationship, but then we will may already be severely injured.

We may no longer have the strength to face that situation that has arisen because we do not have enough energy, we have no way out, we have not thought about it before, or we may already be too hurt to leave the situation. for another that could be worse.

Sometimes our ability to tolerate things goes too far, but our strength and our hope burn away a little at a time.

A matter of daily stress and acute stress

Richard Lazarus pointed out different ways of dealing with stress and that there are also two types of stress: chronic daily stress and acute stressful life events.

We are usually told that stressful situations such as divorce, death, loss of home or work will affect us a lot, and perhaps this is true. But when we are faced with this type of event with a major negative and threatening impact, we must prepare ourselves to deal with the situation: “jump in time”.

But daily stressful situations are the ones we have to worry about on a larger scale. Some of these events do not turn out to be negative until after a long time. This is the case with domestic violence because we sometimes receive positive treatment and other times negative, other times tolerable. In this way, the discomfort will be eternally present; it just keeps adjusting itself until the situation becomes unbearable.

The best way to deal with this fact is to acknowledge, in other words, not to boycott our own feelings and tell ourselves that this is normal. If you feel bad about a situation or the same person for a long time, then something is wrong.

You have to jump. It is not just about escaping, but about walking on the plank and jumping, responding to the situation and finding out what possible solutions there are. Remember that those who tolerate for too long rarely have the strength to try to change the situation in the end. The damage has already occurred and has been internalized.