Sep 29, 2026 · 39 min · 20 segments
When Understanding Someone Becomes an Excuse for Them **Why Childhood Wounds Can Make Us Over-Explain Other People’s Behavior and Under-Protect Ourselves** What if being emotionally intelligent has…
Paula LoweHost
When you start healing, and ironically, sometimes it happens because you're healing.
You start learning about trauma, right? Attachment styles, childhood wounds, nervous system responses, emotional unavailability, avoidance, fear of abandonment, fear of intimacy, mother wounds, father wounds, and suddenly you can explain everybody.
Or he pulls away whenever the relationship becomes emotionally intimate because closeness makes him feel vulnerable.
Maybe, maybe every single one of those things is true, but I want to ask you something.
What is the behavior doing to you? Because somewhere along the way, emotional intelligence can become emotional over-accommodation.
You become so compassionate towards someone's wounds that you stop protecting yourself from their behavior.
Because understanding why somebody hurt you doesn't make being hurt by them healthy.
Understanding another person's experiences can completely change how we interpret their behavior.
Actually, empathy does have a shadow side to it when it isn't paired with discernment.
You can become so focused on why are they like this that you stop asking, is this healthy in the way that they're treating me? Those are different questions.
When you start healing, and ironically, sometimes it happens because you're healing.
You start learning about trauma, right? Attachment styles, childhood wounds, nervous system responses, emotional unavailability, avoidance, fear of abandonment, fear of intimacy, mother wounds, father wounds, and suddenly you can explain everybody.
Or he pulls away whenever the relationship becomes emotionally intimate because closeness makes him feel vulnerable.
Maybe, maybe every single one of those things is true, but I want to ask you something.
What is the behavior doing to you? Because somewhere along the way, emotional intelligence can become emotional over-accommodation.
You become so compassionate towards someone's wounds that you stop protecting yourself from their behavior.
Because understanding why somebody hurt you doesn't make being hurt by them healthy.
Understanding another person's experiences can completely change how we interpret their behavior.
Actually, empathy does have a shadow side to it when it isn't paired with discernment.
You can become so focused on why are they like this that you stop asking, is this healthy in the way that they're treating me? Those are different questions.
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