Crayons, Capacity, and the Cost of Bypassing Development
A Field Note on Emotional Skill, Self-Check, and Social Loopholes
Good Morning Data Collectors,
Let’s talk crayons and relationships…
Most people think relationships fall apart because of compatibility. But the truth?They fall apart because of capacity. You can love your friend.
Adore your parent.
Respect your partner.
Admire your boss.
And still not have the skills to relate with emotional integrity. You can feel deeply, want connection, mean well, and still leak shame, overreact, stonewall, micromanage, withdraw, or control. Why? Because capacity doesn’t start and end with just the intent to want to do something. Capacity is built and later stretched through— integration.
🖍️ Some People Were Born With the Whole Box
Some folks were born with all 64 crayons:
Patience
Boundary-setting
Active listening
Nervous system regulation
Embodiment
Curiosity
Non-defensiveness etc.
The others?
They may have been born with 12. Some with broken pieces, or even empty crayon wrappers with no crayons in them. But— big but here, folks. Even if you have the full box…
That doesn’t mean you have unlocked the full box.
What I mean by this is— just because you may have been born with the entire box of crayons, it doesn’t mean you were ever taught or modeled how to use them. You don’t get to use the crayons just because you own them. You only get access to use the ones you’ve developed into. Key word: developed.
When we understand this, that’s capacity.
And we don’t talk about it enough.
Where Does This Show Up?
💔 In Friendships & Relationships:
You expect reciprocity. They always cancel last minute. You give nuance. They collapse under discomfort. You initiate repair. They ghost.
Are they bad friends?
Not always. They may have less crayons, or they don’t have access to the ones with skills, patterns of behavior, etc that you need. These people hey may only use their crayons when they feel safe. Which means if you are the only safe container in the friendship, you become the art therapist, the safe house, the soul janitor. Then suddenly, that very friendship feels like parenting. You may even feel that you are now playing the same roles you are casted in the family system. Do a quick mental assess— see what data comes up for you.
💘 In Romantic Relationships:
You crave deep intimacy. They freeze at vulnerability. You try to talk through the hard stuff. They emotionally disappear. You’ve done the work. They haven’t unpacked a thing.
Are they bad partners?
Not necessarily.
They may be using crayons they’ve never developed into or trying to draw connection with crayons they were never taught to use in healthy ways OR were ever modeled how to. This part is crucial.
In partnerships, capacity clashes often look like:
One person overfunctioning emotionally, the other under-functioning
One regulating, the other reacting
One seeking repair, the other avoiding rupture altogether
Sometimes, you’re trying to co-author a love story but only one of you is holding the emotional pen. Just like in family systems, survival patterns from childhood show up in romantic roles.
We project.
We reenact.
We merge.
We flee.
Then, when one partner begins to heal begins to rest, self-regulate, ask for space, or seek co-regulation— the partner still operating from survival may feel abandoned, rejected, or criticized. This isn’t because you’re doing anything wrong. It’s a side effect of writing your love in a language they were never taught to read.
You start coloring with your full set of crayons, and they won’t even look at what you drew not out of malice, but because they literally can’t see it. Their nervous system doesn’t recognize safety that isn’t fused to whatever their blueprint is attached to as “norm.”
So your boundaries feel like betrayal.
Your calm feels like distance.
Your needs feel like demands.
You’re offering connection.
But they’re still wired for protection. This is so common.
This could be you or you could be playing the opposite roll. Either way, we name it here.
So again:
This isn’t about blame.
It’s about understanding that compatibility requires capacity.
These crayons won’t work if they’re locked behind shame, and you can’t get through shame without the ability to surrender to it so it can move through and out of you.
🧬 In Family:
You want mutual adult connection. They’re still talking to your 12-year-old self.
Or worse: you’re still stuck proving something to their 1970s inner child. Family dynamics are full of crayon inflation: People assume they’ve “been through life” so they must have developed crayons. We must understand, surviving trauma isn’t the same as integrating from it. That guilt-gifting doesn’t replace skill-based repair either. A lot of family members aren’t toxic. They’re just unequipped and some of us, because we’ve been to therapy, read the books, done the somatic work. We start assuming our crayon set is the baseline for everyone else.
It’s not.
💼 In the Workplace:
Ever had a boss with all the markers of leadership on paper?
Charisma. Success. Vision. But when conflict arose?
Emotional meltdown.
Gaslighting.
Passive-aggression.
Silence.
Those are locked crayons.
Some people gain power by bypassing development. Through dopamine shortcuts.
They collect titles but never train their tone, wrangle their nervous system, or interrupt the loop. They memorize scripts but never regulate their shame. They exploit systems that reward performance over presence which— look around. This is happening all over the macro level. In many institutions, those people get promoted for the very behaviors that keep them stagnant in the growth department.
🚨 The Bypass Loop
There are people who learned to make enough noise to get what they want without having to develop.
They found the loophole.
Cry loud enough → people enable you.
Perform humility → no one challenges you.
Project competence → no one checks your emotional literacy.
Create chaos → others overfunction and clean it up.
But underneath that noise…
Is a tantrum, because they know deep down—they’re not using the crayon they were supposed to unlock. So instead of sitting in that shame, they demand another crayon from someone else, and some of you are out here giving people your own crayons and screaming “no access” to everyone else.
They trade development for domination then flip it, decorate it up, and slap the label “leadership, Love” or “just how I am.” Meanwhile you develop BBS, (Bitter B*tch Syndrome) or become full of the infection of resentment. Due to what you tolerated and allowed. I see this all the time. The issue— BBS and resentment are poison for the body it is within. How can you clear that bitterness? How can you clear that resentment? How do you forgive yourself for what you allowed or what you tolerated?
Self-Check: How’s Your Capacity?
It’s easy to point out someone else’s locked crayons.
But here’s the real work:
Do I expect others to match my capacity… without checking if I’ve expanded mine?
Do I collect emotional tools… but rarely use them when it counts?
Are there crayons I’m scared to develop because of how it will stretch my nervous system?
Do I hide my locked crayons behind a story, a trauma card, or an aesthetic?
Capacity isn’t just about what you have.
It’s about what you’re willing to practice.
And if we’re honest…
Some of us are still holding onto a box of crayons we refuse to open, because the minute we do, we’ll have to admit we are afraid to color outside the lines.
Reflection Prompts
What “crayon” (emotional skill) am I avoiding developing right now? Why?
Where have I been bypassing my own growth by using someone else’s crayons?
Who in my life do I expect more from than they’ve ever shown capacity to give?
Where do I assume someone’s behavior is about me… when it’s actually about their locked crayon set?
What skill have I developed that I forget to honor because it’s now “normal” for me?
Where am I being emotionally generous—and where am I over-functioning because someone else refuses to learn?
My work is never about blaming people for having less crayons or for being where they are at the start of change. It’s about honoring the process of unlocking the necessary skills we need in order to take accountability for our role in the dynamics we are apart of.
Even if it’s one dull crayon at a time.
✨ Because the real masterpiece?
Isn’t in the set you were born with.
It’s in what you learned to draw— with the ones you developed.
✨Welcome Paid Sanctuary Members.✨
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Until next time.
Come as you are, where you are. — Sav
good stuff 👏