Communicating Feelings
Well, now that you have identified some feelings, wouldn't it be nice to have a safe means of communicating them? You need to let people know how experiences are affecting you but not offend, threaten, or expose others in the process. That's what I mean by "safe."
Here's a nice little emotional communication formula that works well.
When (happens)
It makes me
And I feel .
This removes the "blame spin" from what you are saying. This prevents defensiveness on the part of the listener. The last thing (besides violence) you want in a conversation is defensiveness. Defensiveness is just another word for "This conversation is officially over!" In order to have effective communication (meaning it does at least some good) you must intend to keep the channels open.
Here's some samples of how the little emotional communication formula works:
When: you don't listen to me
It makes me: seem insignificant
And I feel: hurt. When: I get passed over for a promotion
It makes me: wonder if I am useful here
And I feel: confused. When: I cook a great meal and nobody says anything
It appears that: I am taken for granted
And I feel: irritated.
Notice that the last one is modified slightly. You can do that! There's no strict rule here. The point is to: a) be clear; b) own the feelings; and, c) prevent defensiveness. So, remembering to use the I pronoun a lot more than the You pronoun is a good rule of thumb for keeping the channels of communication open.
Try it for a while until it becomes natural. It works wonders.
Suppression
Why is it so important to know your own feelings and communicate your emotions? Suppression, or "stuffing" of feelings, is usually not healthy for adults. As children we learned how to do this because perhaps there was a penalty for not doing it — maybe we heard people saying things back to us such as:
- "I'll give you something to be mad about, Buster!" (when we exhibited anger),
- "You have nothing to feel sad about. Stop feeling sorry for yourself!" (when we exhibited sadness), or
- "What are you afraid of, you big chicken!" (when we exhibited fear).
In other words we were threatened or shamed for having honest emotions so we developed means of "eating our feelings" in order to be safe.
Now, as adults, we have to unlearn this habit by knowing that it is safe to, first, identify and, secondly, talk about our feelings. In this manner we get to enjoy having that juice of emotion back in our lives. There are enough stressors in daily life without creating more through unnecessary storage of unresolved emotions.
Because emotions have a physical as well as a mental component, many of the methods in the next section are also helpful in dealing effectively with your feelings.
Continue...
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