by Anne Dickson
If you have ever felt at the mercy of your feelings or struggled to control them for fear they might overwhelm you, you will recognise the importance of being able to handle them effectively. Competence in managing feelings first requires some understanding of what feelings are all about. This chapter is especially relevant to assertive communication because you need to know how to identify your feelings first in order to know how to acknowledge them in words.
What causes feelings? We generally accept that some kind of emotion is to be expected when a significant event occurs in our lives, such as the death of a loved one, falling in love, redundancy, the shock of a bad car accident or the birth of a baby. But we tend to ignore the feelings triggered by minor events in our lives: ordinary, everyday interaction with other human beings gives us plenty of scope to experience all sorts of feelings.
Feelings are related to human needs. Let’s start with the need to give and receive love. If this need is fulfilled, we respond with feelings of closeness, harmony, intimacy, belonging, togetherness, warmth and affection. If the need is not met or comes to an end for some reason we feel sadness, pain, longing, emptiness, rejection and loneliness: we feel the grief of loss and separation. A second need is to make choices, to be self-directing in our lives: feelings connected with this need when it’s fulfilled are power, strength, enthusiasm, determination, energy, fulfilment, satisfaction and elation. If this need is blocked, we react with frustration, impatience, helplessness, irritation, fury, outrage and anger. A third need we have as humans is to understand and make sense of our environment: it moves us to enquire and seek information and to communicate. Satisfying this need makes us feel safe, secure and gives us a feeling of belonging. When we feel understood and recognised, we feel valued, acknowledged, a sense of belonging, confident and accepted for who we are: we feel trust. If we do not understand or cannot make ourselves understood we feel unsafe, anxious, confused, panicky, isolated, fearful, mistrustful and afraid.
The depth and quality of our feelings can vary widely. The ending of a wonderful holiday makes us feel sad but the ending of a close relationship makes us grieve intensely. An affectionate letter from a friend makes us feel warm; a spontaneous hug from a child touches a deeper level of love. If we are in a hurry and the tin-opener won’t work or the traffic lights are red, we feel impatient and frustrated. But if we are cheated out of money due to us or fall victim to bureaucratic stupidity or racial discrimination, our anger will strike a deeper chord. The satisfaction which follows the mastery of a new skill or the pride in accomplishing a difficult task illustrates how we can feel when we are in command. The security that comes from knowing exactly what you are doing, the delight in talking with someone who is on the same wavelength or the relief of an important insight are all ways of experiencing the satisfaction of the need to understand. When we are vulnerable and unsafe, we feel fear: this can range from anxiety about getting lost in unknown territory to alarm if your child is late home or dread if you discover a mysterious lump in your breast.
One single event can affect a range of needs at the same time. Take, for example, a young child whose mother dies. She will feel grief through separation and the loss of her mother; she will feel frightened because she cannot make sense of the meaning of death and does not know what will happen to her; she will probably feel angry with her mother for ‘leaving’ her in this way and so feel helpless in these new circumstances.
Exploring our feelings can be a useful start to unravelling the complexity of what and why we feel the way we do.
Feelings are physical Expressions such as ‘I don’t know what came over me’, or ‘I wasn’t myself’, or ‘I was beside myself with rage’ suggest that feelings are vague, ethereal presences which exist outside our bodies: that they descend and take over, that they catch us unawares. In fact, what we experience as a feeling is a combination of sensations produced by physiological changes inside our bodies. Something occurs to stimulate the brain to signal the release of chemical substances through particular organs. These chemicals produce a change in our bodily systems, preparing the body for appropriate action.
This is a very simplified and incomplete description of a highly complex chain of events. The important piece of information at this point is that a feeling is not something which can be dismissed as imagination: it is a real, physical, internal response. If you look at the diagram on page 107, you’ll see that every feeling is represented by a physical sensation in our bodies. Although individual variations are inevitable, we can usually recognise the types of sensation which accompany a particular category of emotion.
The bodily sensations associated with loving and being loved include the rush of love and affection, a bursting heart, an urge to sing, to dance or to bubble over with energy; feelings of head-to-toe vitality and energy, lightness, a warm glow; feelings of well-being, sexiness or radiance. And with the physical wrench of parting, we may feel cold, tired and listless; sadness is expressed with light tears or deep sobbing; a sense of emptiness or wanting to curl up; we ache in our hearts, feel pain in our guts and we feel heavy.
Elation, triumph and joy are physically experienced as extremely powerful: walking tall, feeling unstoppable, a sense of massive energy, a larger-than-life momentum. When we are angry, this same immense energy makes itself felt through sensations of heat, a pounding heart, sweating, muscular tension, increased blood flow, sometimes literally ‘seeing red’. When this energy is turned inwards, it converts into a depressive force and the consequence is often apathy, immobility, heaviness and a need to withdraw.
When we are confident and secure, our muscles are relaxed, our breathing regular and energy is flowing easily. If we are confused and fearful, we feel shaky, sweaty; we may respond with ‘butterflies’, goose-pimples, a tightness in our stomach and shoulders; other symptoms include a pounding heart, clammy hands, nausea, diarrhoea, trembling, shivering or numbness; we can sometimes feel paralysed or quite overcome with weariness.
These physical symptoms will be familiar but on the whole, we remain fairly ignorant about our feelings and the essential link between our minds and our bodies. Feelings are rarely given due regard and consideration: they come in for quite a battering and are usually regarded as childish, ridiculous, weak, shameful, unfair or even crazy. If unleashed they are alleged to cause unseemly or undignified behaviour; emotions are approached with suspicion and distaste and, most reprehensible of all, emotions are judged to be unreasonable. So, most of the time, most of us try to hide what we feel, even from ourselves. Unfortunately, denial of feelings will sabotage any attempts we make to communicate or behave assertively.
Have you ever denied what you felt because, on the surface, it seemed illogical? Or reproached yourself because you felt guilty or ashamed or stupid for having certain feelings? Have you ever tried, for example, to dismiss the rejection you felt when you were criticised by someone on the grounds that they did not matter to you anyway? Or pretended you didn’t feel jealous when your partner was attracted to someone else because you wanted to appear laid back and ‘cool’ about it? Have you tried to reason your way out of the feeling of frustration by counting your blessings instead? Or felt ashamed of wanting to hit out angrily at a helpless small child because you felt so frustrated? Have you ever denied feeling hurt because you thought you were simply being too sensitive? Or felt too embarrassed to admit feeling afraid or lonely and ask for comfort and support?
If your answer is ‘yes’ to any of the above questions, you’ll recognise the unhelpful cultural legacy of dividing feelings into ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. We are taught to believe that negative feelings – anger, sadness, hurt, anxiety, envy for example – are bad: that they are unpleasant, reflect badly on you as a human being and should not be felt at all, let alone put into words. On the other hand, we are constantly encouraged to feel happy, confident, fearless, in control and loving.
This simple division has an enormous effect on us psychologically. Time after ti
me I have witnessed individuals struggling painfully with the conflict between wanting to deny ‘negative’ feelings and daring to admit to them. Denial of what we feel – even acknowledging the truth to ourselves – causes untold problems: eventually keeping them hidden will make them much harder to manage. Feelings accumulate and, after a while, reach levels which threaten to be uncontrollable. Once you can accept that your feelings are real, despite them being difficult to admit to, and even though they may not make much sense, you can begin to identify what it is you feel. By eliminating the initial mental censorship, you can learn to recognise any feeling for what it is without judging it: I’m feeling nervous; I’m feeling excited; I’m feeling wary; I’m very irritated. This process of recognition and acknowledgement is first of all for your own information. No one else need be made aware of it. A private acknowledgement can help you change your behaviour accordingly: you can leave the room, change the subject, breathe deeply, relax or whatever seems the right thing to do in the circumstances in which you find yourself.
Once you have acknowledged what you feel, you can then consider the next step of putting this into words. For instance: ‘I feel nervous coming to talk to you about money but I want to ask for a raise’ or ‘I find it difficult to ask but would you help me with this problem’. The immediate effect of this is to reduce your anxiety. It allows you to relax and take command of yourself. Everything starts flowing in the body again: you feel looser and stronger. Identify what you are feeling and then make a similar simple statement.
A deeper level of expression Despite wishful thinking, feelings do not simply go away when we ignore them over time. However much we hope they will disappear, however much we repress, deny, pretend or hide them away, feelings will find expression somehow. Taking a deep breath and counting to ten can help temporarily: so does the practice of self-disclosure. However, when we let things build up to a point where they begin to interfere with our normal functioning, other measures may have to be considered. Various methods of stress-reduction can be helpful to a point: strategies for relaxation, meditation and exercise enable us to deal with some levels of anxiety and frustration in our lives. It is unlikely, though, that we can eliminate all stressful feelings in these ways. Unexpressed emotions will push for expression through another outlet. A pattern of physical and psychological symptoms often emerges in response to long-term suppression of feelings: for example, constant low energy and fatigue, depression, withdrawal from contact with loved ones, headaches, vaginal infections, cystitis, backache, bowel problems or skin irritations.
What holds us back from exploring any deeper expression is a major inhibition stemming from a fear that for an adult to express feelings openly is childish and shameful. This fear is endorsed by our experience with other adults. Instead of compassion and acceptance, tears in an adult are usually met with alarm and embarrassment: instead of respect and compassion, they elicit pity, suspicion or a sudden urge to withdraw as if tears might be contagious in some way. As very young children we were able to express our feelings quite openly and spontaneously without shame. Although we have to learn to control our feelings as part of growing up – which is necessary – most of us have learned to over-control them to such an extent that we are now no longer aware of even having any feelings, let alone being able to identify and express them.
The ability to express our feelings and deal with situations at the time, or a short while afterwards, is important but, in reality, there will be many times when we fail to do this: we deny our feelings, we swallow them down and bottle them up for days, weeks and even years. The result is that most of us, as adults, have accumulated a backlog of unexpressed and unreleased feelings. This accumulation will make itself felt from time to time in our personal and working lives.
We recognise these moments as times when we feel particularly vulnerable, ‘stressed’ or under pressure. The combined demands and circumstances of our personal and working lives push us to a point that is intolerable and this means that something has to give.
Sometimes, a release of tension comes in the form of what I call an avalanche: we erupt, blow a fuse, spew out showers of aggression and hurt and resentment onto those around us. At other times, the tension is released through subsidence: we collapse, succumb to all sorts of aches and pains and illnesses, suffer mental and physical exhaustion and, in extreme circumstances, a breakdown of some kind.
We do experience some release of psychosomatic tension (in our minds and in our bodies) and the immediate crisis passes but, unfortunately, it is unlikely that we are any clearer afterwards about what exactly caused the accumulation and what our specific feelings were.
A further disadvantage of accumulation is seen on those occasions when we find ourselves over-reacting or under-reacting: even if we sense our emotional responses are somehow disproportionate and irrational, we don’t understand why. For example, a friend comments negatively on your new sofa and instead of mild disappointment, you feel terribly rejected; instead of feeling a little anxious about approaching your boss for a favour you are filled with dread; your partner is a bit offhand and you respond with a childish tantrum; someone dear to you dies and you feel absolutely nothing; someone beats you to a parking place and instead of irritation, you are ready to kill the other driver. Although we remain convinced that we are responding only to the present, reality has become coloured by past events with the result that our perceptions are distorted because of a backlog of emotion: the result is a potent and confusing muddle.
Understanding this process and developing a longer term approach to managing emotion in our lives is beyond the scope of assertiveness training and is the subject of my book Reconnecting with the Heart. It can be extremely helpful to learn how to unlock and release the accumulated feelings from the past. Many of us store a lot of unexpressed emotions, some stimulated by recent events and others caused by events that affected us long ago in childhood. These feelings can undermine our relationships with others in the present without our realising it. Releasing past, unexpressed feelings can help us arrive at a better understanding of ourselves and can open the door to deeper self-expression and fulfilment.
Meanwhile, the first few steps – recognition, acknowledgement and verbal expression – are a tremendous help in gaining more clarity in our relationships. Apart from opening up the possibility for emotional exchange, self-disclosure is a vital part of short-term emotional management because it acts as a first and major form of release of tension. This is because until there is an acknowledgement and therefore acceptance of the feeling, whatever it is, the battle will continue between the body, which pushes to release, and the head which has learned to keep everything battened down. The greater the pressure for the feeling to be expressed, the greater the counter-effort of the head to control and prevent expression, the greater the tension, the greater the pressure and so on.
Self-disclosure acts in an extraordinary way to allow the mouth to articulate your feelings, forming a meeting point between the battling head and body: head and body become congruent, in other words acting together instead of against each other, the head finding the language to translate the physical sensations of emotion.
At this point the conflict eases. There is a felt release of tension, especially if the language conveys the feeling accurately. The arousal doesn’t dissipate immediately if it is high but once the conflict between body and mind stops, once we acknowledge and name the truth of what we are feeling, the struggle subsides and the tension eases.
Without self-disclosure we continue to believe that we can hide from other people what we are feeling inside. Beware being over-confident in this regard. Although we think that with sufficient facial and vocal control we can mask what is going on, little tell-tale signs on the outside tend to give us away: the inappropriate smile which masks unexpressed anger or grief or anxiety; tiny eye movements, gestures, set of the jaw and especially the tone of voice. All these will betray our true feelings and influence our communication
even in the absence of conscious awareness.
Often in the course of role-play practice, a woman will learn from other people’s observations that her body is emitting all sorts of little signals indicating feelings that she knows to be true, but finds it hard to admit even to herself. Remember we are not to blame for whatever we feel: we rarely have voluntary control over what emerges. Although we can control how we act on their feelings and can take responsibility for what and when and how we express them, we cannot be blamed or criticised for experiencing the feelings themselves. What you feel is what you feel. It may be silly, groundless, irrational or something you may not like to admit to: but if you feel it, it is real. Acknowledgement helps you to take charge of your emotions rather than being at the mercy of them.
This ability to identify and acknowledge a feeling helps to solve another difficulty. Many women experience a considerable time lapse between an initial emotional response and the actual acknowledgement of it. We may register a flash of feeling at the time but it may take hours or days for the full burst of recognition to dawn. So we often end up sighing ‘If only I’d expressed what I felt’, or ‘If only I’d followed my impulse’ or ‘Why didn’t I say what I really wanted to?’ We tend to agonise and spend a lot of time re-running the scene in our heads, enacting the part to perfection with the other party suitably impressed, intimidated or penitent! With practice, we can reduce the gap more and more until we are able to recognise our feelings in the moment. In this way, we can develop a more spontaneous approach, and whatever the feeling – whether resentment or affection, confusion or joy – we can express it and act on it if we choose.