Healthy Feeling communication
In certain video games you get to choose your class. Who do you want to be? A Wizard? Warrior? Thief? So many options. Well let’s play a game. Your wife hints she likes flowers. You don’t really like doing things out of guilt but you buy them anyway. Wow, you’re feeling good, you did something nice. You come home and display the proud flowers to her hoping for accolades. She gives you a short thank you and says “I really prefer roses.” Ugh. You were trying to be accommodating and were rewarded with criticism. Que the inner hurt. So what is your response to these uncomfortable feelings. What role will you play?
- The Pediatrician. Rationalize: “It’s ok, I should have known she’d want roses.”
- The Lawyer. Deny: “I really just feel bad because finances are tight.”
- The Magician. Distract: “Yep, gonna hit the gym to feel better.”
- The Politician. Redirect: “Those dang kids are always leaving their mess around.”
- The Martyr. Sacrifice: “I’m sorry, I’ll get you roses next time.”
- The Fighter. Fight: “Attack these feelings hard and they’ll go away.”
- The Jester. Humor: “Hey honey, roses are red, without them you’re blue J.”
- The Opossum. Freeze: “Play dead and it will all be ok soon.”
- The Berserker. Rage: “Woman what the hell, I was trying to be nice.”
- The Pyro. Gaslighting: “You don’t like roses, you really like these flowers.”
So many choices and all of them are an attempt to not feel and deal with the underlying emotion, which is hurt. The problem is, they work sometimes in the moment, that’s the payoff. But in the long run, these tactics will cause some form of resentment build up for not dealing with the hurt. The resentment could be directed to others and also directed inward for not having the courage to speak up and deal with things in a healthy manner.
Let’s look at each one of these:
The Pediatrician is an expert at making light of a serious issue. Indeed, what if your Pediatrician told your child “Jimmy, I’m going to give you a shot in your arm with a big needle and it’s going to hurt.” No they don’t say that, they say “you’ll only feel a tiny poke.” And after the cries come from the needle they will tell you how brave you are. Well this is like rationalizing your uncomfortable feelings. It’s making light of them in order to trick your brain into believing “there is no issue so don’t feel them.” This rationalization takes place so easily sometimes we don’t catch ourselves doing it.
The Lawyer denies your experience by scripting an alternative narrative. If this alternative is plausible enough, you might just believe it. The alternative may be true even but the story is not applicable to your current feelings.
The Magician knows how to distract their audience in order to perform some magic trick. We distract our true feelings when we look to do something else that will make us not feel the hurt. The distraction can even be good and healthy things but used like this, they form a criteria for addiction.
Do Politicians answer a question directly? Don’t they redirect the question so they don’t have to answer it? They know how to do this very well. When we feel hurt and don’t want to deal with it properly, we can direct that hurt to something else. Again, there may be some truth in how we feel toward that person or thing. We may be angry with those kids for leaving messes. But this form of redirection not only fails to deal with the issue, it also usually makes the redirection more explosive.
The Martyr, what a hero. Sacrificing themselves down for the greater good. Sounds legit right? Well no, not if done incorrectly like this. Sacrificing certainly has its place but not as a substitute for healthy self-expression. Without a healthy self-expression, you will be lost in obscurity and lonely and resentful.
The Fighter is strong and valiant. This is a person who is strong willed and able to achieve a lot of things by sheer willpower. The problem is that the fighter will use this strength to try to control feelings, not realizing that feelings are generally stronger then willpower and need more of an elegant solution. Because a lot of fighters lack elegance, they substitute raw strength.
The Jester will attempt to use humor to bypass feelings. This causes some pseudo form of light-heartedness that distracts our true feelings. Many times, humor is used as a form of passive aggression in a similar manner.
The Opossum will play dead until the threat is gone. In a similar manner, when unwanted feelings come in, the opossum will simply freeze up hoping these feelings fade away.
The Berserker usually has one switch that results in rage. They know self-expression is important but because they lack the ability and finesse to deal with things healthy, they simply unload in ways that are hurtful. This will result in hurt towards the recipient and inner shame for not dealing with things in a way that compliments one’s value of health and maturity.
The Pyro will shift responsibility by attempting to gaslight the recipient’s experience. They are unable to deal with reality so they have to make everyone’s experience fit the one they are comfortable with.
Why do we resort to these crazy methods? It could be because we lack the emotional intelligence to know what we are feeling and why. Or we lack the courage to speak up and face rejection. Or we lack the confidence in being able to articulate our feelings in a healthy way. The intelligence, courage, and confidence are all needed for healthy communication. Without them, we will too often resort to dealing with our emotions in a negative manner.
Ok your wondering what the proper response is right? This is up for you to decide depending on the seriousness of the situation. In the example of the flowers, it could be a simple “I would appreciate it if you would tell me about roses later and not right after you receive the flowers.” A healthy response will almost always involve some form of self-expression in a way that is healthy and mature. The recipient will hopefully come to appreciate you by doing this. You will also feel better about yourself because you are being intimate by sharing yourself and practicing your value of health and restraint.
If you feel your expression and the reception of it went well, you can forgive each other and move on without any resentment. If the situation was more serious, however, it may call for more tactics. But that is for another post. The key is healthy communication.
