Synopsis: This mini-love lesson explores the rule ‘heart before
head’; then goes into ‘here and now’ versus ‘there and then’ talking;
gender differences; talking to your loved one’s bad feelings; talking to
bad feelings aimed at you by your loved ones; self-care while
learning this love skill; and more.
Heart Before Head
When meeting her group of friends, with joy in her
voice and with a great big smile Felicia proclaimed, “I’m so happy! I
got the job! Now I’ve got to go shopping for the right clothes and
brush up on my worker skills.”
Norman in rather ordinary tones replied,
“Yeh, you better start practicing your work skills. You’re probably
really rusty”. Josh blandly responded with, “I bet you already have
clothes for the first week at least”. Frank with a bright look on his
face and an upbeat tone said, “You really look happy and I’m
really
glad for you”. A couple weeks later Frank and Felicia became a couple
and Norman and Josh wondered what he was doing right that they were not.
Frank had a very important love skill. He knew that for helping a
love relationship get started, or be maintained and grow, it was
important to focus
first and most
on the feelings being felt and, if possible, to attend to those
emotions before the topic being brought up is discussed. He followed
the lover’s rule ‘talk to your loved one’s feelings before you talk to
your loved one’s topics’.
Felicia’s voice tones, face and words all spoke of her happiness.
Speaking to and sharing her happiness is speaking to her internal,
personal self. Speaking to her clothing and skills topics is okay but
less personal. Emotionally joining with Felicia in her feelings of
happiness and success also conveys a pleasant, positive, personal
connection with her and demonstrates the love skill of sharing heartfelt
emotions. Talking to a person’s topics without sufficiently speaking
to their emotions may convey that the person is less important to you,
and maybe that you are not very able to be personally, emotionally with
them. In a small, subtle way by talking to Felicia’s feeling of
happiness Frank displayed a clue showing that perhaps he was able to do
‘emotional intercourse’. Emotional intercourse so often is a major
basis for romantic, healthy, real love development.
‘Here and Now’ Versus ‘There and Then’ Talking
By talking to Felicia’s happiness Frank showed he
was emotionally with her in the ‘here and now’. Talking about brushing
up her skills and shopping topics left the emotional ‘here and now’ and
went to the future, only addressing the pragmatic. When we talk about
what’s being felt in the here and now, instead of talking about the
future and/or about practical matters, it gives more of a sense of
emotional togetherness. When we talk the topics first, after strong
emotions have been expressed by a loved one, they may feel unattended to
or develop a vague sense of being emotionally abandoned. It may sort
of indicate to them that their emotions are not important to you and
only practical matters count with you. Loving closeness is not likely
to grow out of that perception.
Talking about the past can work if there is sufficient focus on the
emotions that occurred in that past situation, or about the emotions
that one now has about the past. Without sufficient focus on the
feelings connected to the past your loved one may develop a sense of
being impersonally and non-intimately dealt with. This is true whether
you’re talking about your own feelings or the feelings of your loved
one. And this feelings-absent talk is highly unlikely to help a love
relationship.
Generally when a loved one is having strong feelings ‘in the
present’, talking in the present tense is more powerful and more
loving. Talking in the future tense or the past tense without focusing
sufficiently on the emotions involved in both may create more emotional
distance than closeness.
Gender Differences
In many cultures men more than women seem to have
trouble talking to their loved ones about emotions. Some researchers
think this is genetic but in some cultures men overcome this perhaps
‘genetic predisposition’ by good societal, communications training. A
major complaint from many women is about men not being able to talk to a
woman about either his emotions or her emotions. That in turn is seen
as a major deterrent to healthy, love relationship development.
Interestingly women, while being better at empathetically talking to a
loved one’s emotions, usually don’t know how to teach men how to do that
form of much desired, personal communication.
Basic Instructions
To talk to a loved one’s emotions here is a simple procedure you might want to follow.
Step 1. While your loved one is talking think “what emotion is my loved one feeling right now?”. If you’re not sure, ask.
Asking
shows you want to be with your loved one in what they’re feeling and,
therefore, asking helps you to do that. To ask simply say, “What are
you feeling?” or “What are you feeling right now?” or “You’re feeling
…(glad, sad, worried, upset, eager, etc.?” Or just make a guess.
Guessing
conveys you are trying and that counts too. Remember, feelings usually
can be ‘labeled’ and said with ‘one word’ each. You can feel
affectionate, fearful, excited, mad, serene, etc., there are hundreds of
good labels for our emotions. If your ‘emotions labeling skills’ are
weak you might want to
make a list. Here’s a hint:
There are emotion labels starting with every letter of the alphabet.
This is a homework exercise I often assign to those wanting to improve
communications and learn to emotionally love a loved one better.
Step 2. When you think you may know the emotion a loved one is feeling
say
that feeling label word. “You’re happy”. “You’re worried”. “You’re
upset”. “You’re pleased”. “You’re feeling eager” are some examples.
You can say these things with a sort of questioning sound or if you’re
expressing it in written form you can put in a question mark. This
shows you are trying to get it right. Remember, you don’t have to be
right you just have to show your really trying to connect emotionally.
Step 3. Really
hear
the response your loved one makes to what you have said. Your loved
one might say “No, that’s not quite what I’m feeling, it’s more like
…(this other feeling)”. Then again you might hear something like “you
really understand, you’re wonderful”.
Step 4. Now,
ask yourself
what you are feeling having heard your loved one is feeling and
whatever thoughts they may have added. Are you happy with your loved
one’s expressed feeling, or angry, or upset, or proud, or threatened, or
what? Remember, ‘thoughts and feelings are very different from each
other’. A thought usually takes a sentence to identify and a feeling
usually takes only a single word label.
Step 5. Share
the labeling word that expresses the feeling you’re experiencing having
heard what your loved one feels. You may want to elaborate on it a
bit. Examples might be “joy, I am feeling joy hearing what you just
told me”, or “my insecurity is going up and down”, or “now I’m feeling
closer to you”, or “I’m getting angry but let’s talk about this”, or
“after hearing what you said I feel a little more comforted”, or “I’m
noticing I’m starting to feel more nervous thinking about what you just
said”, or “I’m beginning to care more about how you feel and maybe
understand you better”. Yes, sometimes you will have to deal with their
bad feelings or yours but usually that’s better than letting them
fester.
As people practice this ‘talking to feelings love skill’ they can and
usually do create improving emotional intercourse. Then they usually
start getting its many benefits.
Talking to Bad Feelings
When you’re beloved says, “I feel bad, mad, upset,
scared” or anything we might call a bad feeling the usual best response
is to
care. Therefore,
quite often the best thing to say is “I care”. You might include the
feeling you heard them say and then “I care.” for example, “I care that
you’re hurt”, or “you’re really feeling bad and I care about that a
lot”, or “you’re feeling angry and that’s hard to hear but I love you so
I care about how you’re feeling”, etc. are a few of the many ways you
might lovingly demonstrate that. When a loved one expresses bad
feelings what’s usually best is a lot of really attentive, good
listening which usually helps them get all their feelings out while your
care comes into them. That’s sort of like getting the poison out and
the medicine in.
Common Mistakes
The biggest, most common mistake is to jump in,
talking from your head instead of from your heart. Analyzing,
explaining, instructing, teaching, talking in a way that tries to ‘fix’
what caused the feelings, or in any other way tries to deal with the
topics involved, before talking to your loved one’s emotions, usually
doesn’t work. In fact, sometimes it makes things far worse. Once you
talk to a loved one’s feelings there may be no need to do any of the
explaining, fixing, etc. because what often ‘fixes’ the problem is being
a really good listener. When your loved ones expressing feeling bad,
what they often need is well expressed, loving care. Heart-felt
messages do far more good than anything your intelligence is likely to
come up with, no matter how bright it is. Again,
“heart before head” is the short way to say this.
Lots of people, especially guys, try to express their care through
talking about how to fix, solve, mend, correct or cognitively understand
the problem that’s causing a person’s feelings. None of that directly
deals with the feelings. That’s especially true for bad feelings. Thus,
“head talk” misses the ‘first point to be attended to’ – the emotions
themselves. After the emotions are brought into awareness and talked
about, those other topics may, or may not, be relevant or need
discussion.
It does not hurt to ask a person if your analysis or advice, etc. is
desired and if it not, don’t give it. Remember the adage, “don’t teach a
course for which no one has signed up”.
Talking to Bad Feelings Aimed at You
“I’m so upset with you”, “I’m very angry at you”,
“How could you hurt me like that”, and many other bad feeling statements
may come your way from your loved ones. What are you to do? First,
examine your habits. Maybe your habit is to interpret such remarks as
you are being attacked, judged, blamed, punished, unfairly picked on,
threatened or even damaged. If so, that probably triggers your
primitive ‘fight or flee’ feelings. If you think you’re under attack
you may desire to defend yourself, perhaps with lengthy reasons and
explanations, or with a powerful counterattack.
Then again, your habit
might be to feel guilty, inadequate and get depressed. Later you might
decide you need revenge and to get even, so you may aggressively or
passive-aggressively ambush and sabotage a loved one so they feel as bad
as you feel, or worse. Maybe it’s your habit to beg forgiveness, or
fake sorrow and manipulate for forgiveness. If you do any of these
things you probably have learned that none of these habits do much good
to change the dynamics of the interaction nor do they usually feel very
good to do. Mostly love relationships can be damaged by the habits just
described because they are quite anti-loving.
What really is happening is probably markedly different than what you
think is happening or interpret is happening. A likely, more accurate,
interpretation of your loved one’s statement usually goes like this.
My beloved is hurt or somehow upset, and needs to express it, and needs
to experience my care coming in as their bad feelings flow out. Again,
it’s a case of ‘poison out, medicine in’. To deliver the medicine my
beloved also may need to be reassured that they are truly, deeply loved
and are extremely important to me. Furthermore, my beloved also may
need to experience that I am really listening to how they feel and what
they want, plus that I am sincerely willing to look at ways to make
improvements and, if I agree, that I am willing to implement those
improvements.
Self-Care
Remember the ancient admonition is to
love others AS you love yourself.
Taking good care of yourself as you learn to practice this love skill
is part of what is needed. The way you do that is to ‘own your own
okayness’ and remind yourself that any skill is learned by repeated
practice. If it were easy it probably wouldn’t be called a skill. You
also may need to remind yourself that usually
the best defense is no defense.
That’s because your loved one’s ‘at you talk’ probably will turn into
‘with you talk’ as soon as hurt, or fear, or both are adequately
expressed and enough of your loving care has come into them. Staying
emotionally OK while you do loving listening and perhaps do comforting
behavior, is for most of us a pretty tall order in highly emotional
times.
Surprisingly it’s even hard for many of us who were not well
trained, by the families we grew up in, to talk to feelings that are
happy and upbeat. Talking any feelings may be hard for some people no
matter what kind of feelings they are. Nevertheless, working to develop
any love skill pays off handsomely and, therefore, is an act of healthy
self-love. So, get busy and meet the challenge of developing this love
skill. See how it saves everybody a great deal of misery and brings a
great deal of good-feeling closeness to you and your loved ones once you
get the hang of it.
This love skill can be used in all kinds of relationships – with
parents, children, family, friends, acquaintances, fellow workers, even
with people you don’t know well. If emotions are involved it’s best to
attend to them first, then attend to the topic.
As always – Go and Grow with Love
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly
♥ Love Success Question
If you learn and practice this love skill of ‘talking to
feelings before topics’ and do it well, do you think your relations with
love ones will get vastly improved, substantially improved, moderately
improved, mildly improved, or not at all improved? Now ask your loved
ones what they think.
