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We test them all the time. Every day, minute, sometimes even a second. Any impression – and even their absence – is accompanied by our reaction. Feelings come and go, but they also leave a mark on us, sometimes very deep. We cannot understand ourselves without understanding them.
Why can’t emotions just be taken and brushed aside? “I didn’t want to delve into what was going on in my soul when my cousin showed up for a family gathering with another boyfriend, despite the fact that I have been completely alone for the third year,” says 36-year-old Inga. – Although, to be honest, it was a cross between envy and jealousy. But when he left her two months later and she sobbed into my phone, I consoled her with all my might, but somewhere deep down I felt complete satisfaction. And at the same time I was ashamed that I was gloating when my sister felt bad!
Not everyone is ready for such frank introspection as Inga. Often we do not want to understand our feelings and admit them even to ourselves. But psychotherapists around the world unanimously insist that this is indispensable. Why?
“Emotion is an internal indicator of attitude to a situation, event, someone’s statement, to our actions,” explains clinical psychologist Olga Marey. “But the readings of this indicator will be correct only if we honestly listen to ourselves.
If we constantly hide our feelings, we cease to understand ourselves.
It often happens that the external reaction is different from what we feel. We may not understand the true emotion or drown it inside ourselves, because it was customary in the family to react to this or that situation in a certain way, or because ethics requires it, because we all have a social “plaque” that dictates the rules of behavior.
On the one hand, the ability to hide feelings makes life easier for us among others. On the other hand, if we do this all the time, we cease to understand ourselves. Showing feelings that are not really there requires effort, energy costs and can lead to exhaustion and depression.
And suppressing true emotions often results in them finding another way of expression, translating into physical symptoms such as pain without medical causes, too frequent colds, and even injuries.
And finally, if we do not know how to recognize our own feelings, then there are no reference points that will allow us to understand what is happening to others, to sympathize with them and be happy for them, and this, in turn, leads to mutual misunderstanding and isolation. Therefore, it is important not to ignore your feelings, to understand them, to expand the “emotional vocabulary” – all this adds up to emotional intelligence.
Temporary shutdown
Nobody argues: there are times when we need to control ourselves, we need a cool head, and emotions only get in the way.
“The predominance of reason over feelings is necessary in stressful situations, for example, when you have to make a serious choice or make a decision regarding health, your own or someone close to you,” continues Olga Marey. “But later, when the situation is resolved, you should definitely mentally return to it and understand what happened to us emotionally in that state.”
Then we will be able to live to the end the experience that was stopped, interrupted in the previous circumstances: to burn out, cry out the un-cryed, release anger, or, conversely, live pride or delight to the end in order to emotionally complete the situation. How to arrange it?
The psychologist offers to sit in silence or go for a walk, without extraneous sounds, without gadgets, when you can concentrate only on yourself, remember and analyze your emotions. Alone with yourself or with someone you trust. Directing attention inward is the main thing that everyone can help themselves with.
Own and others
Emotion is always associated with experience, but it is not always our own. “Parents, grandparents, and everyone with whom a child communicates, pass on to him a part of their accumulated experience, including emotional experience,” explains psychologist, art therapist Ekaterina Gudyno. — It is a necessary element of socialization. The problem arises if in adult life we focus only on the emotional heritage of the family, fixed in the form of habitual reactions to this or that action.
Then it turns out that true emotions are silent, because they are used to not showing themselves. How to understand when we experience our emotion, and when we unconsciously “turn on grandma”? “As a rule, those emotions that are really ours do not cause discomfort,” the art therapist continues. “Conversely, alien reactions make you feel uncomfortable, out of your element.”
Let’s compare two examples. 30-year-old Sergey: “I explode when a subordinate fiddles with a simple task for a long time, I have such a quick temper.” 38-year-old Natalya: “I told a colleague that she did a poor job, and then I worried … I didn’t want to offend her, but I couldn’t stop.” What is the difference?
“Sergey does not worry about his temper, he does not feel regret,” comments Ekaterina Gudyno. “Most likely, in anger, he shows his true emotion. But Natalya is not close to such an aggressive manifestation. This is an established response pattern. Perhaps, as a child, she often faced the anger of her parents, and now she reacts to similar situations (for example, that same delay in business) in the same way as they do.
Emotional coat of arms of the family
What feelings prevail in your family? How do they influence you? In what reactions do you manifest yourself, and when does one of your relatives manifest?
To find out, art therapist Ekaterina Gudyno suggests…
Take a large sheet of paper, colored markers and a pen.
Mentally gather family members at a round table and announce to them about any, in your opinion, joyful event (birth of a child, completion of construction). How would each of them respond to this message in their most typical way? What would be your reaction? What in it is similar to any of the relatives, and what is different?
Now announce to everyone about the sad event. Track the emotional response, including your own.
Then say something neutral (like what the weather is like today). Record all reactions again. After you have mentally explored the various emotional reactions, draw them in the form of your family crest – as if this symbolism collected all the prevailing emotions of your family members.
Looking at the picture, answer: what do you like most about the emotional family crest? Why? What do you like least? Why? Where on this coat of arms did you reflect your own emotions? Who else do they look like? And how are they different?
As you look at the picture, write down: “Among all the emotions of my family members, my true feelings are… Because…”
I feel, therefore I live
To learn to hear yourself, ask yourself questions about how you really feel in a particular situation and why, how you react if it repeats itself.
Ekaterina Gudyno recommends keeping a diary: for at least a month, “notice and write down in it the emotions that accompany you during the day. Be sure to describe the situation in which they arose. Try to track what becomes the trigger for emotional outbursts, notice repetitions. So you get material for studying yourself, the causes and consequences of your behavior.
Feelings and reason are two ways of interacting with the world. Refusing one of them, we lose half of ourselves. And restoring the connection between them, we perceive life in its entirety.
No offense?
There are feelings that are traditionally considered “bad”, undesirable. Resentment among them almost in the first place. The well-known saying “They carry water on the offended” implies that being offended is shameful, stupid and generally impossible. Is it really? Psychodramatherapist Elena Lopukhina says:
“Resentment is not one feeling, but a combination of several, and multidirectional emotions. Among them, there are necessarily two main ones: pain and anger. They can be mixed with fear, guilt, shame. Therefore, it is so difficult to understand the state of resentment and experience it so painfully. But we cannot and should not get rid of feelings: they help to be in touch with reality.
This reality does not always suit us, and feelings are not always pleasant, but it is better to take a bitter medicine than not to be treated at all. Resentment is such a medicine. It will help if used correctly. Do not suppress, but listen to it, perceive it as a signal of problems in the relationship. First you need to admit the fact of resentment, this will help remove the inspired feeling of guilt: “you can’t be offended, but I was offended, which means I’m to blame.”
Instead, you need to figure out why you were offended, this is a reaction – to what? “Another person close to whom I am in a relationship did something,” which, in your opinion, should not have been done, or did not do what he should have done.
The next step is not to hush up the offense, but to discuss it with the one who hurt you. Perhaps it’s a misunderstanding, or you’re facing a divergence in your values and ideas about intimacy. And the last is the restoration of relations on another level. The main thing here is the readiness of the one who offended to accept the experiences of another and the desire to change the situation that is not suitable for him.
Come out to freedom
What do we consider a betrayal, and what is a good gift? What are we sad about and what can’t help but get angry about? How do we express our feelings and are we satisfied with the way we do it? Emotions can be passed down through generations. We offer you a way to become aware of those that are borrowed from your family past and prevent you from living. This method was developed by psychologist Marie-Genevieve Thomas, a specialist in psychogenealogy.
Step 1. Discover important events
What do you know about the life of your relatives? Place of birth, meeting and parting, death, wedding… Ask family members about it. Pay attention to how they talk (tone of voice, feelings, epithets, pauses). Find vulnerabilities: painful events (miscarriages, abortions, illnesses, accidents, incest, rapes, suicides). This is not easy, because unpleasant topics in families, as a rule, are hushed up.
Celebrate positive events (children, career achievements, strong marriages). Identify turning points, ups and downs to understand how they influenced the behavior and decisions of your family members over time, right up to yourself. Write it down.
Step 2: Notice Your Prevailing Emotions
Some family events are repeated, this leaves an imprint: this is how families appear, consisting of irritable, anxious, dissatisfied people. Sadness is often the result of unfinished grief or painful separations experienced in childhood. Fear appears as a result of traumatic events (for example, a series of deaths from an accident or illness).
Anger can be the result of an unfair treatment of one of the relatives, both within the family and in society (neglect, neglect, insufficient recognition). Shame is the result of actions that are considered indecent in the family. And guilt arises from the belief that you are the cause of an unfortunate development of events (marriage that was caused by pregnancy, death after a breakup).
Step 3. Identify repetitions
This may be the repetition of names, dates, professions, difficult or happy events. Fix them. Our name brings us closer to someone who has the same name as us. The dates indicate whose “heirs” we are or whose fate reminds us of ourselves. The place among brothers and sisters (oldest, middle, youngest) refers to other family members who occupy or have occupied the same place. Recurring professions show whose work we want (or maybe were forced to) continue.
Step 4: Test Beliefs
Each family has its own system of values and beliefs. It is she who is encoded in the emotional heritage and dictates how we respond to situations. Think about the rules of your family, public or unspoken.
Answer the questions.
- How does your family feel about religion?
- What training and work are considered prestigious?
- What topics are taboo (not discussed)?
- How is marriage viewed?
- How do you feel about recreation and entertainment?
- What is considered important in raising children?
Pay attention to how you feel when you answer: happy or sad, confident or defenseless. Think about which of the rules of your kind you have already accepted unconditionally. Just be honest! Each acceptance “against your will” is a source of internal conflict, which can manifest itself in the form of emotional outbursts.
Step 5: Break Free
The purpose of this step is to become aware of your inherited emotions and let them go without breaking the connection with your roots. What our family gives us is an invisible support that supports us. Give yourself time to feel what is going on in you as you look at your family records. What do you feel? Name the emotions and rate their intensity.
Think over and write down healing phrases in your notebook. For example: “I am freeing myself from (my anger, fears, shame, sadness)”; “I do my best to (succeed in my profession, become happy in love).” Express your gratitude to relatives who passed on to you the qualities, resources, values that are important to you. This will allow you to symbolically “separate” from the family, without giving up your past.
