This goes out to those individuals in my life who aren't particularly good at communicating. Ahem, Ashley, ahem, cough, cough. There's a few people I know who would benefit from reading this. This, by any means, is no lecture followed by a stern look. Simply a gentle reach out by me, as everyone knows that I love all. I am in a psychology major after all, and to share my insufficient wisdom is my joy. I know for a fact that silence in not by any means a deficiency in your cognitive process. I just realize that you simply don't know how. And you aren't used to it. Not to worry, my loves, I am here to assist you.
One of the most rewarding aspects of relationships is sharing personal feelings. The more you share your feelings with other people, the happier and more meaningful your life will be. Yet one of the characteristics of our society is that we are not given much training in how to express feelings in such a way that there will be little chance of misunderstanding. Years and years of our education focus on communicating ideas clearly and unambiguously, yet relatively little education is given in communicating feelings clearly and unambiguously. The English language has relatively few words that label feeling states. Sanskrit, for example, is reputed to have over nine hundred words describing various feeling states, while English has fewer than fifty, if one excludes slang and figures of speech.
To experience emotions and express them to another person is not only a major source of joy, it is also necessary for your psychological well‑being. It is natural to have feelings. The capacity to feel is as much a part of being a person as is the capacity to think and reason. A person without feelings is not a person at all; he or she is a machine. The quest of individuals who really enjoy life is to feel a greater range of emotions and to build relationships in which emotions are aroused and allowed positive expression. Feeling and expressing caring for another person, feeling and expressing love for another person, even feeling and expressing anger toward another person are all potentially highly rewarding and beautiful experiences. And it is through experiencing and sharing feelings that close friendships are built and maintained.
It is often difficult to express feelings. Whenever there is a risk of being rejected or laughed at, expressing feelings becomes very difficult. The more personal the feelings, the greater the risk you may feel. It is also sometimes difficult to control your expression of your feelings. You may cry when you don't want to, get angry when it is best not to, or even laugh at a time it disturbs others. Expressing feelings appropriately often means thinking before you communicate them.
Having feelings is a natural and joyful part of being alive and being human. Feelings provide the cement holding relations together as well as the means for deepening the relationships and making them more personal. The accurate and constructive expression of feelings, furthermore, is one of the most difficult aspects of building and managing your relations with other people.
One of the most frequent sources of difficulty in building and maintaining good relationships is communicating feelings. We all have feelings about the people we interact with and the experiences we share, but many times we do not communicate these feelings effectively. Problems arise in relationships not because we have feelings but because we are not effective in communicating our feelings in ways that strengthen our relationships. When we repress, deny, distort, or disguise our feelings, or when we communicate them in an ineffective way, we are asking for trouble in our relationships.
There are several difficulties that arise when feelings are not recognized, accepted, and expressed constructively.
1 . Suppressing and denying your feelings can create relationship problems. If you suppress your feelings, it can result in increased conflicts and barriers that cause deterioration in the relationship. A friend's actions may be irritating, and as the irritation is suppressed, anger and withdrawal from the relationship may result. Example: Me snapping at Kathy at Waffle House.
2. Suppressing and denying your feelings can interfere with the constructive diagnosis and resolution of relationship problems. Maintaining a relationship requires an open expression of feelings so that difficulties or conflicts can be dealt with constructively and in a timely fashion. There is a common but mistaken belief that being rational, logical, and objective requires you to suppress and ignore your feelings. Nothing is further from the truth! If you want to be effective in solving interpersonal problems, you need all the relevant information (including feelings) you can get. This means that your feelings need to be conscious, discussable, and controllable.
3. Denying your feelings can result in selective perception. When feelings are unresolved, your perceptions of events and information may be affected. If you are denying your anger, you may perceive all hostile actions but be completely blind to friendly overtures. Threatening and unpleasant facts are often distorted or not perceived. Unresolved feelings tend to increase blind spots and selective perception. Example: When Kathy texts you at 6 am, you may forget all the good times you have had together and snap at her because of a whole build up of unspoken problems accumulating over the last two weeks.
4. Suppressing your feelings can bias your judgments. It is common for people to refuse to accept a good idea because someone they dislike sugÂgested it, or to accept a poor idea because someone they like is for it. If you are aware of your feelings and manage them constructively, you will be far more unbiased and objective in your judgments.
5. Implying a demand while expressing your feelings can create a power struggle. Many times feelings are expressed in ways that demand changes in the receiver's behavior. If someone says to you, "You make me angry when you do that," she is indirectly saying, "Stop doing it." Or if a friend says, "I like you, you are a good friend," he may be indirectly demanding that you like him. When feelings imply demands, a power struggle may result over whether or not the demands are going to be met.
When you describe your feelings, expect at least two results. First, describing your feelings to another person often helps you to become more aware of what it is you actually do feel. Many times we have feelings that seem ambiguous or unclear to us. Explaining them to another person often clarifies our feelings to ourselves as well as to the other person. Second, describing your feelings often begins a dialogue that will improve your relationship. If other people are to respond appropriately to your feelings, they must know what the feelings are. Even if the feelings are negative, it is often worthwhile to express them. Negative feelings are signals that something may be going wrong in the relationship, and you and the other person need to examine what is going on in the relationship and figure out how it may be improved. By reporting your feelings, you provide information that is necessary if you and the other person are to understand and improve your relationship. When discussing your relationship with another person, describing your feelings conveys maximum information about what you feel in a more constructive way than giving commands, asking questions, making accusations, or offering judgments.
Feel free to pass this on, people, as I am certain that you have people in your lives whom you want to communicate more clearly with. Share. (You know who you are)
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