The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships
Page 25
Now that his feelings of loneliness, disappointment, and anxiety are defined, Carl decides he can do something about the discomfort he’s feeling. He can talk with his wife about how he missed seeing her and the kids that night; perhaps they can plan to do something enjoyable together in the next few days. He can talk to his financial adviser and his wife about their investments and make some adjustments if they decide that’s a prudent course.
Exploring emotions in such an analytical way may seem strange to people who have a more intuitive sense of what they’re feeling moment by moment. But this cognitive approach can be a real benefit to people like Carl, who lack easy access to words and concepts that can help them cope with their feelings. Rather than expressing a vague sense of irritation at his family over who-knows-what, Carl can now talk specifically about what he’s feeling. This puts him in a better position to express his needs and to connect with others emotionally. Identifying his emotions in an analytical way gives him the structure he needs to take steps toward feeling more settled and peaceful.
Exercise: What Am I Feeling?
This exercise is designed to help you to define what you’re feeling and to put your emotions into words. It may also help you to be a better listener—somebody who helps others to name their feelings and talk about them.
To start, think about a recent experience that left you feeling uncomfortable or unsettled in a way that was hard for you to define. Write down a short description of the incident in your Emotion Log.
Then look at the following series of questions, which are intended to help you determine in a general way what you might have been feeling at the time. After you’ve answered these questions, scan the Emotional Vocabulary List on the following page to find more specific ways to describe your feelings.
Once you’ve identified the emotions you were feeling, do you feel as if you have a better idea of how to express those feelings to people that matter? Can you think of steps you can take to soothe uncomfortable feelings, or to solve problems that are causing the discomfort? Write about these insights in your Emotion Log as well.
First ask yourself if the emotion you’re experiencing is pleasant (positive) or unpleasant (negative).
If the feeling is pleasant:
• Do you think you’d like to explore some topic or get to know some person better? If so, you’re probably feeling interested.
• Did something good happen? If so, you’re probably feeling happy.
If the feeling is unpleasant:
• Do you think that something is lost, absent, or missing from your life that ought to be there? If so, then you’re probably feeling sad.
• Do you think there’s an obstacle to what you’re trying to accomplish? If your goal is blocked, then you’re probably feeling angry.
• Are you thinking that things are unsafe in your world? If so, then you’re probably feeling fearful.
• Are you thinking that someone or something should be judged as beneath you or against your values and morals? If so, then you’re probably feeling contemptuous.
• Are you thinking that you just can’t tolerate things as they are anymore, or that you just can’t “swallow” a current situation? If so, then you’re probably feeling disgusted.
Emotional Vocabulary List
Describing your feelings can help you to connect emotionally. It can also help you to cope with difficult feelings. This list, divided into general categories of emotion, may help you to name your feelings and to talk about them.
Interested
Stimulated
Fascinated
Engrossed
Engaged
Involved
Attentive
Eager
Excited
Anticipatory
Looking forward to
In awe
Entertained
Amused
Happy
Pleasantly surprised
Pleased
Contented
Satisfied
Cheerful
Glad
Appreciative
Grateful
Feeling good
Gratified
Proud
Jovial
Delighted
Loving
Liking
Attached to
Affectionate toward
Adoring
Blissful
Joyful
Ecstatic
Elated
Euphoric
Jubilant
Sad
Unhappy
Sorry
Sorry for
Regretful
Depressed
Discouraged
Disappointed
Dejected
Glum
Despondent
Dismayed
Down in the dumps
Blue
Heartbroken
Heartsick
Miserable
Disheartened
Despairing
Grieving
Angry
Displeased
Dissatisfied
Envious
Jealous
Resentful
Offended
Frustrated
Annoyed
Irritated
Mad
Fuming
Irate
Heated
Cross
Crabby
Bitchy
Exasperated
Furious
Incensed
Livid
Enraged
Outraged
Fearful
Timid
Nervous
Uncomfortable
Scared
Afraid
Disturbed
Uneasy
Concerned
Apprehensive
Anxious
Worried
Dread
Petrified
Terrified
Horrified
Contemptuous
Offended
Appalled
Indignant
Judgmental
Disdaining
Disrespecting
Despising
Bitter
Disgusted
Dislike
Hate
Loathe
Repelled by
Repulsed by
Aversion to
Revulsion
Sickened
Aghast
Metaphorically Speaking
Just as the voice provides clues to what’s happening in the hearts of people talking, so do the metaphors they choose.
Many of us learned about metaphors in a high school literature class, and often during a poetry lesson. Reading Alfred Noyes’s words “The road was a ribbon of darkness over the purple moor,” we understood that the road wasn’t really a ribbon. It was made of soil and rocks, after all. But the metaphor helped us to see the road as a ribbon. And as we did, we could imagine the whole moonlit landscape just as the highwayman of the poem’s title saw it. We could be there with him, hearing his horse’s hoofbeats, feeling the night wind, experiencing his fateful ride.
The metaphors we use when we talk about our feelings do the same thing. We can use metaphors to convey our emotional perspectives more clearly. We can listen for metaphors when people talk about their feelings in order to experience matters from their points of view.
When people use metaphors as simple figures of speech, the imagery they choose can provide little windows into their emotional reality. And when people use metaphors to draw parallels between their current lives and what happened in the past, their metaphors can open entire doors into the kinds of emotional-heritage issues we explored in chapter 5.
Either way, metaphors become one more tool as we bid and respond to others’ bids for emotional connection.
Common metaphorical figures of speech can be revealing.
Here are just a few examples of familiar metaphors you might hear in c
onversation, as well as the emotional meaning you can guess from their usage. Keep in mind that the meanings you draw from metaphors are just that—guesses. But they often provide a great springboard for conversation as you seek to learn more about another person’s feelings. And once you understand that person’s metaphors, you can then use them yourself in making bids for emotional connection. Here are some examples:
“Our marriage was a train wreck.” The speaker feels that his marriage was broken and irreparable in a very chaotic and destructive way. It’s likely that people got hurt. And because he characterizes it as an accident, he probably didn’t expect this outcome. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
“I want to stay afloat financially.” The speaker believes that her finances could reach a crisis state where she’d be “over her head” in debt and “drowning.” She fears that her financial survival may be in doubt.
“My father likes to play God.” The speaker feels that her father is autocratic and controlling, like a benevolent dictator. She also feels that his attempts at benevolence lack integrity and commitment. He’s not being God, he’s only playing at it. Therefore, she not only resents his interference, she mistrusts it.
As the psychologist Richard Kopp writes in Metaphor Therapy (Brunner/Mazel, 1995), such figures of speech do more than provide us with colorful language; they help us create a framework upon which to consider significant matters. They influence how we perceive issues and think and feel about them, and what actions we take.
Kopp uses the example “Time is money.” Once you accept this metaphor as true, you start acting it out. You become more conscious of how you “spend” your time. You stop “giving” your time to others without expecting something in return. Instead, you try to “save” time so that you can “invest” it in worthwhile activity.
Imagine how you might act differently, however, if you accepted the metaphor that “time is a river.” It “flows” continually, so you don’t have to worry about giving it away; there’s always more time coming down the channel. Time “carries” you along whether you want to go or not, so you might as well relax and enjoy the ride.
Now imagine the conflicts that might arise in a partnership between two people, each of whom constructs his or her reality around these contradictory metaphors. Working together on a project, one person might constantly be struggling to “save time” as the other attempts to “let go” of time constraints. But by listening to each other’s metaphors, the pair may be able to come to a better understanding of their differences.
Kopp speculates that one reason metaphors are so powerful is that they activate the same mechanisms in the brain that we used in infancy to think about the world. As babies, we could not think of abstract concepts such as “security,” “nourishment,” or “nurturing.” But we did think about the concrete objects associated with such concepts. There was the blanket, the bottle of milk, the mother, and so on. Even though we didn’t have words for these things, we had the images of how they looked in reality, and how they looked in our minds. The blanket was security. The milk was nourishment. The mother was nurturing.
Because concrete images were so important as our brains formed and our thinking processes developed, we continue throughout our lives to find such images useful for learning and communicating abstract concepts. Now, if we want to think about an abstract concept in a new way, comparing it to something tangible can help. (Time is a runaway train; there’s no stopping it. Time is a furnace; it’s burning our resources. Time is a carousel; we’ll get another chance the next time around.) And from that new image we build a new conceptual framework, a new way to think about the concept, a new way to communicate with one another about it.
Memories can be metaphorically revealing as well. Metaphors involving significant events or relationships from your past—particularly early childhood—can also help you understand your emotions. They can help you examine matters of emotional heritage, such as the long-lasting effects of your parents’ emotional philosophy or your enduring vulnerabilities, issues we explored in depth in chapter 5.
If you’re struggling with a problem, and a certain memory keeps cropping up, you might explore whether this memory has some kind of metaphorical significance in your life. Could that past event, or past relationship, hold a current insight?
Let me give you an example. Anthony and Teresa, a couple I was seeing for marital therapy, had a conflict over a career move Teresa was about to make. To Teresa, the move seemed essential to her feelings of fulfillment. She believed everything she had done in her life had led her to this tremendous opportunity. If she didn’t make her move now, she would always regret it. But Anthony saw the change as an extremely risky maneuver that would threaten their family’s financial security. And because he and Teresa shared financial decisions, she would not change jobs without his approval.
The couple grappled with the decision for several weeks. During these discussions, Anthony brought up two characters from his childhood. One was his mother—a good-hearted but long-suffering woman who always subjugated her own needs to her husband’s demands. Anthony felt his father often took advantage of his mother’s submissiveness. “She was constantly being blindsided by him. He made a fool of her.” And Anthony feared that someday he would be just like his mother—dominated, ineffectual, and foolish.
The second character was Anthony’s grandfather, a man whom Anthony adored for his great wisdom and generosity of spirit. “My grandfather always saw right through people,” Anthony said. “You could never fool him because he had his eyes wide open. He knew all your faults. Despite that, however, he would do whatever he could for you. He gave and he gave. That’s just the way he was.”
When the time came for Anthony and Teresa to make their decision, something surprising happened. Although he still felt apprehensive about it, Anthony decided to support his wife’s dream.
“I can still see the potential for disaster,” he explained in the session that followed. “But I also know how important it is for her to try this. And suddenly that seems more significant than anything else.”
“That’s an extremely generous thing to do,” I told him. Then I asked, “Who does this remind you of?”
A smile spread across his face as he looked at Teresa. “This isn’t like my mother, is it?”
“No,” Teresa said, smiling as well. “It’s not like your mother at all. It’s more like your grandfather.”
“You don’t know what the future holds,” I added. “But you’re not about to be blindsided. You know exactly what Teresa needs, and you’ve got your eyes wide open.”
“But I never thought I could be like my grandfather,” Anthony said. “I never thought I could be that giving.” Then, after a long silence, he added, “I’ve been very worried about this decision for a long time. Seeing it this way gives me a better handle on it. Now I know why I’m moving in this direction. I can see that there was a model for this in my life. I think everything is going to be okay.”
The model—or framework—that Anthony refers to is what makes metaphors so valuable. In fact, therapists who want to help people solve problems or change their perspectives often start by helping them to change the metaphors they currently use to frame their lives.
Kopp tells of a patient who used the image of “a basket full of whips” to describe his habit of putting himself down. The patient’s therapist suggested that he start imagining that he carried “a basket full of teddy bears” instead. Perhaps that could help him to be gentler with himself when he’s under stress. A patient who felt his anger was “a teapot ready to explode” was advised to “lift the lid a little” and then his anger would not seem so dangerous.
Putting metaphors to work. You can enhance your emotional communication simply by listening and responding to the metaphors you hear in conversations—especially conversations about feelings. Certain metaphors may prompt you to ask questions that elicit more information about the feelings behind them. In this way th
e metaphor is a bid for understanding, while your question is a way of turning toward that bid with interest and concern. When you hear a metaphor, try to ask open-ended questions if you can, or just reflect back the information you’re hearing. Doing so can help your conversation partner relax, knowing that you simply want to understand what’s being said.
Here are a few examples:
A. In this job, I’m just a rat in a maze.
B. A maze, huh? What kind of a maze?
A. A very confusing one. All I can see are dead ends.
B. Sounds kind of frustrating. Like you need some help finding the right path.
A. You’re right. I need some guidance here.
A. You always put me onstage in front of your friends.
B. What do you mean by a stage? There’s no stage here.
A. But it’s like I’ve got to perform all the time. Say all the right things.
B. I didn’t know you felt that way. I’m just so proud of you. I want my friends to know how great you are.
A. But I feel like you’re always feeding me lines. I feel so pressured!
A: After Sherry left, I lost my spark.
B. Do you mean “spark” like the energy you need to get started?
A. Yeah. I don’t do anything all day. I just sit around and watch TV.
B. Sounds kind of dull.
A. It’s worse than dull. Some days I don’t even go to work.
To explore matters of emotional heritage, ask questions that elicit memories of childhood events or past relationships. Obviously, such questions work best in trusting relationships where people are used to sharing memories and being introspective. These questions don’t need to be particularly probing or “psychological,” however. You can simply ask, “Did anything like this ever happen when you were a kid?” Or, “Whom does your boss [your brother, your wife, etc.] remind you of when he acts like that?” Or, “Is there anybody else you’re thinking of right now?” The answers you get may be good for all sorts of insightful conversation.