Classroom Talk
Winter 2002 Archive
About accepting other people's emotions. Posted by John on March 20, 2002 at 19:45:31:
This is interesting, I think. One of the ways that I have been letting my energy be sapped here in class lately is how ***hard***these recent questions of
you students have been. I find I have to strain to try to get answers to them, when I . . . . . heh-heh . . . . . don't have all the answers.
Douglas stands up—every bit the gentleman—and speaks for his right to the fantasies that he has. "Which fantasy?" he asks, am I asking him to give
up. Whew! That's a tough one. Deirdre stands up—intent in her wish to know the truth of it—and asks me again, from the bottom of her heart, if
one *has to say* "I'm angry," out loud, to successfully acknowledge and process that emotion on through. Whew! As if I have "all the answers."
Sometimes I make a big weight out of that for my Self: acting as if I'm *supposed to have* all the answers. Ha-ha. Looks like I can apply that exercise
I shared with Student John to this situation. Do I have a job coaching the awareness game? Or does the job of coaching the awareness game have
me? Hee-hee.
I don't have to have any answers. (Compare this to "Forget about the score."). All I have to do is appreciate the difficulty of these questions, and
share the possible beauty of whatever comes through me to share, coming from my own experiences with these questions. There's no strain in that.
All I have to do is take what I get. Difficulty. Beauty. And give what I've got. Difficulty. Beauty. And pass it along . . . for whatever it may be
worth. Difficulty. Beauty. If there are any "answers" in it, perhaps they will come to you students. I don't have to be the man with the answers for
this class to work. I can just take it easy about the score, and share whatever I happen to remember of my own experiences. And so I can take my
own body back, with less stress in the matter, and have an easier awareness game coaching job of my own free creation, instead of it having me.
So . . . . I'm attempting to coach all of you in this class to realize that there is a whole other way of relating with human emotional feelings than the
ways that most of you have grown up with. I'm glad I'm putting it like that. So you don't have to feel that you *have to* look at human emotional
feelings in this other way, if it doesn't feel right to you. Yet you will be able to examine it, and look it over, and see what it is about.
Most of us have grown up in societies which look with disfavor on emotional feelings. Not only are most societies uncomfortable with negative
emotional feelings, most societies are uncomfortable with some of the positive emotional feelings, as well. Among people at large, there is a general
suspicion that human emotional feelings are not okay. There is thought to be something troublesome and "wicked" about our emotional feelings.
In this other view that I've mentioned, the idea is that human emotional feelings, both positive and negative emotional feelings, are natural. They are
okay.
You Folks may remember that the strategic distinction that is made in the awareness game is that positive and negative emotional feelings in and of
themselves are okay. What is not okay—in this game's perspective—is unconsciously acting out those negative feelings on other people in the form of
wounding stingers.
You made a remark the other day, Pauline—and I'm glad you did—that brought up an important point that hasn't been mentioned in class before, the
idea of "not cheating the other person out of their emotional feelings."
That popped up again in high relief for me, after writing out the second move of the "Nine Moves of the Awareness Game" for John (and the rest of
you) the other day:
>2. Being aware of the other person's obvious emotional feelings. Acknowledging that, as reality, and not denying them that. (I'm about to have a few words with Pauline about this in my next class).
As you may recall, I'd looked at your speaking-up with your sister in an unfairly critical light, Pauline, with remarks that sort of "put you down," and
then you explained how you actually had her best interests at heart in what you did. In the midst of my responding to your sharing that with me, I
noticed that I had said "should," the guilt-word, *twice* in speaking with you. That woke me up. And I got in touch with my body and, sure enough,
felt some palpable "worrying stomach" going on in there at that moment, bubble-bubble. And I said to you: "Aha. I feel guilty." I realized that I
actually felt guilty to have unfairly misjudged you. That happened! And you then said:
>...no need to ##Should### all over yourself.
Ha! That's cute. And I *know* your intentions were good! But, do you see what you are doing there? You are denying me my emotional feeling.
You are saying, in effect, "Don't feel guilty about me." In gestalt groups they would have said you were "cheating me out of my feeling." You were
saying something to try to get me to stop having the feeling that I was actually having then (albeit, you found a charming way to do that!)
Oh, Lordy. This is so hard to explain. *No wonder* I'm feeling feeble-minded, as these newer points get harder and harder to explain! Look, let's go
back first to this idea that emotional feelings are natural, and okay. I say that it's okay that I'm feeling guilty then. I'm simply realizing something that
is actually happening in the real world. As soon as I knew that I had seemingly slighted you, I reacted by feeling guilty about that. It was too late to
vote on it, so to speak. That brick had hit my foot, and I reacted by feeling guilty. It didn't even matter whether you felt slighted by me or not!
Notice that. Interesting, yeah? The reality of it was that—on my own side of it—guilt had arisen in the field—guilt existed in me in reality. And I
acknowledged that reality, and shared it with you, so you could know me in that moment.
Now there's nothing unusual about any of us feeling guilty about some things we say or we do. That will happen to some of us daily (especially those
who are strong Healer/Kind Helpers). It will happen to others of us perhaps weekly, or monthly at least. So the unusual thing is not that feeling
guilty happens in people. that's part of the reality of the world.
But it *is* unusual for us to realize that we are feeling guilty by waking up and experiencing that when it's happening. It takes practice to be able to do
that. And it is very unusual for us to share the experience of that with another person. In most situations, only a mindfulness practitioner can do that.
Yet in being able to do so, it provides an opportunity for the other person to know you, as you are, transparently. It is "part of a bridge" that enables
two people to know who each other really are. — You don't just get an approximation of what the other person is like; you get the person as they
really are.
And, look, despite your good intentions, nothing that you can say is going to make it "go away" when I am feeling guilty. In order for it to go away,
I have to wake up on it and process it on through on my own. That's how it goes away. The same principle holds true with the other negative
feelings around the wheel, as well. Fear, loneliness, anger, envy, shame, anxiety, sadness, and guilt.
People, in their long-engrained unconscious social habits, have a conditioned tendancy to deny other people of having all of those emotional feelings . .
. . . even though *we all DO have them*!!!
"Don't feel afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of." Or, "You're not really afraid; you're a big kid now!" — On around the wheel: "Stop feeling lonely
and get out and meet someone." "You don't have to be angry about that." "There's nothing for you to be jealous about." "Stop feeling ashamed."
"Get over this anxiety." "Don't be sad; stop crying and look on the bright side." "No need to 'should' all over yourself. You don't have to feel guilty
about it." — Do you see what I mean? People are doing this kind of thing to other people all the time, denying others their feelings. Can you see
these as examples of what I mean by "cheating other people out of their emotional feelings?"
Look them over again, one at a time, please, and imagine someone else saying those things to you when you are having those emotions. You've heard
people do that to you before. And you *know* in your gut that that *doesn't work*. It doesn't help you when other people tell you not to be having
the emotional feeling that you are having at that time. In fact—I think most of you can see from your own experiences of this kind—that telling a
person not to have the negative emotional feeling they are having actually makes it worse for them! Read those over as if they are being said to you,
and see if you can see what I mean.
"Don't be afraid" only makes us more scared. "Don't be angry" only makes us more angry. "Don't be guilty" . . . more guilty. (There is a "cosmic
principle" involved here that says that "resistance to anything only makes it persist." And the way to implement this principle constructively is
"Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance of reality the way reality is being, one piece at a time.")
I can still vividly remember a day when I was a very little boy—this came back to light in Primal Therapy many years ago—when I was running along a
sidewalk in shorts, and I tripped and skinned my knee up very badly, and I was sitting there, bleeding and crying.
And my Mother in her blue dress came running over and put her arms around me and said, "There, there. It doesn't hurt, Johnny!" And my Father,
who was mowing the lawn in a white dress shirt, looked over the hedge and said, "Be a man, son! Don't cry!" That was a significant Primal event for
me. I had a scream of anguish over that. It was a day when. as a little boy, I realized, in effect: "Mommy and Daddy are both crazy. They don't live
in the same real world with me."
Denying other people their feelings is always alienating. Acknowledging other people's feelings is companionship.
Tell your little child, "I understand you're being afraid. I'll leave your door open a little, and come if you call me." (They will learn on their own by
morning if their fear of the bogeyman proves justified, or not. But they won't grow up denying the reality that they become afraid. And fear can be
very useful natural information at certain times! Fear, when recognized, might save a person's life.)
On around the wheel: Tell your friend, "I understand you are lonely. I hear you." Tell your boss, "I understand you are angry." (The boss probably
doesn't want to fire you, just *know* that you got the message.) Tell your friend, "I understand that you are jealous about that." Tell them, "I
understand that you feel ashamed," and tell them then how you feel about that. Tell the other, "I understand that you are being sad. Here, cry on
my shoulder, if you'd like to." Tell them, "I understand that you feel guilty about that." And tell them your own experience in connection with that,
like, maybe, "I didn't feel offended when you said that." Don't cheat them out of their side of it. And, don't cheat them out of your own side of it,
either, if you're willing to speak up and share. And that way, there can be harmony for the two of you.
Let other people know that you understand their emotional feelings when they become known to you. It seems "less crazy" to them in their
predicament when you do that. They don't feel alone with it. It lets them know that you understand where they are being at. It lets them feel that
you are a true companion with them in the realm of reality that they are experiencing at the time. It lets them feel that you accept them in being who
they really are. (And that's what Martin Buber called "love.")
Now, maybe it made you feel uncomfortable to *know* that I was feeling guilty towards you, Pauline. I think that's what happened. It's plausible.
When I said "I feel guilty," that was like a stinger for you that impacted your body, and you reacted in turn. Very possibly, it made *you* feel guilty to
know that I felt guilty towards you. This is very possible, because what you did about it was try to heal me of it. "Don't feel guilty." So, you, in turn,
may have become guilty when I became guilty.
And that's not unusual. Emotional feelings, in fact, are quite contageous! (For instance, one person in a crowd gets scared, and soon everybody's
being scared. Or one person starts crying, and others are "touched" and begin to weep.)
My point here is that it is only ever so human for people to have emotional feelings when they are relating with each other. It's natural. It happens!
Perhaps you can see—from these struggling attempts to explain "that other view of human emotional feelings"—that when I, or others tell you we are
feeling guilty, there is this other way of looking at it that suggests not telling the person "Don't be guilty," but suggests that you become able to tell
them, first, "I understand you are feeling guilty about it." And then, be able to share your own experiences about it truthfully, as well.
Maybe, hypothetically, that conversation might have gone like this:
Coach: "I feel guilty, Pauline."
Pauline: "Ha! I feel guilt about *that*, Coach. I don't feel comfortable having you feel guilty about me. And . . . I wasn't offended by what you said.
Coach: "Wow! Look at how much better we know each other now, as real human beings."
We would just *know how it is* with each of us. And it would be okay. And, sharing that knowledge, we would recognize the same situation right
away when it came up for us again, and just understand, and be cool about it. You'll see, because this situation probably will come up again between
us, if we go on hanging around here together. Neither of us will take it personally, and both of us will understand. "Oh, that's just Coach being
Coach. It's okay." "Oh, that's just Pauline being Pauline. That's cool."
Well, that interpretation might not really represent your own experiences in this conversation. But I think the point I'm getting at is *somewhat* clear.
Human emotional feelings—both positive and negative—are natural, and they are okay (when looked at from this other vantage point). The more we
are aware of emotional feelings, the less likely a lot of acting-out will occur. And when we don't deny other people their emotional feelings (whether
expressed or unexpressed), that is friendship, that is companionship, that is love. It is not the emotional feelings themselves that do the damage in life.
We can accept that without trouble. It is the unconscious acting-out of these emotions in sleep that creates so much suffering for all of us in the human
race.
Now . . . this leads me into the heartfelt question that Deirdre has raised (more than once). And I'm going to surprise you this time, Deirdre, take the
easy way out, and say that your answer to that question is really as good as my own. ;-)
But that's for the next time, when I can get back to this place.
Coach
Heh-heh. {big grin} Well, I did get some work done here today, notwithstanding being unaccustomedly uptight in the beginning.
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