The Constellation Learning Newsletter
November 2007

One male mantra I’ve heard expressed goes something like: “Women - they’re too emotional.” To reciprocate, a female mantra: “Men - they have not a clue what they’re feeling.” Both statements have a grain of truth to them, I suppose, but I’ve known plenty of “emotional” men who blow a fuse on a regular basis and women who “haven’t a clue” as to what they’re really feeling. Women who do “smile therapy” to cover up the anger seething beneath the surface and men whose intimidation tactics are a mask for deep rooted insecurities.

Nope, when we’re talking feelings we are united in our humanity. All of us grapple with unwanted feelings all the time. The sign of self-mastery is that a master can distinguish between when, why, what and how much in response to certain stressful situations.

Surfing the waves of emotion takes a skillful rider. And most of us could use some help learning how to stand up, maintain our balance, and actually enjoy riding the wave!

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~ Monthly Message ~

“When dealing with people, remember you are not
dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”

-- Dale Carnegie--

It’s remarkable to me that some people attempt to dissect an emotional issue with a knife made of logic. As Rabindranath Tagore, India’s first Nobel laureate, wrote, “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade; it makes the hand bleed that uses it.” Not the most effective approach, but often the default position for those who are unskilled in untangling their feelings. A basic mantra people use: “If it feels bad, avoid it.”

Yet most of us continue to believe that negative feelings are negative things - something to be shunned, ignored, like some disheveled beggar on the street. Rather, I believe that our feelings have the most to reveal to us, if we’re brave enough to take a look at the reasons for their existence. They are learned behaviours. We don’t enter the world distrustful - we learn it!

Trying to “logicalize” emotional issues simply doesn’t work. We must actually experience the very feeling we’re trying to avoid in order for us to be able to actually use logic to “get a grip” on it. It’s a paradox. Life’s full of them.

Until you learn to “get a grip” on your emotions without bloodying yourself as you grip the knife of logic, they will forever control you, popping up sideways in all sorts of situations.

Logic is highly valued in the professional world. We need logic. But logic severed from emotional understanding severely limits one’s tool box of effective responses to stressful situations and challenging relationships. You can’t use what you don’t even know exists. Don’t confuse not displaying emotion with not feeling it. I’m talking about what goes on inside - not outside.

And we are creatures of emotion. We feed off them. When bored we’ll do some crazy things just to feel something! New brain research indicates that humans make decisions in a primitive part of the brain that deals with emotions called the cingulate cortex. Not in our logic center, in our emotion center!

In her brilliant book, Molecules of Emotion (see review below), Candace Pert hypothesizes that we will actually become addicted to certain feelings over time, unconsciously putting ourselves in situations where we will get to “feed” that feeling. If you like winning or justice, for example, that could produce some positive results. But if you’ve become used to the feeling of being second best, or always cheated, or betrayed, always the victim, well, you can see that the possibilities are strong that you will set up situations that don’t serve your long-term interests.

This week, a good friend of mine broke up with her boyfriend of three (intense) months. (I will go on record to say that though I never voiced it to her, I didn’t like him - I trusted she would come to the same place in her own time, a nice overlap of tact and righteousness which proved most productive.)

Both of them had feelings about the situation, obviously. But the difference was that my friend could not only actually understand what she was feeling, but also why, which gave her an edge. She has examined her filters - the ways she sees and hears things - knows her triggers, and had “owned” her part in a non-productive relationship. She was able to differentiate between actual events, her experience of them and her resulting conclusions. He could only sputter and make sarcastic remarks. That, and to ask for the return of the iPod he had bought her two months ago to replace the one he had broken. Reminds me of Maya Angelou’s brilliant remark: “When people show you who they are, believe them.”

Philosopher Jonatan Mårtensson said, “Feelings are much like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf.”

Bravo to those who have learned to distinguish the ones worth riding.

Application Tips:

• “Name the Feeling”
  
  If you don’t know its name, you can’t teach it to “heel.” Your unwanted feelings are like dogs who are straining at the leash. Knowing that you feel frustrated, or resentful, or sad, for example, gives you a starting place. You’d be surprised how many people cannot actually articulate what they’re feeling, that’s how disconnected they’ve become. They might just say they’re angry or upset, but they don’t, won’t, or can’t name the sub-category of guilt, for example, as the underlying reason why they feel sad or mad.
  
  
• “Peel the Onion”
  
  Let’s say someone has said something during a meeting (or a personal interaction) where you feel “stung.” You’re angry at the person who made the remark. You’ve already tried logic, made excuses for the person and yourself (“maybe they’re just having a bad day” or that you should just get over it and “be the bigger person”) but that didn’t work.
  
  You’re still left with the unwanted feelings: you’re upset. But under the “upset-ness” is the opportunity for you to grow, as well as ease the upset. Under the upset, you realize you resent the person for creating your upset.
  
  This now gives you additional information: You’re holding them to some imaginary standard against which they just fell very short. But maybe it’s just not worth the effort to go back and try and clean it up, the relationship is not that important to you. And you’ll move forward without the weight of the resentment tagging along with you.

  If the relationship is an important one, you now have a basis for a discussion with that other person wherein, having discerned the real reason for sense of outrage (“you were less than I hold you to be in that moment and I feel let down and hurt by your comment”). You can now discuss what happened, your interpretations of it, and your feelings about it - logically! Devoid of the “emotion” that is released when we’re not clear yet.

  Feelings ooze out sideways, usually destructively, when you haven’t learned how to teach them to heel.

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