Working with my psych has made me realise that one of the biggest mistakes I make is invalidating my own feelings by explaining away other people's bad behaviour. I've spent the majority of my life rationalising, its something that I think I learned from my mother. It's something that used to make me angry at my mother. She is a big believer in seeing both sides of the story, and consequently so am I. Seeing both sides of the story is not the issue though, I still think that's a great ability to have. The problem comes when you are so good at seeing the other persons side of the story that the feelings they caused with their actions become secondary, or get lost completely.
I realised today that I now do it to my daughter and I want to stop. When she comes to me to tell me about something that has happened with her friends she doesn't want me to be objective, she wants me to soothe her hurt feelings. She doesn't need help seeing why the other person did what they did, she just wants a hug. I know because its how I felt when my mum did it to me. It's how I feel now I've realised I do it to myself.
When someone hurts me I instantly beginning trying to explain their behaviour. I tell myself that they don't mean to be an arsehole, they just had a shit childhood. Now I know that while its beneficial to be able to see why people act the way they do its also important to give myself permission to be angry at them for how they acted. It's ok to be sad because they hurt my feelings regardless of what they have going on in their lives. I don't have to keep making excuses for people, I can just have feelings. My feelings are mine and I am perfectly entitled to have them. Even when people insist that that's not how they meant to make me feel. Intention is irrelevant, we feel the way we feel.
There's another aspect to this as well. When other people invalidate my feelings. The biggest one is when I tell people I have depression/anxiety/ADHD and I get "no you don't!". People don't mean to invalidate my feelings but that's what they ultimately do. It makes me feel that what I deal with every day isn't legitimate and even though they don't mean to, it tells me that they don't believe me, not really. People do this in other ways to each other every day, I think its became a societal norm. A girl breaks up with her boyfriend and she says "I'm so sad", her friends rally around and, trying to be helpful, say "no you're not" or "don't be sad" followed by some justification about why the boy in question was shit and their friend deserves better. All of that may be true but as a society we need to allow ourselves to have negative emotions. We are all so caught up in the happiness chase that we forget its ok to be sad or angry sometimes.
Next time someone expresses to you that they are feeling a negative emotion, rather than trying to explain, justify, invalidate, simply let them feel how they feel. Ask them why they feel that way, tell them its understandable for them to feel that way, let them have a rant. Chances are it will help them feel better more quickly. I'm going to give myself permission to feel angry or sad because of other people, hopefully it helps me.
I'm curious what everyone else's thoughts are on this, I'd love to hear what you think.
It is an interesting point of view, and one I find a bit of connection with I might say. I tend to try and remain neutral or objective, and perhaps in that I could loosen up a little.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I have come to learn is that we are not really told a lot about our biggest personal right, and coincidentally, our greatest strength; the right to choose. We are told, either directly or indirectly, that we must be a certain way, behave a certain way, and if we don't feel that way, to "pretend" we don't and carry on.
Then there is the other side of this trap where people learn to overtly express themselves gaining "control" of situation through aggression, (passive or otherwise), domination and indignation.
I like a phrase you use: "...give myself permission to feel..." and that I think is key. Acknowledging and Feeling an emotion and being aware of the reasons for is somewhat different to actually expressing it. Being able to communicate that awareness without resorting to extreme expressionism is difficult.
This brings me back to my preface point; Choice. Once I am aware of an emotional reaction, I then have the choice as to what I do with it. I hope to express my feelings in a more constructive way, and this is something I am still learning but getting there.
My childhood memories is dominated by people who exploded with emotion and I resolved at a very young age not to be like them, so I instead retreated. This is a hard habit to break and I still do not want to go the other way.
Hanging all this off a desire to Choose a reaction may sound a little too intellectual (objective). My preference is that in making a choice I am taking in to account my feelings and my thoughts as a combined whole, taking back control of who I am and what that means to me.
My personal 4 cents worth.
Thanks for the great read and moving concepts.
Hi Labrug! Thank you so much for taking the time to comment! I was constantly told as a child that if I felt sad or angry or sick or anything negative that I should pretend everything was fine, put on the mask and face the world. It makes it really hard to acknowledge negative feeling when you have them. I think sometimes if we acknowledge them straight away it stops them from being built up to the point of explosion (not always but sometimes). I also find my blog and journal writing, along with my new strategy of mindfulness and meditation help me address the feelings in a constructive way.
ReplyDeleteI wish you luck on your journey and thank you so much again for reading and commenting :)