The "F' Word

No, Not THAT "F" word!!!

I'm writing about feelings. Me? Write about Feelings? YIKES!!!!

I hope this is one of those blogs that I look back on and think, 'Wow! You really didn't understand much did you?" Please bare with me if my 'understanding' of emotions appears elementary and simple because that is where I am at today. It is my hope that by writing this blog, my understanding will grow and deepen

I grew up in a household that did not encourage emotions. Feelings were to be kept inside and not shared. Emotions could lead to explosive and scary behavior. I don't remember my Father telling me he loved me until I was in my thirties. I am not trying to blame anyone here, but I think personal history can help me understand.


I've kept my emotions under wraps for most of my life. I've not allowed myself to feel emotions. In fact, many times I've thought to myself "I don't feel anything. " Oh, anger comes through pretty strong. But other than that, emotions have been missing or limited. I think I have been afraid of them.


Ironically, I'm pretty in tune with other's emotions. I can intuit other's emotions quickly and accurately. I've read that this is a symptom of an adult child of an alcoholic. Children in a dysfunctional family learn quickly that survival depends on an ability to detect the prevailing mood of the home. It prompts them to take a caretaker role and to be concerned with other's emotions more than their own. That's me.

It is my understanding that I have buried my emotions and not allowed them to surface to the level of conscious recognition. That does not mean they do not exist. Feelings are a constant presence, but my heart has held them tight, not allowing them to be released. This must take enormous spiritual energy and I wonder how that has stunted my growth.

One result of repressed emotions is its affect intimacy. My ex lover told me in the recent past that I didn't share my feelings with her. And how could I? I didn't know what they were. If one can't share emotions, are we left with only intellectual discussions? Can that alone be the basis for an intimate relationship? I don't think so.

So what to do?


This past week I decided I was going to learn to feel and to emote. I've never thought of myself as stupid before, but this posed a bit of a challenge. Remember Mr. Spock from Star Trek? His race had no experience with emotion and consequently the idea of emotion was completely foreign to him. I felt a little like that starting out.

So, being the empirical pinhead that I am, I went to GOOGLE and did a search called, "list of emotions" and found the usual 100,000,000 results. I learned that lots of psychology types have classified emotions. I chose a very simple classification that suggests four basic emotions: Glad, Sad, Mad, and Fearful. Although this seemed a bit simplistic, it was an improvement over a previous paradigm I'd heard to describe men's emotional landscape: Angry, hungry, and horny.



Still I wanted more nuance to my emotional experience. Kind of like painting. We can use red, yellow, and blue only, but some of the art lies in the subtleties between the primary colors. I think this is true of emotions as well. So I spent some time identifying types of Mad, shades of Glad and so on. I've printed the list and I have them posted at work, in my car, and around my house. I stop several times a day and ask, "What are you feeling right now?" I know I'll laugh at how stupid this sounds some day. Actually, it sounds pretty stupid today. Nevertheless, I think it is working!! And it has me chuckling - (that is the result of feeling happy)

When I first started trying to feel emotions, I couldn't do it, but after a few days, feelings of remorse, shame, loss, and guilt started to be themselves present. Great, I thought. Just what I need. To fill my day feeling miserable. Fortunately, I had read that oftentimes when one has repressed feelings for sometime, these are the first ones to surface. So I've been patient and brave, letting these emotions out and in. And you know what? Just in the past few days, other more pleasant emotions have begun to emerge. I can feel and identify serenity, elation, and joy.



Two more understandings I want to share. This sounds so trite, I'm embarrassed to write it, but I've learned that it is okay to feel my emotions. Yesterday I began to cry over feelings of guilt and shame and I heard myself say, "Don't cry." I'm sure I've said that to myself a million times, but this was the first time, I thought, "Wait a minute. Don't say that. Say go ahead and cry. Feel, really feel that emotion."


The second understanding is this. Emotions pour through me and move on unless I hold onto them. So, I've been trying to feel and experience the emotion, but not to clench it. It is like an internal body shower. Emotions can wash through me, I feel them, and let them go. Let them pass. This is important because it allows me to feel sad without being sad; I can feel angry without being angry. Feeling an emotion does not make you that emotion. You can feel, watch, and experience the emotion without becoming the emotion.

The questions I can't answer just yet are, when, where, how, and with whom does one share emotional intimacy? Was it wise to not share emotional intimacy with my ex lover because she brought a dishonest element to the relationship from the beginning? Or, if I had been able to be more emotionally open, would she then have felt safe enough to disclose her secret?

For now, I plan to play and revel with my emotions alone. But just as a painter who plays with color must ultimately share his art with others, I understand that we are at our best when we share our emotions with others. I look forward to someday sharing mine.

Thanks for reading.

Mike

Fear of intimacy and pain of isolation

A couple of recent events have prompted me to create this blog. Actually, it is not the events themselves, but my reactions to them that bring me here.

My Dad fell and broke his shoulder and can no longer get himself in and out of bed. Someone must stay overnight with him and assist him during his frequent efforts to urinate. He is a recovering alcoholic and was a pretty mean SOB in his day. I am finding it very difficult to have sympathy and compassion for him at this point in his life and that has led to some pretty strong feelings of guilt and shame.

Additionally, I learned that the woman I love lied to me and betrayed me. The subsequent feelings of abandonment are overwhelming. This happened another time in my recent past and I'm now left wondering what is wrong with me that I would have chosen these women to love.

Taken together, these events have rocked me and moved me off my center. Not all together a bad thing because it has caused me to take a hard look at myself in an attempt to understand myself in a way I never have before.

The purpose of this blog is just that - to share with people I respect and trust, some possible understandings of myself in this world. It is not my attempt to prescribe or preach, but simply to share what I understand at this point in time. I hope that my understandings will change and grow over time. My current blogs might appear silly and superficial when compared with later ones. I sure hope so.

The benefits of blogging include forcing myself to put into words what I'm thinking and feeling, prompt me to keep learning and growing, and allow others the opportunity, but not the responsibility, to give me some feedback.

So here we go........

I read the other day that many of us vacillate between the pain of intimacy and hopeless isolation. I have come to realize that I I've struggled with this all my life. When I am in a relationship and we start to get close, I get nervous and edgy. It is like I'm running around making sure all the cracks are sealed and the walls are strong so that my my partner can't see me being vulnerable. I need to maintain an air of cool, and calm at all times. I'm sort of the James Dean of emotional intimacy. When I do lose my cool, I'm harsh and hard in voice and countenance. I begin to find reasons to break up with my partner. I find her faults and perseverate on them like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman. Regardless of how attractive my partner is, I start looking at other women and wondering what she is like. I grow quiet, moody, and disengaged.

This must be so difficult for my partner, sensing that I am holding back and wondering, "Is it me or is it him?" They, of course, want to help and want to get closer, which I perceive as more intrusion and even more painful, so I shut down even more. Eventually, they give up. And I'm left alone.

Once I'm alone, I start looking for another partner. Or I watch too much television, or eat too much sugar, or drink too much alcohol. I do anything to prevent me from facing that 'hopeless isolation." I start calling or emailing friends I haven't talked to in awhile. I go out to eat just so I'll be around people. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) it never takes me too long to find another partner and then the cycle starts all over again.

So, what to do? Well, I could spend a lot of time and thought wondering where this mess all started. I suppose I could blame my parents. Or maybe the Nuns in elementary school. Instead, I think I'll just move forward from here and try to identify and practice some strategies that may help me become more comfortable with intimacy and less fearful of being alone. I think practice and modeling are keys to effective learning, so I am going put myself in settings that are comfortable and that allow and encourage intimacy. I'm going to sit quietly more and make friends with my alone time. Specifically, I've decided to do the following.

I've begun attending Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings. These are helpful in that one is allowed to share one's most intimate feelings, thoughts and emotions in a supportive and noncritical environment. Cross talking - commenting on or questioning what another has said - is not permitted. Watching and listening to others open up and share their most intimate thoughts, feelings and emotions gives me the courage to open myself up as well.

Additionally, I've been speaking more openly to selected friends about what is going on in my life in a way that I have never ever done. I'm letting myself be seen as vulnerable, troubled, and struggling. This has been liberating in that my friends have embraced me and I think, see me as more human.

Writing this blog is yet another strategy that I hope will work.

I've signed up for a weekend course at Kripalu for singles called something like "Creating Spiritual Partnerships." Here I hope to focus on values and to determine what exactly I am looking for in a partner.

Lastly, in order to get comfortable with being alone, I'm not going to enter into another relationship for some time, probably one year. In fact, the old cycle started to repeat itself already this afternoon when a colleague said to me, "Now that you don't have a girlfriend, do you finally want to meet my friend?" I turned it down with an explanation that I want to spend some time with myself, thinking and hopefully learning about myself. I'm going to be careful of television, eating sugar, drinking alcohol. I plan to do more reading, blogging, playing music, painting, and volunteering.

By the way, I'm teaching swing dance lessons at the Library in preparation for the Library's fundraising dance, An Evening of Blues, Take Two with Al Copley January 26. The lessons are December 5, 12, and 19 from 6:30 to 8:00 and are free. Singles and couples welcome. No charge but participants are encouraged to attend the fundraising dance.

So there you have Some Understandings of Fear of Intimacy and pain of isolation.

Thanks for reading.