Expressing Your Feelings

Expressing your feelings is a funny thing. There seems to be such a thin line between appropriately expressing your needs and desires, and just pouring emotional pain onto others. As I've said before, it is vitally important to honour our feelings as valid, but that doesn't give us permission to use them as a weapon on others. So what does it look like when you are expressing your feelings in a healthy way?

I hate to admit it, but I was mad at my husband... yup, MAD! There's no reason to lay out all the details but basically, I needed some time to myself and he was working lots of extra hours. On Friday, I thought he would come home, he would be able to BBQ for us and we could have some nice down-time before a busy weekend. Late in the afternoon, the dreaded text message came to me saying he was staying late at the office yet again. Bang: let loose the anger and frustration, and all the nasty thoughts that came with it. I tried to text him back, but the old adage "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" came to mind and I held off. If I had tried to communicate my feelings to him at that time, my pain would have been speaking, not me. Even the nicest words would have come off as snarky and passive-aggressive, if not in word, then in energy. And believe me, people can sense the energy behind your words, some of us more than others.

Again, I could have talked myself out of my feelings. My husband did not mean to make me angry; he was just doing the best he could with his time and knowledge. I know that he was not trying to make me miserable. This is important information for me to realize, but it doesn't mean I should ignore my feelings. So what's a girl to do? Well, I had to take some time to acknowledge my feelings, and love the parts of me that were feeling them. I brought up each set of thoughts and feelings one at a time, let them flow (tears and all), and then said "I love you" to myself as kindly and lovingly as possible. I was being there for me. After a few minutes, I was able to calm down significantly. For the next little while, now and then, another feeling would come back, and I just repeated the process.

After taking this time with myself and my thoughts and feelings, I was ready to decide what to communicate to my husband. I waited until he came home, and I let him know what I had been hoping for and how I was disappointed. It wasn't perfect communication but I got my point across without hurting his feelings or beginning an argument. If I had dismissed my feelings, I might not have said anything to my husband at all, and then those feelings might have come back even stronger the next time something didn't go my way.

In my case, my unhealthy communication patterns tend to be passive or passive-aggressive, but I think the same process goes for those aggressive communicators out there. The tricky part might be catching yourself before you go off on someone. And if you miss the boat at first, it's not too late to say your "I love you's" to yourself after the argument is over and you are able to take time on your own. And even if your communication partner is not so loving and understanding as mine (I love you sweetie!), your self-love efforts can still make a positive impact on your communication and your relationship.

How do you express your feelings? Do you let your pain do your communicating for you? Let me know what you think!

Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

© Amelie Rossignol and Heart Answers, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amelie Rossignol and Heart Answers with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Emotional Themes

An emotional theme describes a particular emotion that seems to be occurring in many different areas of your life. Occasionally it can be something obvious like when you're outwardly angry about everything that's happening in your life, but sometimes it's quite a bit more subtle.

I can give you the example of what's happening to me right now. It seems that in so many different areas, I'm feeling helpless. Financially, my husband brings in all the money right now. I can change a few things about what we spend and how much money is going out of the household, but overall, I feel a little financially helpless. Also, my daughter's alternative school program has suffered from low enrolment in the past two years and the school board is considering shutting down the program. My husband and I have spent time, money and effort to recruit new families to the program but the school board's decision deadline is approaching and I feel helpless. And all at the same time, my husband is really busy right now, having many projects on the go that I can't help him with at all. On top of that, I haven't been feeling well today so I asked for more of his time to take care of the kids after school. He is stressed and busy, and I feel helpless. And these are just a few of the areas in my life where I can identify feeling helpless right now.

So you see, helplessness is an emotional theme in my life right now. Now each of these individual situations I can spiritually intellectualize away. I can trust that God has always provided me with the means to take care of my family before and that I have ample evidence of a secure financial future, so I can stop worrying and have faith that I have the strength to survive whatever happens financially. I know that even if my daughter's program is cut, we will find another option and I will learn valuable lessons from our search for her best option - so of course, I should let go and let God. I know that my husband has his own lessons to learn regarding feeling stressed and busy, so I should let him walk his own path, and do my best to be helpful where I can. None of these things are untrue, but they all have something in common. They are spiritual "truths" that I may be using to ignore or dismiss the fact that I feel helpless.

Now, I know that emotional themes are an important topic right now. How do I know? Well, despite having many lovely ideas for blog posts this month, this is the first topic that has sent me running to my computer, even though I have a splitting headache and a date with my pillow the minute my husband gets home. These emotional themes, even though they exist throughout our lives, can be easily missed because they involve feelings we are avoiding in some way. If you're feeling like nothing is changing in your life, no matter what kind of effort you put in, a hidden emotional theme may be involved. So how do you find the sneaky themes? You can do what I did - I asked my self: "What is the last thing I want to be feeling right now?" Then you can ask yourself where you are feeling that feeling anyway. If you find yourself naming multiple areas of your life where you have that same feeling, you have an emotional theme.

Now I know that I'm feeling helpless, and that it's something I've been avoiding. What good does that do me? Once again, the idea is not to dismiss the feeling, even if you can give yourself a thousand reasons why it isn't true. If the feeling is there, the thoughts that created it may or may not be true, but the feeling itself is true. You have named it, now feel it, accept it, love it as it is, and love the part of yourself that has this feeling. Once you are able to integrate that part back into yourself, the feeling no longer needs to permeate your life in order to get your attention.

What emotional theme can you find in your life? Are you willing to love those parts of you that feel angry, helpless, lazy, ungrateful, bored, useless, sad, or afraid? Once you are, you can restore yourself to wholeness that can change your life.

Image: Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

© Amelie Rossignol and Heart Answers, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amelie Rossignol and Heart Answers with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.