Ask Dan and Jennifer » feelings

Do You Feel Responsible For Other People’s Feelings? You Have to Read This…

Dr. Margaret Paul — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:29:21 +0000

Many people actually believe that they are responsible for other people’s feelings. The truth is our feelings are caused by our own thoughts and actions.

Consider these examples:

“My wife is so upset that I have to travel more on my new job,” Chuck told me in our phone counseling session. “She feels so alone and lost when I’m gone. When I talk with her she is either crying or angry. I feel so badly and guilty but I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you feel responsibility for her feelings?” I asked him. “Do you feel that you are the cause of her feelings?”

“Yes.”

*****

“I’m just starting to date again after my divorce and I’m having a hard time with it,” Jeanette told me. “I just don’t know how to let a man know that I’m not interested in dating him any more, or in pursuing a sexual relationship with him. It feels like such a sticky situation.”

“Is it sticky because you are worried about his feelings?”

“Yes. The last man I dated hung his head and looked so distressed when I asked him to leave. I know that he was really attracted to me and I wasn’t at all attracted to him. I felt so awful that he was so hurt.”

“Did you feel responsible for his feelings?”

“Yes.”

*****

“My 14 year old daughter is so angry at me for the divorce, even though she knows that we are divorcing because of all my husband’s affairs,” Alissa told me. “I feel so guilty, even though I am not the one who had the affairs.”

“Do you feel responsible for her feelings?”

“Yes, of course!”

*****

The Truth About What Causes Our Feelings

Do you believe that you CAUSE others’ feelings, and are therefore responsible for them?

This is a major false belief. Some of our feelings, such as grief from losing a loved one, or helplessness over others, or loneliness when we want to share love with another and no one is available, are caused by life events. But most of our feelings, such as anger, anxiety, depression, hurt, guilt, or shame, are caused by our own thoughts and actions.

If Chuck’s wife is abandoning herself by not attending to her own feelings, or by judging herself, or by making Chuck responsible for her, then she will feel alone and angry at Chuck. It is not Chuck who is abandoning her. It is she who is abandoning herself.

Since there is nothing Chuck can do about the fact that his wife is abandoning herself, he cannot possibly take responsibility for her feelings. But he CAN take responsibility for his own feelings. As long as Chuck is telling himself the lie that he is responsible for his wife’s feelings, he will feel badly and guilty. His guilt is his inner guidance’s way of letting him know that he is telling himself a lie.

Taking Responsibility For Our Own Feelings

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Why You Should ALWAYS Pay Attention to Your Inner Feelings When You Meet Someone

Dr. Margaret Paul — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 11:15:22 +0000

A friend of mine recently said to me, somewhat in awe, “I’m just discovering that energy is everything!”

Right, it is, but what does this mean, exactly?

What Is Energy Exactly?

Our energy is the frequency, or vibration, that automatically emanates from our being, and is a result of our intention. Each of us is always radiating energy. Energy operates on a continuum from extremely negative to wonderfully positive, and reflects our intent from an extremely unloving controlling intent to an extremely loving intent.

Whenever our intent is to protect ourselves with some form of controlling behavior, our energy is of a low frequency – heavy, dark, difficult to be around. Whenever our intent is to be loving and to learn about love, our energy is lighter and easier to be around. Learning to discern the differences in our own and others’ energy is very important regarding being loving to ourselves.

Understanding Energy in Regard to Relationships

Let’s take an example. Richard, 28, fell in love with Rachael, also 28, an extraordinarily beautiful woman with a winning smile. Richard is a very kind, caring and compassionate person who tends to be a caretaker. Richard believed that everyone was basically like him, kind and caring.

Richard also believed that anyone this beautiful on the outside must also be beautiful on the inside. Instead of caring enough about himself to discern who Rachael really was, Richard allowed lust to determine his decisions and married Rachael.

In time he discovered that Rachael was a really hard, cold and calculating woman, who was really in the marriage to be taken care of financially. The marriage eventually ended in a difficult divorce, with Richard losing much financially.

Had Richard tuned into Rachael’s energy instead of being dazzled by her looks, he would have quickly discovered that Rachael came from fear and neediness, not from caring and kindness. Had he been willing to go within to his own inner, feeling experience of Rachael, he would have known that she was operating from a much lower frequency than he, and was not a good match for him. Had he been willing to experience Rachael with his heart and soul, rather than his mind and genitals, he would have known that she was not for him.

Pay Attention to Your Feelings

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How To Achieve Emotional And Sexual Intimacy In Your Relationship

Nick Arrizza MD — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:15:05 +0000

To know and experience each other fully is the most effective way to keep the bonds of understanding, love and empathy alive and strong. This is the glue that keeps a relationship intact. Without it, it will eventually fall apart.

So what do I mean by emotional and/or sexual intimacy and how can one nurture such experiences?

Intimacy is not necessarily sex

Well, intimacy is often colloquially thought of as simply "having sex" by some. This is not what I mean here.

By intimacy I am referring to one’s ability to be open to one’s own inner feelings and then be able to share such experiences with one’s partner freely and without fear of any kind.

You see intimacy is about letting yourself be fully known to yourself and to your partner.

Unfortunately this is easier said than done for many individuals because most have been conditioned to suppress, hide, denigrate, or make unconscious much of one’s inner emotional life.

That is largely because the societal norms which continue to be perpetuated see feelings and emotions as dangerous, untrustworthy, illogical, painful, impulsive, etc.

Well, this is a sad state of affairs because emotions and feelings are what make you and me human beings.

What happens when we shut down

So by shutting down this part of one’s life experience one is essentially making one’s self less than a whole human being. That means that while in a relationship you are not fully present as your complete self.

Of course at some level your partner will eventually recognize this and feel like he/she is not fulfilled because he/she is not having a relationship with a whole human being.

It’s at times like this that individuals start feeling dissatisfied with their relationship and hence start looking elsewhere for happiness. No wonder so many relationships end for this reason.

The ability to nurture a bond of intimacy starts only when each individual starts to take personal responsibility for allowing their inner emotional life to emerge. First to themselves and then to their partner.

As I said earlier this self revelation can be a scary one for many because allowing this emotional life to emerge often means allowing unresolved emotional pain to come to the surface of one’s experience. This can make an individual feel inadequate, guilty, sad, depressed, anxious, angry, hurt, tired, etc.

The tendency might be to attempt to numb the emotional pain through drugs, alcohol, sex, work, and other distractions. Again this leads to individuals simply acting out a stale relationship with little depth and or awareness of self or other.

Sooner or later this will declare itself as unsatisfying and each partner will be on the look out for something else.

Nurturing intimacy

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Why Your Relationship Success Depends on Feeling Your Feelings

Wendy Strgar — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:47:27 +0000

Regardless of what kind of relationship you are in, the foundation for its success is based on your ability to experience and articulate your feelings. The authentic self disclosure of the joy, fear, anger and pleasure that your time together brings you is the adhesive material that makes relationships real.

Most of us are handicapped by our feelings. Not only do we not often give ourselves the permission and space to feel them, but often they exist without even being able to name them. Our internal experiences that don’t get expressed with language don’t just go away. They live in us and often surprise us with their sudden re-appearance at times when we least expect them.

The truth about feelings

Thinking about our feelings like weather patterns is a helpful beginning. Like a sudden storm, they inform and distract with their intensity. They are changeable and act on the environment and relationships you are in with great power. They reflect the nature of the moment with great accuracy. Our ability to experience and share our feelings in meaningful ways is one of the profound marks of our humanity.

Yet feelings are for many people a locked box; an experience that overwhelms and is difficult to express. We are taught in a variety of circumstances and for a variety of reasons to suppress our feelings. We learn to silence our feelings so well that the messages in our bodies are not even discernible.

Suppressed feelings are not as invisible as you might think. They take on a life in our dreams and eventually become diseases in our bodies. Our inability to express our feelings cuts us off not only from our own experience but limits the connection we feel with the people we love most.

Why we disconnect from our feelings

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