HOW DO YOUR FALSE FEELINGS CUT YOU OFF FROM THE WORLD?

Put a finger down if you have ever said or felt one of these statements:

“I feel abandoned.”

“I feel attacked.”

“I was feeling rejected.”

“Stop taking me for granted.”

“They are always manipulating me.”

“Your actions disrespect, dismiss, diminish me.”

“Your tone is patronizing.”

“I am tired of feeling unseen, misunderstood, and/or unheard.”

“It feels like I am being threatened, cornered, coerced.”

“I feel very attacked right now.”

All my fingers are down… you?

When I first started studying mindful communication (aka nonviolent communication, interpersonal communication) my ire peaked when I read that the words, abandoned, attacked, rejected, neglected, etc. that I use to describe my feelings were false. 

…If my feelings are “false”?!!!  Who has the right to tell me they are “false”?! What jackhole is running this course… to tell me there are “false” feelings? if it is my perception isn’t that my reality?! And shouldn’t I be describing my reality when I communicate?!…

Those top three paragraphs sum up about 3 months’ worth of frustration.

I had the hardest time working through the word choice, “false”. Suffice it to say that there was a deeper wound being triggered that I had yet to uncover. Good news, I can safely say that I have done a lot of work to process that little nugget. 

If you are feeling activated right now; I feel ya. I promise you that is not my intention to invalidate everything you feel.

What I am trying to do is shed light on that there are a plethora of wonderful words in the English language to ascribe thoughts, words, emotions, and feelings. What makes certain words “false feelings” is when the word refers to emotion by blaming the other person. (yes, even if you are using it in an “I” statement format).

These statements tell a story about what is happening but leave out information on what we are truly feeling underneath the story.  

If we said, “You’re neglecting us.” or as an “I” statement, “I feel neglected.” We miss the opportunity to express our pain of longing for more affection or intimacy. 

We are also priming the listener to debate and defend themselves. We might hear a retort of, “That’s unfair! I have a lot on my plate right now, you’re being overly sensitive.” if we let those remarks land in the right place where we lack empathy, World War III begins.

If we are able to take a pause, feel our own heartbeat, and think about the way the soles of our feet feel on the ground, we could slow down the knee-jerk trigger reaction and hear the frustration felt by the other person, a need being expressed for more flexibility in our internal narrative and perception.  

Did I lose you at feeling your heartbeat and the soles of your feet? 

Those are little techniques of mindfulness to elicit a pause in our reactions. When we feel the need to rush to get our words into the conversation we stop communicating and are just making noise. 

Mindfulness is becoming mindful of how you are feeling and what is going on in this very present moment. When we practice mindfulness through various types of meditation, it helps us slow down the cascade of physiological effects coursing through our bodies when our stress hormones release, causing our cognitive function to falter.

There are multitudes of studies that have been conducted on using this ancient practice in the modern world. Check out the grandfather of Western mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn, or this short analysis, The Meditative Mind: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of MRI Studies written up by Biomed Research International.

It is hard to express yourself, but if you can take a moment to take responsibility for your own feelings and connect them to your needs, not someone else’s actions, you can create a powerful moment of healing your own heart and start to develop an ability to be better heard and understood.

This new trajectory helps you garner the support you are actually looking for.

When we slow down and hear what someone else is saying behind the words they are using we can hear the reflection of their needs without hearing blame or feeling responsible for their emotions. 

All of this effort sends us down the path of finding our way through difficult conversations and emotions. 

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