What Are Feelings For, Why Express Them, And Why Talk About Them?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 22:18

I relatively often answer these questions:

1. Why are feelings needed?
2. Why live them?
3. Why express them?
4. Why talk about them?

I decided to structure. Here I will not focus on the differences between feelings, emotions, experiences, etc. - "feelings" in the everyday sense.

The short answer to these questions "what is it for":

1. For survival.
2. For living life. Own life! In accordance with your personality! Unlike "life passes by", "I live someone else's life" and "why live at all?"
3. To create, maintain and develop relationships with others. That, in turn, is needed for survival, living your life and improving the quality of life.

Let's consider in more detail the indicated three levels.

Survival level

1. Why are feelings needed?

Much has already been written about this, so briefly. Feelings provide guidance on what to do and what not to do.

Disgusting - don't eat it, it can be toxic. Scary - danger - don't go there, don't do it, run away from there (here it is important to distinguish between natural fear, which contributes to survival, and neurotic fear, which has no real basis and interferes with survival). If you are angry, defend borders, overcome obstacles. If you are happy, do it again. You are sad - something that was important to you is now lost, you need to accept the loss. If you feel guilty - figure out whether it is real guilt from the fact that you did something that is important for you not to do anything else, or whether it is neurotic guilt and they are trying to manipulate you. If you feel sympathy - take a closer look, it may be worth creating a relationship (friendship, partnership, romantic, etc.). Etc.

2. Why live them?

The living of the senses contributes to the maintenance of health and, as a result, life. While their repression, denial, ignoring, blocking, etc., leads to psychosomatic diseases, it can lead to premature death, as well as to the organization of unpleasant situations in life. For example, if a person denies and does not experience his aggression, then he may unconsciously provoke situations when aggression is directed at him from the outside.

3. Why express them?

It also contributes to the maintenance of health. Each feeling corresponds to a certain natural bodily, mimic and vocal reaction, in which there is a universal human component, as well as cultural, family and individual components. When a person restrains this natural reaction, clamps form in his body that impede the movement of blood, energy, etc., which leads to illness. Thus, it is worthwhile to bodily express feelings, that is, to follow your natural reaction, even if there is no one around. But I do not mean destructive actions, for example, when expressing aggression, it is important here to combine natural impulses and educate them in an environmentally friendly way in society. At the same time, the expression of feelings also has a significant social component, more on this later in the description of the level "about relations".

4. Why talk about them?

Verbalization, vocalizing feelings, even if no one is around, is part of living and expressing feelings, which is necessary to maintain health. And sharing feelings with a person who is able to share them and give support - makes the experience even deeper and fuller. Joy becomes even brighter, and grief, on the contrary, dies down. This is about survival. And "relations" will be discussed below in the corresponding paragraph.

Living standard of living

The experience of feelings in itself gives a sense of life. A person who, for some reason, has ceased to feel, usually after some time comes to the feeling "I do not seem to live" and to the question "why live at all?"It turns out like in the joke "The balls are colored, beautiful, but not happy": everything seems to be good and correct, but life is not happy, and why to live - it becomes unclear.

Feelings also provide a guideline: who I am, where I am, what is important for me, with whom it is important for me - so they help to see, feel my way, walk along it - to live my own life, and not someone else's, imposed. Am I happy or discouraged by what I am doing? Am I interested or bored? If happy and interesting, then I am in this direction. If not, then look for something that pleases and interests. Does it matter to me? If not, why am I doing this?

The level of creation, maintenance and development of relationships

By themselves, relationships with people are necessary for survival - in isolation, a person will not survive either physically or mentally. And also for development, for the realization of oneself, which is fully possible only in the world, with people, and not in isolation, that is, in the end - for living your life, moving along your path.

Feeling is, by definition, an attitude towards something or someone. Relationships with a person are based on feelings, that is, on an attitude towards a person. How do I feel about this person, do I like him, is he important to me? If I treat him badly and he is not important to me, would I want to build a relationship with him? For example, colleagues at work who do not like them - do you want to build and develop relationships with them? Hardly. What if I don't feel anything and I don't care about everything? Then I don't want to build a relationship with anyone. And it will be difficult for me to survive, develop and realize myself.

When I feel something for a person, I develop an attitude towards him, this is the “germ” of a relationship. When I express my feelings for him and voice them - I invite him to create a relationship with me. If he has reciprocal feelings and he expresses and articulates them, we create a relationship.

If I don’t feel, then I don’t want to create a relationship. If I feel, but I don’t express, I don’t vocalize, then I cannot invite a person to create a relationship, I cannot interest him. If I feel, express and vocalize, but the person does not feel in response or does not express and does not vocalize, then we will not be reciprocated.

If the expression of feelings is not blocked, people automatically read the state of a person (at least unconsciously), since the expression has a universal component (if the expression is blocked, then feelings can still be read by people with a high ability to empathy). And voicing feelings allows you to establish contact on a conscious level and enter into a dialogue, agree on interaction. What is important is the congruence of what is expressed and articulated.

Imagine your reaction to the slightly different situations described. A person approaches you:

1. With a smile on his face and says "I like you, let's be friends."
2. With a completely "even" face and says "I like you, let's be friends."
3. Frowning and says "I like you, let's be friends."
4. With a smile and is silent.
5. With a completely "even" face and says "let's be friends" (does not say "I like you").

In what situation will you have the impetus to start a friendship?

So feelings, their expression and vocalization contribute to the creation of relationships between people. But the relationship must also be maintained. Feelings and their expression help here too. In this context, feelings can be classified into three categories:

1. feelings for a person;
2. feelings associated with the behavior, actions of a person;
3. feelings not associated with a person and his actions, but their own "personal", about their processes.

Expressing and voicing feelings for a person helps to inform him: “I see you, you are important to me, you mean to me, I still treat you (I feel something) and we are still in a relationship, I take you into account. own life". When feelings are shown towards a person, he receives the message that he exists, while the manifestation of indifference is the message "you do not exist for me."The manifestation and vocalization of positive feelings for a loved one is necessary to maintain a relationship.

In addition, expressing and vocalizing feelings helps to make contact clear, deep and intimate, as well as mutually comfortable.

In a clear, transparent contact, all participants understand exactly what is happening, in connection with what is happening and how to deal with it. This gives a feeling of stability and comfort. Compare situations:

1. “The husband came home and was silent. He is upset by the situation at work, and it is better not to touch him now, then he will tell everything himself. " Or “The husband came home and was silent. What about him? Perhaps he is mad at me? Perhaps he has a different one? What to do? I will shake him until he tells everything."
2. “The wife is angry. Because she came tired from work and saw a pile of dirty dishes that her husband left after dinner. She would like her husband to wash the dishes after him. Then she would be glad. " Or “The wife is silent. He is silent for three days. Then he shouts that the husband should have figured out everything himself. Then he leaves for his mother."
3. “The husband silently accepted his wife's gift with a level face and left. Probably he didn't like it? " Or "The husband happily accepted the gift and said that he was pleased." …

Communication about your feelings helps to make it clear, to bring to the level of consciousness what loved ones are reading unconsciously. An explanation of the reason and a description of the desired action also clarifies. When loved ones read a person's state, but do not understand what caused it and what to do, they begin to fantasize about the reasons and desired actions. And fantasies are usually dark and do not correspond to reality.

In addition, when a person shares his feelings with a loved one, it creates intimacy and depth of contact, it develops relationships. By opening his feelings to a loved one, a person opens himself. Openness allows you to find points of contact, to know each other deeper.

So.

1. Expressing and vocalizing feelings for a person allows you to create and maintain relationships. And if the feelings are unpleasant, then, on the contrary, do not start or end the relationship when necessary.
2. Expression and vocalization of feelings associated with human behavior allows you to make contact clearer and more comfortable - to discuss the situation and find the format of interaction in which there are more mutually pleasant feelings and less mutually unpleasant ones.
3. Expressing and vocalizing feelings associated with personal processes also clarifies the contact, makes it more comfortable, and also increases the closeness and depth of contact, develops it on the essential level, and not on the surface.