How Do You Feel About Your Feelings?

by Marcie Scranton, M.A.

You’ve invited a couple of friends for dinner at seven.  The clock is on its way to a quarter to eight, and they still haven’t shown up.  What goes through your mind?

• Geez, how rude.  Who does that, just blows people off?
• Good Lord, they’ve been in a horrible accident.  And it must be really bad, otherwise of course they’d have called.
• They must really not like me. 
• Oh well, I’m tired anyway. I don’t know what I was thinking when I made the invitation.

Imagine how each of these might make you feel.  The first would certainly produce anger; the second, fear.  You’d probably respond to thinking they hate you with sadness.  And if it’s been a long day, you might actually be relieved not to have to entertain after all.

And yet none of these assumptions could have anything to do with the real reason you’re alone, with your roast drying out and the candles burning low.  Without more information, the feelings you’re experiencing are the direct result of your imaginative thoughts.  Beliefs, expectations, and generalizations can lead to all sorts of distortions, but with time and practice, are eminently controllable.

Now picture a triangle.  One points to thoughts; another, feelings, and the third indicates behaviors.  The three influence and interact with one another, in continuous feedback.  Feelings react to thoughts, behaviors react to feelings.  Only the feelings are outside conscious control.  But by reorganizing thoughts – call it reality checking – and acting according to the choices they present, emotions can be managed more easily.  For example, let’s say someone says something insensitive to you.  You feel hurt.  Your thoughts might take any number of forms – she’s right, I’m useless; she’s a jerk, I hate her; she’s having a bad day; I can forgive this.  Depending on how you frame it, your behavior will follow suit.  That, in turn, will have an influence on how you perceive your own reaction, and how others perceive you as well.

Problems arise when what people tell themselves is what creates the exact response they want to avoid.  The impulse to make it into something disastrous causes the very emotions that lead to frustration and poor functioning.  Instead, imagine an “if-then” scenario: even if the worst is true, the result may not be impossible to live with. 

Marcie Scranton is a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern with a private practice in Brentwood.  Visit her at www.marciescranton.com