09 Mar What’s Me? What’s You? The Self-Other Dilemma
All relationships involve skirmishes. It’s sort of a given. It’s also why some people avoid getting close to others because those skirmishes can be disruptive.
I’ve had my fair share over the years. Had one the other day with a colleague that I actually like really well.
While some of these skirmishes are private, this one wasn’t. It was in front of three other colleagues that I also really like and hold in high regard. In fact, these are a select and wonderful group of people (I include myself in that) that get together to explore what it means to heal. Every month, sometimes more often, we get together to explore what comes up in any connection.
Every interaction is loaded with “stuff.”
Sometimes we are able to acknowledge to each other all the varied layers of communication going on but often so much gets left out.
The problem for many of us is that we’re pretty sensitive emotionally and energetically. Not only have we learned to duck and swerve in the verbal language of interaction, we’ve also been trained to duck and sweve, whether or not we know it to deal with unconscious communications.
Back to the skirmish
Okay, without getting heady about this, let’s go back to the skirmish I just had. Let’s use it as a template for almost any interaction any of us have that gets complicated.
Person A is rather relaxed and easy, laughing and joking. Person B comes in having been in a painful upset with an important person. Person B is tender. ( We all certainly know what that’s like. When our hearts are hurt or tender we want to protect ourselves. )
Person B tells person A and others that person B’s heart is sore. Person A says one thing trying to be inclusive. Person B says something that has person A feel stung resulting in person A pulling back and not wanting to engage anymore. (Don’t suppose any of this sounds familiar to you?)
The situation gets enflamed
Luckily this cohort of people are able to slow down the process and peek under the flamed interactions. Skipping to the end of the meeting this particular situation got a lot clearer and Persons A, B, C, D, and E left mostly all feeling better. As with any skirmish, though, there will need to be some later repair. I trust that will happen with everyone.
But, let’s look under the situation to see what’s there.
This skirmish example got me wondering about something that has been an enduring exploration for me in life. In an interaction, What’s me? What’s you? And how do I tell the difference?
Over the years I’ve learned that I am an emotional/psychic sponge.
I pick up a lot of external, non-verbal communication. I’ve learned to turn that into a helpful healing tool as a therapist, however, for many, many years I thought all the “stuff” I was feeling was me, that the overwhelming internal cacophony was mine, that I was the problem.
I was truly lucky to have a lot of people around me who reinforced that. (Yes, I am saying that a bit tongue in cheek, although I am grateful to have learned about this and found important ways out of it.) Yvonne Agazarian, who taught me about groups said in groups or any interaction we volunteer for a role.
My role, the one that seemed so easy and comfortable to assume, was to volunteer for the emotional sponge role, the role of letting myself be filled up with whatever disowned feelings were caught in the gulf stream of human interaction around me. I learned this role so well that I forgot I had taken it on.
Not all of us take on this particular role-version yet we likely have taken on a variety of other roles. Some of us take on the role of being better than another, or being less than another, or being the teacher, or the seductress, or victimized by life, or… well, actually I’d love to hear from you what your favorite role is.
Whichever role/pattern we take on we can get caught in it. It becomes real and our stories get wrapped up around it.
The problem is most of us don’t know it’s a role we’ve taken on. It feels real and it certainly doesn’t feel like we can change it.
The dilemma revolves around where the psychic boundary is between one person and the other person. When I get filled up with a feeling is it because I am feeling it or because that feeling is the vapor around me. When it’s happening in the moment we don’t always know.
It gets even more complicated when one person who is feeling a lot of feeling says, well, no. They’re not feeling that feeling.
There can be all kinds of reasons why we say we’re not feeling something. Sometimes we do that for protective reasons, sometimes because we really don’t know we’re doing what we’re doing. Whatever the case, the more disowned it is in one person the more it seems to float around with more charge.
People who grew up in families that aren’t emotionally “intelligent” often get confused in this area.
So, you’re wondering what to do about this? How to explore it yourself? The big rule of thumb that I emphasize a lot in the Becoming Safely Embodied Skills group is if the feeling is out of proportion then it’s most likely a triggered feeling, not necessarily pertaining to the present moment.
In relationships the general rule of thumb is similar the only difference is you need to know your own trigger/reaction cycle. Once you’re familiar with how you get triggered you can then start to distinguish your cycle from whatever else is filling you up.
When you’re with someone and the feelings are overwhelming try using this as a guide:
Part A:
- Are you triggered? If so, name the emotion. The Becoming Safely Embodied skills are helpful here. Use the facts/feelings exercise and/or the parallel lives exercise to learn more about yourself.
- If you were feeling fine right before this happened and now you are feeling it’s too big for the moment, or the incident AND you’ve looked at your own triggered cycle then, and really only then, it’s time to sort out what’s happening in the relationship or around you.
Part B:
- Now’s the tricky part. Is it your feeling? Almost certainly some of it is your feeling, after all its sticking to you in some Velcro kind of way so it stands to reason that you have some stuff holding you to the Velcro bond. Name what’s happening in you. How did this (whatever it is) trigger you, even if it’s only 3% your “stuff.”
- At the same time, maybe it’s not -just- yours. Ask yourself, “How much of the feeling is mine?” It might be 3%, 10%, 35%, 70%? Whatever is yours is yours to look and clear. The other percentage is important not to take in, not to absorb.
How to do just that will have to be the subject of another ezine. As I’m writing this I realize how much is involved in this. And, of course, sometimes it’s not as easy as it sounds. It can take time to sort it all out. Getting some competent help can make all the difference.
If you are intrigued you may be interested in the Becoming Safely Attached workshop for professionals which I’m leading in the Boston area on May 10 & 11, 2013. We’ll open this topic up and give it some room to breathe.
What do you know about the self-other dilemma? Bring community alive by posting your comment below.