Tag Archives: Feelings

Intimacy, Love, Anger: 3 Tips for Healthy Relationships

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What are 3 Tips for Healthy Communication in Intimate Relationships When You Feel Anger?

Close relationships usually bring up strong feelings, such as joy, peace, anger, hurt, fear, and sadness.  How do we manage feelings that come up in intimate relationships?

It may be helpful to think of feelings in the context of “categories” and “intensities”. For example, broad categories of feelings might be anger, sadness and fear. If you feel anger, notice the intensity of your anger.  For example, do you feel a little annoyed, or are you furious? If you feel sadness, are you a little down, or are you feeling devastated? If you feel fear, are you a little nervous, or are you terrified?  With all the prior examples, you could also be feeling in the mid-range of intensity of the feelings.

Have you  noticed that if you feel anger and then express it, you may then get in touch with some other feelings? If yes, what might those feeling be that lurk beneath anger?

Let’s use a simple example: If you are planning to meet your “significant other” at a restaurant for dinner, and he or she forgets to show up, how would you feel?

If this is an unusual event, you would be likely feel worried or concerned about their health or safety. However, if your partner has a pattern of not showing up for another reason, you may likely feel anger.  If you only communicate the anger, and fail to communicate the other feelings, you may be missing a chance to develop a closer relationship. On the other hand, the uncovering of the motivation for the lack of showing up could be a reason to re-evaluate the relationship. Here are some communication tips.

Tip #1 : Given the example above, as you are sitting in the restaurant alone waiting for your partner to show up, ask yourself, “What am I feeling?”

Tip #2: If you feel anger, ask yourself, “What else could I be feeling under the anger?” (Could it be sadness, anxiety, or something else?)

Tip #3:  Learn a “Language of Solutions”: Learn to name your emotions that may be hidden under the anger. For example, you may feel hurt, discounted, invalidated and dismissed in the example above. You may feel anxious or fearful in your current relationship. Learning to articulate your emotions, and request a change in behavior may be the first step toward clarity in your relationship.

 

“The Sedona Method” from 1985: Deal With Feelings in a Healthy Way

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I became a licensed psychotherapist in 1983, and when I moved back to  New York in 1984, a friend invited me to take “The Sedona Method”. I already had 2 Masters Degrees….one in Genetic Counseling, and the other in Clinical Social Work. I was always open for more learning.

Initially, when asked to take the course, I was not that eager, because a few months prior, someone had invited me to take the “Forum”, a new incarnation of “EST”. The Forum was a very long all weekend program, taught with 200 people in a room, with instructors who appeared to be angry and aggressive. The teaching style actually seemed hostile. I discovered later that one goal of the Forum in 1985 was to teach people to be “responsible”.  Since I was always a very responsible and mature person, the course was useless for me, and a waste of my time and money.

With some reticence after that experience, but with an enthusiastic recommendation from a friend, I signed up for “The Sedona Method”, which was very different from the Forum, in the realm of the concept of “control issues”.

I used the word, “control”, because one of the teachings of the Sedona Method dealt with the feelings that come up around control issues.  “Releasing the need for the feeling of control” is one of the hallmark processes.  As an example, if you are stuck in traffic, and are feeling angry because you cannot change the traffic issue, the Sedona Institute teaching from 1985 provided a method to “release” the anger on the surface, in order to connect with the feelings of fear or sadness below. As a Licensed Psychotherapist, I knew that the Sedona Method, with its gentle technique of teaching 8 people around a conference table, was using instruction that was gentle and respected the feelings of the students.

While I felt that the Forum of 1985 taught how to repress feelings and rationalize feeldings, the Sedona Method of 1985 taught how to identify the feeling and release it.

Lester Levinson created the original Sedona Method, and I am so grateful that I took the original course. I have listened to some of the conference calls for people who are claiming to teach Lester Levinson’s course, but it is not something that provides value to me, or that I can recommend.  It is very different from the original method. In my opinion, it is sad that the original “Sedona Institute” is no longer around. If someone knows how to find the original program, please let me know.

There is an expression, “What we resist, persists”.  Denying  a problem or feeling can result in depression, or destructive behavior. In my professional opinion, we cannot heal a feeling unless we are aware of it. The original “Sedona Method” taught the graduates to gently allow feelings into awareness, in order to deal with them appropriately.

Action Tips:

1) Ask yourself, “What am I feeling now?”

2) If you are feeling angry, allow yourself to feel the feeling completely. Then ask yourself if you might be sad or fearful under the anger.

3) If you are feeling afraid or sad, notice if you are trying to deny or rationalize it away. Then try to actually feel the feelings, or do some journal writing about your feelings.

I thank the Sedona Institute of 1985 for teaching people to manage their feelings in a healthy manner, and hope that someday, this original method of teaching will be available again.