Expressing Our Emotions
The XYZ approach to deeper trust and intimacy – By Stacey Huget
Expressing our emotions can be a tricky business. When done well, it’s a big part of our wellness, and of how meaningful and satisfying our relationships.
Some of us learn young to bite out tongues and swallow back our feelings – only to carry around that lump in our throat, that rock in our gut, that tension in our neck.
Carry that around long enough, and eventually we blow. At some (usually inappropriate moment) out rushes a jumbled torrent of words and feelings and interpretations totally out of proportion to whatever slight might have triggered them. Before we know it, we’re swept away in a storm of words, a tsunami of ill feeling.
No wonder some of us have come to believe that emotions are dangerous. We’ve learned to fear them, deny them, avoid them. We zone out when something disturbs us, numbing ourselves to our feelings in the hope of escaping them altogether.
Good luck with that.
In the long run, these coping strategies don’t turn out well. They just create a seething mess of anxious tension deep inside of us, a dark and heavy dread that weighs us down.
Our wellness, that ability to live our lives with ease and lightness, depends partly on our feeling what we feel and expressing those feelings in ways that allow them to pass.
That’s where other people come in. As much as we might tell ourselves that others should just know what we’re feeling and what we need, it isn’t so. The simple truth is: we have to express our needs in order to have them met. And that’s not an easy thing. That’s where things can go sideways.
Communicating our feelings and thoughts and needs to another person – without it all getting frosty – is one of the most challenging (and incredibly useful) skills we’ll ever develop.
Our language and tone and body language play a big role in how successful we’ll be. Here’s where mindfulness and self-discipline come in: resisting the urge to pass judgements, to use incendiary language, to mix things up, or to lose control.
If we’re able to stick to what is true, clear, and pure-hearted – without overstating things, weaving in irrelevant or past experiences, using blaming or critical language, or sending off aggressive energy – we’ll not only make it easier for the other person to understand and acknowledge and respond to what we say, but we’ll also feel better about ourselves and how we showed up.
If we’re able to stick to what is true, clear, and pure-hearted – without overstating things, weaving in irrelevant or past experiences, using blaming or critical language, or sending off aggressive energy – we’ll not only make it easier for the other person to understand and acknowledge and respond to what we say, but we’ll also feel better about ourselves and how we showed up.
So, how do we do it?
Well, here’s a handy formula to practice – a kind of equation for effective emotional expression: When X happened, I felt Y, because Z.
I know, I know. Some of us might’ve just felt a hit of algebraic fear erupting. Hang in there. The code is easy:
- X is for the specific, observable occurrence that caused our emotions to come up. Specific and observable are key here; we don’t want to get lost in vague imaginings or generalizations. We want to describe what occurred with accuracy – and with neutral language.
- Y is for the feeling – not the thoughts – that came up for us. There’s a big difference between feelings and thoughts. If it’s a sensation in our body, it’s a feeling. If it’s a conclusion we draw about that sensation, it’s a thought. (For example: We feel angry; we think we’ve been dissed. We feel sad; we think we’re unloved) Why the distinction? Because what you feel is always valid; the truth of what you think is open to debate.
- Z is for the significance of what happened, why it was meaningful to us. That is, what value was violated, what need went unmet, or what would we have liked to have had happen instead, and why.
The power of the XYZ approach is that it’s specific, direct, brief, and open-hearted:
“When I saw you off in the corner talking with Susan for over an hour at last night’s fundraiser, I felt a little hurt. I like being with you and wanted you to stay close to me since I didn’t know anyone there and find those affairs a little awkward.”
As opposed to:
“You always do that – leaving me to fend for myself at these awful functions you drag me to, abandoning me like so much garbage as you go off and flirt with all the pretty girls. It was humiliating … I just can’t take it anymore!”
One is clear, specific, direct, and open; the other is, well, “amped up”. One starts a conversation; the other starts a fight. One leaves us feeling good about ourselves; the other not so much.
It’s tricky, this business of expressing our feelings. The mindful, disciplined and open-hearted XYZ approach takes a LOT of practice – but it really does work. It helps us to feel better in so many ways. We are seen and heard and understood. We are more likely to have our needs met. And we feel good about the way we showed up for ourselves and our relationship – a relationship that might just open up to trust and intimacy like a bud in Spring.