Aretha, you and I need to talk… it’s not me, it’s you….

There is a very common treatise in modern day counseling– someone cannot MAKE someone else FEEL anything.  That is to say, you, and you alone, are responsible for your own feelings.  If you feel joy or sorrow or anger in response to someone’s words, you, and and only you, take credit for that.

I struggle with this notion, as much as I believe it to be true, and I think it’s because of intention. For example (and I apologize in advance, as most of these examples are negative, but there it is, one has to expect that when poking about in Feelings). Let’s take the Eddie Haskells of the world.  Now, you and I and June all knew how Eddie was trying to sweet talk his pal’s mum.  He was sure that if he complimented her appearance or cooking or wardrobe, she would feel pleasure or happiness, and think better of him.  Mrs. Cleaver, however, saw through his adolescent ruse, and if anything, felt exasperation. Likewise, if the words had the intention of hurting one’s feelings, how close will they come to the mark? I might not be hurt by the words, but I’m sure going to be pissed, thinking that the intention was to make me feel something negative.

So… okay, no one likes to be manipulated, and if the intention is not well disguised (and we never knew for certain that Eddie grew up to be a car salesman or a politician, but we wouldn’t have been surprised…), then we may feel angry at the attempt. Did the manipulator MAKE us feel something? Hmmm… this is where it gets muddy for me.  Let me break it down. Suppose Person A tells Person B about having dinner with Person C (bear with me, I hope I don’t need to chart this out like a Football play.) Now, if it’s just a story, Person B will feel anything from ambivalent to outraged, depending on any number of things– how they feel about Persons A and C, the restaurant they chose, the exasperation they feel at listening to a story they don’t care about, jealousy at being excluded from a dinner they would have liked to be included in–anything is possible. That’s one layer, and solely Person B’s domain. But…. what if Person A had an ulterior motive? What if they knew that Person B adored or despised Person C or the restaurant?  What if they knew speaking Person C’s name would elicit mirth or sadness or jealousy (oh, and jealousy is a whole other realm of land mines and traps– another time for that, gentle reader). So, Person B has a decision here– they can’t just make a choice about how they feel about Person C or the Restaurant– they feel how they feel– but they can choose how they react to Person A’s tale.

That’s the thing, I think.  That is how we get locked into patterns of communication that maybe aren’t the most effective. How often have you given the advice “Don’t give [them] the satisfaction of seeing you _______?”.  That advice is a whole lot easier to give than to follow, isn’t it? We know it’s RIGHT, but that doesn’t mean we CAN.

Me, personally, I’m an emotional creature. I can think logically and write up pro-con lists and weigh the evidence, but my default will always be to act instinctively, intuitively, based on cut-of-jib. My first reaction to a piece of news will always be an emotional one, even when I know that won’t serve me as well as logistic thought. But more than that, and this is where I can empathize with Aretha, I don’t have “small” emotions. Like the amp in Spinal Tap, my emotions go to 11, all of them. So, in the Persons A, B and C triad about dinner plans, if I am Person B, then first I react to Person A, however I feel about them. Then I react to hearing about Person C. Then I react to the story, and how I feel about it. Then I react to the idea of Person A’s motives, and if I think there are some, I react to THAT.

You’d think all of this would be exhausting, wouldn’t you?  But because I set this up as a negative scenario, you may have been drawn in to that (in other words, I manipulated you). Here’s the thing. Not only do my emotions go to 11, the ones that bring me happiness are exponentially greater than negative ones, and I am addicted to the good result, the positive outcome, the happy ending (stop it, naughty reader, not that kind of happy ending). So, if Person A told me they went to a restaurant I love, and met Person C, whom we hadn’t seen in years, and had a delicious meal and got caught up and then told me about all joyful exchanges of that meal… here it comes… and they told me all of that because they KNEW it would make me feel happy… well… how can I find fault in that?   The intention was still there, the intent to manipulate my feelings.

In the end, I would just be grateful to know that I had a Person A in my life who knew me well enough to know that just telling a simple story would bring me joy, and further, would WANT to bring me joy. If people can make me feel things, despite what mental health professionals say, then I guess my best course of action is to surround myself with Person A’s.

Happy New Year, by the way, dear reader.  I wish you only good and well intentioned Person A’s in your life.  Let me know if I am one of your A’s.  I’d be honoured if I was.