SOCIAL CONCOMITANTS OF THE DIFFICULT DEEP FEELINGS

Here, I have arranged the deep emotions in alphabetical order so that they are self-indexing. Elsewhere in this presentation, I have ordered the deep emotions in two other ways: the most-to-least important deep emotions for deep-feeling contact and the most-to-least important deep emotions for deep-feeling acknowledgment.

The fifth subtype of pain is AGONY, which is an extreme form of emotional pain. Fortunately, agony is uncommon.

ANGUISH is the fourth subtype of emotional pain. If you put great amount of time and energy into some project and if that project either goes awry or fails completely, then you will feel anguish. Anguish is often described as a tearing, twisting or wrenching feeling. To me, the eyes of an anguished person look hard.

Feeling BEWILDERED happens when you must move in some direction and so many directions are available that it's hard to choose one. With bewildering feelings, a person's capacity to organize experience is left intact. Feeling bewildered is usually short-lived.

BOREDOM comes up in someone when he or she has no deep-feeling connection with other persons. Take note that there is a surface feeling of boredom that is a form of anger.

DEEPER EMBARRASSMENT happens when you have put great time and energy into some project, that project fails and you realize that no one but you cared about or even noticed your project. So deeper embarrassment resembles anguish but also includes a deep, hot sensation.

EMBARRASSMENT shows up when you reveal yourself to others in a new or unexpected way. For example, a person unaccustomed to cursing will become embarrassed when he or she first uses foul language in public. Embarrassed people get red and hot, especially in the face. They are compelled to smile and laugh. Sometimes they will cover their mouths and look away.

FATIGUE follows intense, narrowed or prolonged effort. Active, hard-working people sometimes fail to acknowledge their fatigue.

FEAR comes with any threat to the survival or well being of the body. Feeling afraid, frightened or scared are all the same as fear. Many people confuse fear and anxiety. If you feel threatened but your body is safe from harm, then you are experiencing anxiety. For example, if you feel threatened by someone pointing a loaded pistol at you, that's fear; on the other hand, if you feel threatened by someone pointing his finger at you, that's anxiety. Anxiety is a surface feeling.

GRATITUDE comes about when someone has reached out to you by being generous or kind to you. This reaching out by others may be emotional like curiosity, physical like a touch, financial like a loan, social like a dinner invitation or intellectual like a clever thought. Acknowledging gratitude demands a deeper response than merely saying, "Thank you." Some people decline a gift so that they can avoid being grateful to the giver.

GRIEF comes with giving up the good things that you shared with another person. For example, a client shared music, humor and a love of words with his father. When his father died, the client grieved the loss of those shared things.

Grief work involves acknowledging grief while you take each good thing you shared with the departed person, look at it one last time and put it away forever. No systematic approach should be applied to grief work. You simply handle the good things one at a time in whatever order they happen to enter your awareness.

A good question to ask a grieving person is, "What do you miss about So-and-so at this very moment?" Keeping people in present-time helps them keep their attention on feelings and prevents them from simply recounting history, which is often empty of feeling.

If the departed person has died, remember that every death is a gift. First you must finish your grief work and then you must claim the gift. The gift's character is so intimate and special that it will confound all efforts to explain it in words.

Grief always has a bittersweet quality: bitter for the loss and sweet for the true sharing that once was. Note that grief comes with giving up actual good things and sadness comes with giving up hoped-for good things.

HELPLESSNESS arises when you are caught in an unpleasant situation and no one can act to get you out of it.

HORROR arises from the total, or nearly total, collapse of human relationship. Monsters and heinous deeds are horrifying because they show a complete disregard for ordinary human caring. So horror emerges when you are being treated as a number, an object or a thing. Horror also emerges when you are dealt with as less than human or less than your whole self. Horror often has a "creepy" quality. Of the paired masks that symbolize Ancient Greek theater, horror looks like the tragic one to me.

HURT is the first subtype of emotional pain. Here is an example to explain hurt: If you say "Good morning" to me and want my response and if I, in turn, walk past and fail to respond, then you will feel hurt. In another example, a child offers a recent crayon drawing to mother and wants her attention in return. If mother ignores the drawing, then the child is hurt.

LONELINESS arises with your unfulfilled desire for a connection with other living things, especially a connection with other people. A lonely person wants involvement with others but finds only distance from them. Some gatherings, groups and parties offer so little opportunity for interpersonal connection that it is possible to be lonely in a crowd. On the other hand, it is impossible to be lonely at a square dance.

Loneliness is often described as feeling beyond reach, blank, detached, distant, empty, far away, "gray," hollow or removed. In contrast to emotional pain, loneliness is, as a rule, hard to uncover but easy to acknowledge.

Feeling LOST occurs when you know that you must move in some direction but you can see no direction in which to move. With lost feelings, a person's capacity to organize experience is left intact. Lost feelings are usually short-lived.

Emotional PAIN is a deep feeling that has a great variety of forms. Pain comes with wanting something and failing to get it. We can distinguish five subtypes of pain: hurt, rejection, feeling used, anguish and agony. In contrast to loneliness, pain is easy to uncover but hard to acknowledge.

REJECTION is the second subtype of emotional pain. Here's an example to explain feeling rejected: If you say "Good morning" to me and want my response and if I, in turn, walk past and fail to respond, then you will feel hurt. But if I say, "Take your `good morning' straight to hell!" then you will feel rejected because your greeting was thrown back, which is what the word "rejected" means. In another example, a child offers a recent crayon drawing to mother and wants her attention in return. If mother ignores the drawing, then the child is hurt. But if mother says, "Get out of here with your silly pictures," then the child feels rejected.

RELIEF appears at the end of a hurtful or difficult situation, when the responsibility for a burdensome task ceases. Sometimes a person has trouble acknowledging relief after having cared for a sick relative who finally died from a long or trying illness. Relief is often the last feeling of the grieving process and comes up when the grieving person lets loose of the burdens imposed on him or her while the deceased person was still alive.

SADNESS comes with giving up hoped-for good things with other people. For example, a client always hoped for approval from his father. The client was present when his father died and, even then, his father failed to approve of him. The client felt sad when he gave up all hope of approval from his father. Note that grief comes with giving up actual good things and sadness comes with giving up hoped-for good things.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
--John Greenleaf Whittier

Feeling SELF-CONSTRAINT arises when you are caught in an unpleasant situation but you see that you yourself can act to get out of it and yet you refuse to act. Almost by definition, self-constraint has a sense of futility about it. Walt Kelley captured the essence of self-constraint when he had Pogo say,

We have met the enemy and he is us.

TERROR happens when a person's whole world is falling apart. Terror feels a lot like fear. However, in terror, a person's body may be safe but the world as he or she knows it is in danger of collapsing or is actually collapsing. Terror occurs when events overwhelm an individual's capacity to organize them. Putting experience in order is absolutely essential and terror shows that an individual's order-making ability is breaking down. Terror is especially common when an individual fails to put internal events--like deep feelings and hallucinatory drug reactions--in order. And terror often appears in extreme external situations like disasters, revolutions, riots and wars.

Feeling TRAPPED is similar to feeling helpless but you see that someone else can act to get you out of the unpleasant situation and he or she refuses to act.

Feeling USED is the third subtype of emotional pain. People feel USED when they offer something and part of their offering is accepted but the rest is ignored or rejected. Here's an example: A friend of mine was married to a highly cultured woman from Europe. She very much wanted to share her sophistication with him. She read to him. She cooked elaborate dishes for him. She took him to concerts and plays. She visited galleries and museums with him. He failed to appreciate her culture but he did like her cuisine. To express her feeling of being used she said, "I brought the world to your door and you ate it."

	A Five-Step System for Exploring Deep Feelings
	Appendix 2: Concomitants of the Consoling Deep Feelings

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