In last week’s blog posting I wrote about the relationship between being “self aware” and being “well integrated,” which is also often termed being “congruent.” These qualities are characteristic of reasonably “mentally healthy” people. “Mental health” being understood, as well, as being emotionally, morally and spiritually, even socially healthy.
I explained how “congruence” can best be understood in terms of one’s “feelings,” and I suggested that all “feeling words” come from one of these four basic feelings: mad, glad, sad, or scared.
This week, I’m continuing that discussion, emphasizing the relation of “feeling” to “thinking”–with respect to being “congruent”–by quoting some portions of my book, Balanced Living: Don’t Let Your Strength Become Your Weakness (Wipf and Stock, 2009), pp. 108-115.
“Feelings are energy. And when our feelings are congruent, our energy tends to be creative and effective. Our energy works for us rather than against us which serves us well.
When our feelings are incongruent, however, the energy tends to be blocked. It is not directed toward a good purpose. In fact, it may often be the source of psychological depression. Such intra-psychic conflict tends to be more destructive than constructive.
Energy from congruent feelings helps us solve problems. A lack of creative energy from incongruent feelings produces or contributes to our problems. Feelings that are congruent become a means to an end. Incongruent feelings become an end in themselves. When our feelings are congruent, sooner than later we get off of them. When they are incongruent, we get of on them.
It is my sense that fear is the most primal of emotions. I don’t say that glibly. It is hard for me to think of any form of dysfunction that isn’t somehow connected to perceived fear, such as family secrets, neurotic defenses, the kind of interpersonal power plays most of us tend to escalate when we get threatened in some way or other, be it over our turf, our comfort zone, or some image of ourselves in which we are highly invested
At the same time, a healthy sense of fear is important. Anyone who doesn’t have an appropriate sense of fear is heading for trouble. What is most important, in the face of fear, is to feel and think at the same time.
Some folk tend to get mad when they are scared or sad. This is incongruent. It tends to produce fit-throwers and/or chronic complainers. Too many people never change or even address what they so chronically resent or are complaining about because they are afraid to face whatever it may be. I call this the ‘teacher’s lounge syndrome,’ the habitat for ‘passive bitching.’
Some people cover their ‘anger’ or ‘fear’ with affability, with pseudo nice-ness. I was having lunch once with two other ministers, both from the same denomination, different from my own. These two guys persisted in smiling and laughing as they teased and cajoled one another. But underneath their ostensible humor and goodwill, the stench of resentment and competitiveness kept leaking out. They were anything but congruent, as they hardly missed a chance to ‘stick it to’ one another.
I believe the most valid reason for legitimate anger is when someone discounts us. Such congruent anger will tend to promote good problem-solving on our part; it will help us to ‘take care of’ ourselves in responsible, appropriate ways. Discounting comes in various forms, not the least of which involve patronizing, prejudice, or stereotyping.
Have you ever noticed how often people say they ‘feel’ something when what they are describing is a ‘thought’ or a ‘belief’? Unless you have been taught to pay attention to what I’m saying, you may not have noticed.
For example, as a counselor, I frequently ask someone what she ‘feels.’ More often than not, the reply goes something like this: ‘I felt like he wasn’t listening to me,’ or ‘I felt like she shouldn’t have said that.’ These are common constructions which I often confront with, ‘I didn’t ask you what you “thought,” I asked you what you “felt.” When someone isn’t listening to you . . . do you feel “mad” or “scared,” or perhaps “sad”? If you feel “glad,” you may have a problem.’
Some people have been taught that they can ‘feel,’ but not ‘think.’ While others seem to have learned that they can ‘think,’ but not ‘feel.’ The former tend to manifest more ‘hystrionic’ characteristics; while the latter tend more toward ‘intellectualizing.’
What is important, if one is to maximize her or his emotional and social–if not moral and spiritual–functioning is to learn how to ‘feel’ and ‘think’ at the same time.
There are those who interpret Murray Bowen–a primary figure in the development of Family Systems Theory–by claiming that Bowen advocated ‘thinking’ over ‘feeling.’ However, I have, over the years, come to frame it differently, since what I have observed is that feeling is usually primary. Hence, my belief that feeling and thinking need to work together, with thinking serving feeling by discerning, ‘Is what I’m feeling reasonable and/or appropriate to what I’m experiencing?’ In this regard, ‘thinking’ has, as it were, an ‘executive function’ in relation to ‘feeling.’
According to Bowen theory, the better self-differentiated (more intrinsically defined) one is, the more readily and congruently her/his thinking will interpret the reasonableness and/or appropriateness of his/her feelings. Put another way, if a person is better self-differentiated, s/he will be more behaviorally pro-active rather than merely emotionally, if not behaviorally re-active, whatever the circumstances.
The rule of thumb is: higher levels of self-differentiation result in lower levels of anxiety/reactivity, whereas lower levels of self-differentiation tend to result in higher levels of anxiety/reactivity.
In fact, that is what I pay the most attention to with respect to any system–family, workplace, religious, civic, social, fraternal or political organization. Who is ‘calling the shots,’ who is setting the agenda: the more anxious/reactive persons in the system, or the less so? In more functional systems, it will be the better self-differentiated, less anxious/reactive people, with the converse being the case in more dysfunctional systems.”
Or as I sometimes put it: in healthier, more functional systems, the persons involved do a better job “taking care of” their own emotional and/or social business; while in less healthy, less functional systems, everyone will be trying to “take care of” someone else’s emotional and/or social business, but not doing a very good job “taking care of” their own.
