Miscellaneous Short Articles
Emotional vs. Behavioral Closeness
It is not primarily our common behavioral experiences which bring us closer together, as is commonly believed. Instead, but our common emotions. Consider a family of four going on a week long camping trip. The father thinks it will bring the family closer by being alone in a remote wilderness area. The teenage daugther wants to be home with her boyfriend, who she has just started having sex with, instead of with her father, who constantly tries to control her. The ten year old son wants to be up at the lake with his best friend, where his friend's family all gets along well and where he feels listened to and valued. The mother has been thinking of getting a divorce, and spends the whole week preoccupied with how to tell her husband, how he will react and what will happen to her and the children.
Or consider four strangers sitting through a "Christian" church service. One person might feel touched, moved, loved and temporarily relieved from their hectic, stressful life. Another might feel self-righteous, superior and judgmental. Another might feel self-conscious, watched, guilty, judged and disapproved of. Another might feel amused or cynical or incredulous that people subject themselves to such things.
In both cases one common experience did not serve to bring these individual human beings together. Instead, it did just the opposite. Although these people were physically close to one another, they were still worlds apart. Thus it must be our shared emotional experiences which bring us the deeper connection to others which we all need.
When we discuss emotions and specific feelings we begin to realize that each of us has felt judged at somepoint in our lives. Each of us has felt criticized. Each of us has felt disapproved of. Each has felt unappreciated. Each has felt embarrassed. These are the kinds of experiences which humble us, which break down glass walls between us and which unite us with a deep common bond.
It is likely that very different behavioral experiences triggered very similar emotional experiences, just as very similar behaavioral experiences can trigger very different emotional experiences. That is why we must stop talking about what we did, what we are doing, what happened and what is happening. This is all behavior based. We must begin to talk about emotions, feelings, perceptions, and internal experience. Only by sharing our common feelings will we ever reach the level of unity, acceptance, tolerance, compassion and understanding which is necessary for us to survive on this increasingly small and over-crowded planet.
Feelings, Emotions and Moods
Elsewhere I have said our feelings are like a gauge of our needs. Something like a gas or petrol gauge or like a thermostat. Another example might be the emotional bank account analogy used by Stephen Covey and others. We constantly are making deposits and withdrawals. Our emotions and our feelings are a sort of "online" statement of the balance and of the transactions. Our feelings might be second by second indicators of the transactions. Our emotions might be thought of as hourly summaries and our moods my be thought of as weekly or monthly quarterly or yearly summaries. These are very rought analogies of course, but they seem to have some utility in providing a conceptual framework of the relationship between our feelings, emotions and moods and also of the purpose and function of each of these three.