Posted by Dinah on October 19, 2003, at 9:31:09
In reply to Re: Boasting about Drug abuse MamaB » MamaB, posted by NikkiT2 on October 19, 2003, at 8:57:54
> For a start, I'm not American.
>
> I'm sorry, but I still don't understand.. You are saying that what ever someone says to me, I shouldn't have any feelings about it.. Does this go for good feelings, or do you only think we have control over our bad feelings??
>
> I think I would be a very cold, awful person if I had no feelings about other people, or no feelings at how their actions affected me.
>
> And I do think, long and hard, about how I feel from other peoples actions. But you cannot, in my opinion, feel nothing when someone is being nasty to you or what ever. Its human to feel stuff. Maybe a tortoise doesn't feel stuff when someone attacks them, but it is human nature to feel. They've even shown it in primates, that the way they are treated by the rest of their group affects they way they act and behave.
>
>Hi Nikki,
This reminds me of a story with my therapist, who is also fond of that saying. This was a few years back, before he just gave up and started being honest with me.
He was angry with me for something I was doing, and he kept saying no, he wasn't angry (with his voice getting louder and louder). I finally pointed out the incongruence of shouting that he wasn't angry. So he admitted to being frustrated, but assured me that it wasn't my fault. That his feelings were his own and his own choice and responsibility. So we argued for a long while about that one, how what I was doing or saying was the cause of his "frustration" no matter how he chose to describe the process. And he just wouldn't admit that I was causing his "frustration". So I asked him very politely, that if that were true, to please choose to feel another emotion.
Which, I suppose, he did. Because he started laughing and we were able to get back to sensible talk.
poster:Dinah
thread:270780
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20031011/msgs/270780.html