Parking Feelings
Parking Feelings
It comes as a surprise to many people that our beliefs, thoughts and feelings can be safely parked until needed. We don’t have to allow them to drive us endlessly round and round the same circuit.
Why should we want to park? Well, let’s take a look at feelings. Emotions, like money and many other things in life, are magnificent servants and tyrannical masters. My feelings tell me that something is going on, and can help me understand and empathise with other people. They also can give me energy – or steal it.
Any situation can trigger feelings, positive or negative. They come in waves: first an emotional response to the actual situation, then a wave of fossil feelings (“This has happened to me before”), then often feelings about the feelings (“Darn, now I got upset again, why do I do that?”).
Feelings about feelings
The second- and third-wave feelings are generally energy-stealers. They also can cause problems in a relationship because when I act them out, they can be difficult for the other person to understand. For example:
When I was a child, I was taught that girls are not supposed to be angry. At an important meeting a bunch of men tell me my project has been cancelled, just after I was asked to put in overtime to get it on track (which I did). I get really angry. What should I do? Burst into tears. The men are embarrassed but reinforced in their belief that women are hysterical. I get even more angry at myself for crying. And so on.
Maybe your mother dies, and you know you’re supposed to be very sad. However you actually feel numb rather than sad, you can’t find your grief. You feel guilty about not grieving. Someone else is crying. You get irritated because of your guilt, and snap at the other person. What a mess!
Fossil feelings
An example:
I’m in a hurry and someone cuts in ahead of me in a queue. When I was a child, my younger brother always got in ahead, and I was never allowed to complain because I was supposed to be more grown-up. The suppressed, fossil feelings from my childhood well up inside me and I scream abuse at the person who just cut in ahead of me – somehow, it was just the last straw.
The triggers that unleash fossil feelings are one of our tools for locating sub-personalities.
Overreaction doesn't do the job
When we overreact because of fossil or secondary feelings, we don’t get the response from other people that we would like and hope for. Instead of being willing to talk about what is troubling us, they may withdraw or become aggressive. When we learn to park our feelings, we give ourselves a chance to sort out the different kinds.
There’s nothing wrong with anger, or sadness, or any other feeling; the art is, to understand which feeling is the emotional response to the actual situation, and to express it in an appropriate way. One very good way is to make an “I” statement. And the key to that is to take a deep breath before saying anything.
When is it useful to 'park'?
Parking can be introduced as a complement to methods and approaches requiring a non-judgemental attitude. For instance,
- Active Listening
- Deep Listening
- Conscious Relationships
as well as methods associated with Dialogue for Collaboration.
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