If I asked you what you are feeling right now, what would your answer be? If I pressed the matter further and probed about what made you feel that way, and what did you do to contribute to that feeling, would you know? If that feeling is the result of events happening in the past week, would you be able to track those events?
If you are like most people, you may be able to tell me what you are feeling, yet find yourself lost on addressing the other questions. Unless you do mind-mapping or have worked on developing an awareness of your emotions, you probably did not have answers. Although mind maps are more designed for thinking and creativity, they have emotional benefits as well.
Now, imagine how the cheater feels when they are ‘on the spot’ and you are asking them such questions or some like them. If you were unable to answer such questions, how do you think they will do? Could it be that you are expecting more from them than from yourself?
What I am trying to bring your attention to is how most people are very unaware when it comes to emotions and discussing them. They may know what they are feeling, but they are not aware of how that developed, where the feeling started or what triggered it. In some cases, when the sensation is strong, they may know, yet most of you and your spouses are on automatic pilot when it comes to emotions.
Being on automatic pilot is not a bad thing, it just means that you need to consider that when you are about to confront each other about emotions. It is unrealistic to expect your spouse to be self-aware of all their emotions if you are not as well. If being self-aware of emotions is not regularly practiced, abruptly forcing them to be accountable will not end well.
This limited awareness is one of the obstacles to the two of you discussing emotions. Another obstacle is focus.
You may have not considered focus as an obstacle, yet it is. When you are in pain, your focus naturally tends to pull back. Rather than expand to consider everything going on around you, your focus instead pulls back and latches on to your own pain.
When your focus is on your pain, it limits your ability to consider other options. When pain is the center of your focus, it restricts your awareness of other feelings. The pain predominates and colors your every experience. You may be feeling other sensations, yet the pain keeps you from being aware of that.
That pain is alerting you that something is wrong and needs correction. Although you are given the warning signal, in today’s culture the pain is often medicated or numbed rather than used in identifying what the danger is or what it is warning you about.
The answer lies is listening to what your pain is telling you. If you are not listening to your pain, what is the likelihood that cheater is listening to theirs?
The healing will begin with you. The healing begins with your emotions. As you start learning how to self-sooth and increase your awareness as to what your pain is telling you and where your feelings are coming from, the healing and recovery begin.
Best Regards,
Jeff
