Recently, Rich Heller, a counselor in New Rochelle, NY, did a podcast, with Dr. John Schinnerer, a psychologist with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and host of The Evolved Caveman podcast: Where Men Come to Evolve.
Try to Identify and Name What You Are Feeling
Rich Heller, New Rochelle, New York, counselor, recently interviewed Berkeley educated psychologist, Dr. John Schinnerer, podcast host of “The Evolved Caveman” podcast. This podcast is called,
The Best Thing You Can Do for Your Partner.
He and Rich talked about men learning to be in touch with their feelings and by identifying those feelings and naming them, you will move through them much faster than what men typically go, which is ignore them or push them down, (suppress them). Dr. Shinnerer and Rich talk about if you just suppress those feelings they often come back out in anger. Dr. Shinnerer focuses on men, but in my experience with couples, often neither person has done the hard work that is necessary for them to be able to identify and manage their feelings. This is not limited to either gender, but it is critically important.
Why Identify and Name Your Feelings?
They talk about, by being able to identify the feelings, you can basically inform (warn) those around you that you are, for example, having a bad day so you don’t take it out on them, or they can give you space to work through it. Rich and Dr. Shinnerer agree that suppressing moods or pushing them down is dangerous because you will “…get mad at the wrong person in the wrong degree at the wrong time.” Instead, they recommend, “Identify it and share it.”
Don’t Allow Anyone to Try to “Fix It”
Rich says be careful so that your partner doesn’t try to “fix it,” (help you with your feelings) when you just need space, not talk about it. They say, “women, in comparison, will share more, and men don’t necessarily want to share, but just work through it in their own time because they have different styles.” They say, “…there is nothing wrong with either style, but attachment styles are different.”
Typical Emotions are Mad, Glad, Sad and Afraid: Don’t Take the Other Person’s Behavior Personally
Rich and Dr. Shinnerer recommend that people learn not to take the other person’s behavior personally. Dr. Shinnerer says, the typical emotions are mad, glad, sad and afraid. He was an advisor for the movie, “Inside Out,” by Pixar. Don’t personalize behavior from other people; it is probably more about them than you. You need to understand the feeling, especially the outsized emotions, or, As Rich say, “the feeling ‘will have you.’”
Men Are Victims of Their Childhood (and Society)—Learning to Disassociate From Their Emotions
Dr. Shinnerer and Rich dig deeper into why men typically have a harder time managing their emotions than women do. They talk about how “Attachment Styles,” and particularly the avoidant-attachment style–70% of males represent this; men learn at a young age to disassociate from their emotions and shut them off; they don’t remember the lousy stuff that happened in their childhood because they pushed them down, either parents or others taught boys not to share their emotions, parents or others embarrassed or shamed you. Speaking on behalf of men, Rich and Dr. Shinnerer said, “We don’t have access to our emotions because we shut them off as children, and we need the emotions to burn them into our brain; if we don’t we live in the fantasy that we never had them, which is not true; we just left them behind If we don’t let ourselves experience the ‘bad’ emotions, then that cuts us off from the other end of emotions, happiness and joy.” Dr. Schinnerer said, “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.” He said that many men have a trigger based on something in childhood. He recommended learning to be able to look at what happened and figure out, “Why did I have that reaction?” Dr. Shinnerer and Rich agreed that the starting point is noticing what they are [the feelings you are having], then knowing when and how to act on the feelings. They referred to the Aristotle quote, “The real challenge is when you are faced with a situation where anger is warranted, how to show the warranted amount of anger.”
As a Collaborative Divorce attorney who practices in the Collaborative Process and in Court, learning how to name and manage emotions may be even more important for families of divorce. Learning to name and manage emotions is especially helpful for children whose parents have gone through a divorce.
Deborah Gilman, Ph.D., who is a psychologist and Collaborative Coach in the Pittsburgh, PA, area, has recently published a book that agrees with Dr. Shinnerer and Rich. In her new book, “(Un)Tangled: 52 Co-Parenting Habits to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict and Raise Emotionally Secure Kids After Divorce,” she offers techniques to change habits over a 52-week period, including a chapter called, “Name it to Tame It.”
If you or a friend or family member want to know more about Collaborative Divorce or any family law matter, please contact me at www.milner-law.com, by email at camille@milner-law.com, or by phone at 940-383-2674.
