Feelings

Love I: Theory

Ron Johnson Development, emotional maturity, Feelings, love, love, mindfulness, Self-Awareness

This is the first of several blogs regarding this most important concept, most certainly one of the most important concepts, ideas, facts, feelings, and experiences in the human experience. In the following blogs we will be examining the following:

  • You were not loved right (as a child)
  • “Love problems” (the emotions associated with love)
  • Temperamental love (4 different ways of loving)
  • Being lovable (being open to being loved)
  • Love heals (how people can heal each other with love)
  • Getting better at loving
  • Or more, if it comes to me

So what is love, anyway, this ubiquitous part of everyone’s live? Let’s start with something that was the most important thing I learned in Physics.  By the way, it was in Physics (in college) where I got my first and only academic D, something that put me on academic probation (GPA 1.73, this after my stellar 4.0 my first semester in college. Might have had something to do with my joining fraternity, but actually due more to my lack of maturity in discipline.) I learned in Physics, actually my high school Physics that there are three main ingredients in the known universe around everything else is defined. These three things are undefined. They are time, distance, and mass. So, every time we had a Physics test, there would be a question like, “Define distance.” The answer should be “undefined.” So, we can define velocity as distance over time, and we can define weight as gravity times mass, but we don’t define time, distance and mass. We just know what they are.

The same is true of love: we know what it is but we can’t define it. More importantly, the more we observe love, the better we are able to understand it. Likewise, the more a child experiences distance, time, and mass, the more s/he has a grasp of how the universe works. The child learns that there is a “distance” between her and her favorite stuffed animal. She learns that her mass affects her movement. And a bit later she learns that she has to wait (time) for something. She learns about time, distance and time by observing these things. Likewise with love: we learn love by experiencing it, first by being loved and then by loving. And the more we have both of these experiences, the more we understand love.

Various people have attempted to define love, and they are all wrong…and all right. Some people define love as action. Love often is active in some way, but perhaps love is not always active. Others have defined love as physical, but again love might not always be physical. Or, love could be emotional, but not always emotional, or cognitive, or verbal, or relational. You might have your own definition, or more accurately, your own understanding of love, or your own experience of love.

Trying to avoid the danger of defining love, I would like to suggest that love is one of those things in the universe that are so important, like distance, time, and mass, that it cannot be defined. Instead of defining love, I would like to start with suggesting that love is a spiritual quality of human existence like other spiritual qualities that are undefined. Deb and I wrote I Want to Tell You How I Feel for the purpose of helping people understand the equally undefinable word, “feelings” that is also central to human existence. We suggested that feelings are also “spiritual,” but then we have to admit that we have defined the word feelings with another undefinable word, spiritual. We use the term spiritual to include but not be equated with religion. Atheists are now using the term spiritual in their philosophical understanding of psychology and human interaction but they do not believe in a god of any kind, something that I find quite interesting.

Simply stated, the more you are around love the more you understand it, just as the infant or toddler begins to understand time, distance, and mass the more he moves around in the world. We will be discussing the presence of love, the absence of love, and the inadequacies of love in later blogs. The fact that there has been a deficiency of love in someone’s life is often the central ingredient in his finding some healing. We will discuss the central ingredient of love in any healing process.

Preparing yourself for the following blogs on love consider:

  • How would you “define” this undefinable word, Love?
  • How have you experienced being love?
  • How do you express love?
  • What might be missing in your having been loved?
  • What might be missing in your love others?
  • Can you think of a time or times when you have been healed by love?

Why Did She Leave Me?

Ron Johnson Development, Discovery, emotional maturity, Feelings, marital, men's issues, mindfulness, relationships, Self-Awareness

My wife left me…again. Yesterday. Bummer? Not exactly. She has a tendency to leave me every now and then. She loves to go to “her canyons” in UT and hike. Sometimes she has dragged me along or allowed me to travel and hike with her. Once she left me and went to Portugal to hike. She called me up and said, “I am so glad you’re not with me.” After a pause she then said, “I miss you terribly. I wish you were here.” I use this as an illustration of the centrality of paradox, and particularly of paradoxical feelings. See? She was certainly glad that I wasn’t with her, mostly so she could go at her own pace, do her own thing, and be alone. As an introvert she really enjoys her time alone. She particularly enjoys the two days of the week that she doesn’t see me except for early AM and late PM when I go to our Madison office. She is usually seeing clients on those days, but also enjoys puttering around in her garden or green house…again without my intrusion.

This time when she has left me, her destination is not so clear. When she left yesterday morning, she said that she “thought” that she would go to St. Croix, WI, about 4 hours away at the beginning of the Ice Age Trail that goes 1000 miles across Wisconsin. I doubt that she will walk/hike 1000 miles, because she would have to walk back another 1000 miles to get her car. I expect that she will walk or hike for a while and then God knows what she might do. Go north? Go west…maybe to the canyons? Decide to come home? I’m sure she’ll be OK with whatever she does because she is a person who trusts her feelings. Note that her “feelings” are not just an emotional experience but a deeper personal experience that we call “spiritual”. When I tell people about our tendency to “trust our feelings” and “just go west” or something, most people are envious, while others are appalled that we don’t have a plan. Planners are people we call “high boundary” people, who like boundaries, rules, and plans. Low boundary people like spontaneity and freedom. Both are good ways of life. The difficulty comes when a high boundary person is trying to plan what s/he might do with a low boundary person, who would really rather “just go.”

Enough about Deb and me. This blog is about several men I have known who have been “left” in one way or another. You might resonate with one or them.

The woman seeking a divorce after a long marriage

Jane left Jim after 34 years of marriage. She struggled with leaving him for at least two years that I know of (she saw Deb for s while she was trying to figure out what to do about being largely unhappy in her marriage. Jane did what many women do (and perhaps some men as well…but that’s another story): she stayed married far longer than she should have stayed married. In Jane’s case there were several factors, all of which amounted to what other people would think if she got a divorce from Jim. There was the “Christian” disapproval of divorce. (Actually, this was evangelical Christian disapproval. Many mainline Christian churches, as well as Christian denominations have a place for divorce, find it valuable and godly, but not so with many evangelicals despite the fact that there are nearly the same number of evangelicals who get divorced as there are non-evangelicals.) Many evangelicals seek to justify a divorce on so-called biblical grounds, namely a singular statement Jesus seemed to have made that divorce is justified in circumstances of adultery. I knew one woman who got a divorce justifying it on these “grounds” because her husband had been using pornography. She asked a “Baptist” (read, conservative, evangelical) pastor if pornography was, indeed “adultery” and was glad to see that she could divorce “justifiably.” In Jane’s case, she did not seek this artificial reason for divorcing Jim. She is quite introverted by nature and introverts have a distinct tendency to keep most or all of their feelings to themselves.

I think the more important thing about the situation with Jane is that she has never really been happy with her marriage to Jim. They shared a house, raised children, both worked professionally, and went to church faithfully. But from what I learned from Jane, albeit with intuition and conjecture, is that she should have married Jim. Or if she married him, she should have been honest with herself and with Jim that she had made a mistake marrying him. It is possible that 34 years ago the marriage could have ended quickly and found way to survive and thrive. But Jane stayed married, and I think she was never happy with him. Indeed, the two of them are quite different in personality but there seem to have been some deeper issues that Jane was not able to see. Sadly, now her perspective is that the marriage was wrong because Jim did this or that, didn’t do this or that. Indeed, Jim has made some significant mistakes in life as well as with Jane, but these divorce-related, attorney-aggravated attacks on Jim are a rouse. I think…and must say that I “think” Jane has never liked Jim and could never bright herself to admit to it. In a nutshell, Jane has not been honest with Jim about this, and probably has not been honest with herself. The theme of some women (and again, possibly many men, I suppose) not knowing how they feel (unhappy), or unable to express it, or unwilling to act on it.

The woman who “couldn’t do it anymore” and left

Mary and Matt were in a second marriage for both, each have suffered in previous marriages and each having children. They had been married for 15 years when Deb and I began to see them. From what I understand, Mary almost immediately talked about how Mike did this or that, or didn’t do this or that. But Deb is no therapist who allows any client to complain for long, so after the first sessions of complaints, she set the stage for Mary, namely to talk about herself, mature in her self-understanding and emotional awareness, and then to do something. Mike came to see me with the notorious “female hand in the back” syndrome, meaning, “You need to see the therapist.” Indeed, Mike was figuratively pushed into my office but we made a bit of progress, particularly on his tendency towards expressing anger easily, an almost universal phenomenon with the men that I see. I say that men have “A” problems, namely anger, avoidance, addiction, and accommodation. They usually don’t know how to express their deeper feelings, much hear feelings from anyone else. Mike cane for a while, and then Deb insisted that Mary and Mike come to see me together. I did my best, but I couldn’t get Mary beyond doing what so many people do, talk about the other person. I hear something like, “I’ll tell you how I feel. Mike….”
Wait a minute; I thought you were going to tell me how YOU felt, but all you did was talk about Mike and his alleged problems. I didn’t make much progress because it was quite obvious that Mary’s position was that Mike should somehow “change” in some unknown way. It seemed like she was saying, “I married you the way you are; now change.” After a particularly difficult session where Mary came after me with a vengeance because I was attempting to give Mike some hope in the marriage. I talked to Deb about the incident and said to Deb that I was either going to make a direct challenge to Mary or quit marital therapy altogether. Deb pleaded with me to do neither, and then she saw Mary the next day. Deb reminded Mary that therapy was not about the other person but about oneself, and furthermore Deb insisted that Mary “do something.” But Mary said that she didn’t know what to do. Neither did Deb.

That night Mary met Mike at the doorway and said, “I can’t do this anymore” and the proceeded to leave the house and go to their cabin for the night, perhaps permanently. Mary soon called Deb frantically two or three times, sobbing and overwhelmed that she had “fucked up” and didn’t know what to do .A few hours later Mary texted Mike without his response, and then again and again, and then called him. Mike apparently did not think he could talk to Mary expecting that it would be more of the same, namely he was “the problem.” But such was not the case. Somehow, in what we consider to be a “spiritual engagement,” she had found a way to see Mike for who he was, and then saw that she not only loved him, but also liked him. She came home after a sobbing-filled phone call, they talked for hours, and came to see me the next day.

I don’t really know what happened with Mary but her “doing something” turned out to be the right thing, namely doing something. Sometimes you have to move forward so that you can do a 180 and move backward or perhaps to the right or left.

The woman who left the perfect man

I’ve been seeing a 30-something man who has been very successful in business. He is honest, hard—working, expressive although introverted by nature, and generally kind to the people in his life. He has, unfortunately, not been very successful with women including the most recent female relationship, which lasted about nine months. Previously, he has had relationships that lasted a couple of years but never has been able to sustain anything with a woman long enough to establish a real bond and eventually a commitment to a life together. It appears that he has suffered from a phenomenon that I will next discuss, but more importantly, he is a good “catch” for any woman because of the ingredients just noted, like independent success in work, honesty, commitment, and genuine kindness. Guys like this often fail to sustain long-term relationships because they are so attractive to women, often women who are impressed with the guy’s physical appearance, vocational status, or general kindness. Who would leave such a man? This is the question Jack asked me when he came to see me because he was just at the end of this 9-month long relationship with Sidney that she ended, but for reasons that were not clear to him. She spoke of his being great in all areas but then said that “she was not ready to commit” and “needed to find herself.”

What happened to Jack has happened to many men who are good in many ways and “look good” to women. Women are initially attracted to the stability that such men offer, but eventually find the man “not good enough,” probably not exciting enough. Men like Jack are self-made, confident, and usually pretty successful in work but may not be all that some women want. They tend to attract women who they try to “fix”. This “fixing” comes after a few months in the relationship with the woman starts to be true to herself and displays the “deep hole” that I will describe next. I think that Jack couldn’t fix Sidney. More importantly, because of many women’s tendency to overly emotionalize, Jack was less emotional himself. More importantly, Jack is not emotionally mature himself, which means knowing what you feel, valuing what you feel, communicating what you feel, and governing what you feel. This, of course, leads to the man being able to hear and adjust to a woman’s feelings. Jack was good at listening but his tendency to fix Sidney didn’t work. It never does.

The women caused the man to leave

Many men become involved with women who have a “deep hole” in their soul. My previous blog was about deep hole people, whether male or female. Such people tend to be very attractive, often very sexually active, often outgoing, fun-loving, and very engaging. They are, in a nutshell, the bombshell woman that many men are attracted to…unfortunately. I don’t know how they develop this bombshell manner, but I suspect they have learned to “be attractive” to men, whether consciously or unconsciously. So they “get” men, but then they began to display the deep hole phenomenon that starts to deteriorate the relationship with the man. Like Jack, men usually try to “fix” these women, but there can be no successful fixing of the deep hole. It needs to be healed. Deep hole people, whether male or female, tend to be in relationships quickly but not successfully, sometimes going from person to person, often being promiscuous, and usually having some kind of addiction, whether behavioral or chemical. I’ve recently seen two such men and one gay man who was “left” by the deep hole man he was with for a few months.

In one case, the man was somewhat sophisticated in psychological matters and concluded that the proper diagnosis for his former partner was a “personality disorder.” That was probably right, but I don’t like the diagnosis as it speaks of what is wrong with someone rather than what is right, much what can be done about it. The other “left” man simply gave up on his deep hole woman after trying to fix her for years. Both of these men were exhausted, one still exhausted from the end of his relationship a year after it ended. What happened is that these men got so drained by the deep hole women in their lives, that they finally got a grip and ended the relationship. In both cases the woman protested loudly that she loved the guy in her life and promised to be “better,” but it was too late. They had drained the life out of the guy who was trying to fill the empty hole. The gay guy had a similarly deep hole person whom he left because he couldn’t tolerate his lover’s promiscuity anymore. He was driven to leave his lover just as the deep hole women had driven the guys to leave them.

The woman who left because the man couldn’t

Now I get personal. This is me. I am not alone in this category partly because many men really want to leave the women in their lives but can’t seem to do it. I was married for the wrong reason: I wanted to have sex, and at that stage of my life, I couldn’t have sex while unmarried. Perhaps, more importantly, I couldn’t deal with the sadness and hurt my wife displayed when I suggested that we break up…even “for a while.” I caved. My wife was a lovely woman, but I was the one who propped her up in many ways, encouraged her, and helped her make a life. Eventually, I got tired of all the work and began to drift away. I drifted into another woman’s arms, also a good woman, but perhaps also a woman with needs that I couldn’t manage. However wrong it was for me to have an affair, it was the only way I could see of getting out of a marriage to a “good woman,” but someone who was not good for me. You understand, hopefully, that I delete much of the rest of the story for reasons of propriety and privacy of all concerned. So my wife left me because I didn’t leave her. I most certainly shouldn’t have married her, and most certainly should have trusted my feelings in the very first year of our 14-year marriage when I suspected that I shouldn’t have married her. I didn’t trust those feelings and paid an enormous price, the price exacted by the scorned woman. I won’t give the details, but this is now 40 years in the past and no longer are important to me. There are many men who somehow get into a relationship or marriage on shaky grounds, stay in it too long, and end up being left by the women that they don’t really want to be with in the first place. You can’t blame the woman here.

 

My encouragement to men is always to trust their feelings, however murky these feelings are. This is the core of the work I do with men and it is the core of work Deb does with women. It is hard work, but it is valuable work. Many marriages wouldn’t happen, would end quickly, or would be healed with good therapy if the man could be honest with his feelings. We can’t blame the women for our lack of courage, wisdom, and emotional maturity. It’s not up to the woman to do something. And when it happens, it is up to the man to see what he has not seen, not been willing to see, or otherwise ignores. The men that I see in the “left man” syndrome need to look at themselves, not the woman. It’s not her fault.

The Deep Hole Phenomenon

Ron Johnson Development, emotional maturity, family, Feelings, Self-Awareness

Three is a deep “hole” inside many people. This “deep hole” causes people great distress and often causes other people distress. So, what does it mean to talk about someone’s “deep hole”? It means that this person feels a certain “emptiness” inside that cannot seem to be filled. This deep hole phenomenon has resulted in many diagnoses, many treatments, and many misunderstandings. Instead of talking about these diagnoses, which simply look to label this deep bole with some kind of label, I prefer to first look at what the symptoms of this deep hole are, note how this deep hole affects how people operate in life, how it affects their social and intimate relationships, and what can be done about it. What I am really interested is how people can feel the deep hole inside of them and how they can find a resolution to the deep hole. Equally important is how their friends and families can see this deep hole and find ways to successfully relate to people with deep holes in their psyches. First, allow me to briefly identify the psychiatric terms that are used to describe this phenomenon

The diagnoses used for the deep hole

Borderline personality disorder (BPD). This diagnosis is usually used for such people. Interestingly, BPD was originally called “pseudo-neurotic schizophrenia” because people with BPD can feel and speak quite healthily, quite anxiously, or quite depressed, but there are times when they seem to feel and speak with a nearly delusional thought or feeling.

Depressed, anxious, PTSD, or just “stressed. People with the deep hole I am talking about can be anxious or depressed for sure and often think they suffer from PTSD or feel unduly stressed.

Bipolar. Unfortunately, this disorder is now quite commonly diagnosed and more commonly felt to be what one suffers due to his or her deep hole. Bipolar disorder is in the category of a “thought disorder,” which includes schizophrenia and an involutional depression.

Relational conflict. Understandably, people with this deep hole experience a good deal of distress in their relationships, both toward and from their partners and friends.

Now, let’s proceed to what I consider to be more important matters.

The symptoms of the deep hole

Felt emotional distress. The person does not feel emotionally stable

Lack of clear sense of self:  Granted, “self” is an undefined term. Usually people can’t clearly answer the question of what they want in life and what they can do in life.

Seeking undue amount of approval or attention: This can vary from demanding attention and focusing on what other people are doing to times of complete retreat.

Primary symptom of fear: Perhaps the most central of all symptoms. This includes generalized anxiety, OCD-like symptoms, panic attacks, and unrealistic fears all of which are beyond the range of normal fears such as loud noises.

An “external” “locus of control”: This is related to many other symptoms, such as seeking approval. The idea is that the person sees him/herself as unduly controlled by external events, persons, bad luck, and can include undue awareness of physical symptoms of distress.

Variety of physical symptoms: Very often this includes “everything hurts” as in fibromyalgia, but more commonly an intense awareness of small physical sensations that tend to dominate the individual’s awareness.

Lack of sustained relationships: The individual seems unable to sustain intimate relationships as well as personal, friend-like relationships. Often, the individual seeks more from a relationship that the other person can provide.

General dissatisfaction with work: Many such people say something like, “I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.” Often, such people are professional but “fell into” their profession rather than choosing a vocation. They tend to find little value in their work.

Narcissism.  I hate to use such a derogatory term, but I use it without judgment and criticism. Narcissism in adults is the results of natural childhood narcissism resolved in childhood. In other words, if someone has not found a way to feel his/her core self and has not felt safe in the world, such a person continues to retain a childlike understanding that s/he should have everything that s/he wants.

The causes of the deep hole

There is much discussion in the psychological community, some believing that there is a genetic component, which is not my perspective. My belief is that there are two primary origins of this phenomenon: neglect and indulgence. Sometimes both. The worst possible combination is neglect followed by indulgence followed by shame. This is a situation where the individual is neglected for some reason, and then the child puts up such a fuss that s/he is indulged to keep him/her quiet, and then because s/he is still so outrageous, s/he is shamed with rhetorical questions like, “What is wrong with you?”

Thus, the individual does not go through the necessary stages of early childhood:

  • First year of life needs of safety, nurturance, and comfort. Quells fear in life.
  • Second year of life needs: exploration and experimentation. Establishes the rudiments of love in life and ultimately joy
  • Years 2-6: limitation. Allows for anger but prevents the undue expression of anger. Learns that s/he can’t have all that s/he wants in life
  • Year 6+: develops a depth understanding of loss in life, and hence develops a good sense of sadness because everything that is love is eventually lost.

Most people with the “deep hole” have a mixture of having failed to establish the basic emotions: fear, joy, anger, and ultimately sadness.

These early years of deprivation and lack of development are rewarded by other circumstances in life that reward undue fear that dominates one’s life, undue expression of anger that damages relationships, or both.

Examples of statements made

Consider the following statements that I have heard from people who display the deep hole phenomenon:

  • It if go to the hospital, it will be all about her. This statement was made by a man who had been married 40 years to his wife who was in the hospital for serious back surgery having suffered painful sciatica.
  • I deserve to be taken care of. This statement was made by a 30-year old woman who I tested as having a 125 IQ but felt that she was unable to work because of her “PTSD, depression, and anxiety” despite the fact that she displayed none of these symptoms.
  • F*** them; I want to continue talking. This statement was made by an individual with whom I had already had more than 60 minutes of therapy, in reference to the other people who were waiting to see me. (Note that the “therapeutic hour” is 50 minutes giving me time to reflect and take notes)
  • I want everything you have. This statement was made to the whole range of “friends” that this individual had in life. A clear reflection of his “deep hole” that he wanted to fill.
  • Even if you gave me more time in this session, I would always want more. This was made by an intelligent, capable woman whom I saw many years ago. It is interesting that she was aware of wanting but not really aware of how she wanted me to fill her deep hole.
  • I need someone to tell me what to do. This statement was made by an intelligent 15-year old who didn’t know how to do much that would constitute responsible, engaging, and meaningful work, play, or conversation.

The repair of the deep hole.

Nothing short of depth psychotherapy. There is no other means of repairing the damage to the individual that occurred early in life. Depth therapy includes understanding of what happened, feeling the sadness of the losses, primarily of feeling sad for not getting what the child wanted, and then the important element of making adjustment in life to get what they get in life followed by making a meaningful contribution to life.

It does appear that some people with a deep hole find a way to adjust satisfactorily to life on their own, or perhaps with a bit of therapy. This phenomenon might be due to the individual’s understanding that life is full of riches and opportunities but not full of what everything that s/he wants

Sadly, most people with a deep hole in their hearts and minds simply find ways to cope with accommodations, usually some form of addiction, chemical or behavioral.

Dealing with people with the deep hole.

  • Respect the individual. People with a deep hole need just as much respect, love, and care as everyone else.
  • Be aware of the danger. People with deep holes do not know that they are dangerous but they truly are because there seems to be no end to what they want. Their emotional hunger can drive you go give more than you want to give. If you do that, you will resent the individual and be shaming.
  • Limit, limit, limit. When we see people with deep holes, we almost immediately start limiting them in some way, e.g. not going over 60 minutes, not seeing them when they want to be seen (all the time), avoiding giving them answers to the questions they ask because their questions are always a form of, “Why can’t I have everything that I want?”
  • Avoid being angry. You can do this by limiting and not giving in…kindly.
  • Trust your feelings. Many time, you will simply not want to be with this person, which will hurt him/her, but is necessary for your own sanity and peace of mind as well as serving the limiting function.
  • All of this is especially hard if the person is a family member. I recommend that people allow themselves the freedom to “love him but not like him,” a distinction that is very hard for some people to make.