Importance of Feelings, Listening
It's three thirty in the morning. I want to write about the importance of talking about feelings, teaching about feelings, knowing how you feel; listening.
Where do I begin?
So much is going through my head.
I have been trying to help some homeless boys here in Ecuador. I met someone who wanted to help me and was helping me. But she doesn't know how to listen and she doesn't know how she feels and she can't talk about feelings very well. And she has been hurt so much for so long that she gets hurt and defensive easily, so it makes it that much harder to talk with her.
She has such good intentions. She has such a strong personality. She is trying so hard. But no one taught her how to talk about feelings or how to listen or how to help someone when they are sad or depressed.
I want to tell you the whole story, all the details, but it is late and there is too much to tell and too many details.
This is so important though. Not the details, or maybe the details are important too, but the basic ideas of what I have been writing about on here for about 8 years now.
Let me just say it is so vitally important that we teach children and parents and teenagers how to listen.
It is so important that we talk about feelings and ask people how they feel and not invalidate them.
So many problems could be avoided if we did this. So much unnecessary pain could be prevented.
Let me try to give some of the details.
I was at her house. The boys are sleeping in the back yard. They were sleeping in my house till the landlord raised the rent by about 40 percent. I feel resentful about that and about how the whole thing happened, but that is another story.
Anyhow, she has formed a group of young people here in this city called Otavalo. Her idea is to help the community, especially the children and the poor people. I admire what she is trying to do and I admire her. But the other night something happened which resulted in me feeling very, very hurt.
She came to talk to me about it today but she ended up leaving before we had resolved things. She basically walked out and said something like, "There is no point in talking to you."
I feel mostly satisfied with how I handled things on my part. Let's say I feel satisfied 8 out of 10. But she is so sensitive and so defensive that she left when I made one or two mistakes in what I said. I was trying so hard to be a good listener. I had a lot I wanted to say but I tried to keep my mouth shut and really listen. She had a lot she needed to say. She kept saying "Perdoname" which means forgive me in Spanish. She was talking about how her mother always made her feel guilty and she was tired of always having to apologize. She told me she loved me like she loves everyone in the world, but this didn't make me feel very loved, as you might be able to understand. Then she said something like, "When you are sad and hurt you only think about yourself and I think that is very egotistical." And she said something like "You don't understand me at all and you don't even want to try to understand me."
At that point I felt so attacked that I finally said, "Mentira" which means, "That is a lie." As soon as I said that I knew it was not the right thing to say. But it was too late. She felt attacked then too and left within about 30 seconds after I said that. I am not sure what she would have done had I said, "I feel attacked." Maybe she would have stayed.
To understand what I am talking about you need to know about a lot of what I have written on this site. For example about expressing feelings with "I feel...." sentences and not starting sentences with "You...".
There is so much to teach children and teenagers. I will leave parents out this time because a) most of them don't want to learn and aren't open to learning and b) they aren't forced to go to buildings called schools where they are forced to sit in classes and learn about things whether they want to or not.
So if we are going to force young people to go to schools, or make them believe it is so important for them to be "educated" that they go their willingly, then I say we need to teach them about all of these things.
Which leads me back to the importance of it all. I know how important it is and I want to tell every single person in the world, at least those who are willing to listen. I want to beg the people in positions of power, who make the laws which are enforced by people with guns, I want to beg them to start teaching about feelings. I want to scream this. I want to shout it out. I want everyone to hear it.
The whole world seems to be centered on behavior. But what about feelings??
Here in Ecuador they keep asking me "Que haces?" Which means "What are you doing." Who gives a fuck what I am doing? Isn't it more important how I am feeling?!
I could be washing the clothes or fixing a car or writing a computer program and I could be feeling happy or suicidal. Doesn't that matter to anyone?!
In Indonesia they were always asking me "Where are you going?" Why is that so fucking important?
In Australia they say, "How's it going?"
In the USA they say, "What's up?" or "How you doing?"
Why are we so interested in going and doing? Why aren't we interested in feelings?
I think I know why. Because no one wants to really hear about our feelings because they won't know what to say or do if we tell them.
Or it will make them feel uncomfortable or uneasy or incompetent.
Or maybe guilty. Like my friend here in Equator. She felt guilty when she walked in the door. I could see it in her face and by the way she avoided eye contact with me. But I made the mistake of saying, "I think you feel guilty." This put her on the defensive.
I wanted to prove to her that I was right, and that I knew how she felt better than she did. But I have learned to keep my mouth shut a little at least by now. Proving you are right is never a good way to help someone feel understood.
It was so sad. She sat there and told me she felt judged by me. This was in some ways a good sign, that she could label her feelings this well. But what is sad is that I didn't feel very judgmental. And she kept saying "forgive me". But I didn't really feel the need to forgive her for much.
So what was happening inside her head was that all the memories of feeling judged by her mother and her family and others were making her feel judged by me. And she has been attacked and made to feel guilty so many times by them that she is constantly on the defensive and feeling a need for forgiveness from others.
But what is important is that she accepts and forgives and has compassion for herself. But she doesn't. So it didn't really matter that much what I said. I could have said "I forgive you 100 percent." But she still would not feel forgiven. She is hard on herself. She has been trained to be hard on herself.
I asked her the other day how much she accepted herself from 0 to 10. She said 0. Then I asked how much she loved herself and she said 1.
This is so incredibly sad. This is a beautiful person. She has such a good heart. She is so sensitive and caring. And as I said, she is trying so hard. She has started a group here in Otavalo called "Mundo de Suenos" - World of dreams. She is trying to encourage people to dream and follow their dreams. She is a such a beautiful person inside. But she has been so hurt. And now when I am feeling hurt, she can't listen, she can't help me. Because she takes everything personally and she doesn't know what to do. I understand this but that is not enough. I still need more. I need to feel cared about by her. I need her to care about how I feel and be able to really listen to how I feel and not invalidate me or tell me that I am being egotistical for thinking about my pain. If she would just listen and let me feel my pain and share it with her, it would go away much faster.
So the big problem between us is their are other people involved now. Innocent bystanders let's say. The boys. I was helping make a little house for them in the back of her yard. But now I don't want to go back there again. It hurts too much to go back. Until she and I have resolved things, I don't think I will be able to go back. I would like to say that I could put our problems aside, but I can't. So the boys are suffering because I feel so hurt and she doesn't know how to listen or she can't listen because she also feels so hurt. It totally sucks. And it all could have been avoided with different training.
I really hate the educational system. It is total crap as far as I am concerned. It doesn't teach what is most important. There are so many educated assholes and know-it-alls. So many smart-asses with PhD's who can't begin to tell you how they feel and wouldn't have a clue what to do when a child is crying because of an emotional wound.
I feel resentful about all the time I wasted in schools, or buildings called schools and university classrooms. And psychology classes are some of the worst. If you are interested in feelings, I recommend you stay away from psychology classes and psychology professors. Most of them can't...
Well, I won't finish that sentence. I am just feeling very resentful and bitter about it all. I suppose it is largely because I was starting to get closer to this person that I am writing about and now I feel the loss of our closeness. We were even starting to hug a little and I have been hug-starved all of my life except for a few times when I was in a physically fulfilling relationship. But even during those times I was still emotionally starved.
So if you want to know more about all of what is going on here in Ecuador, you can read about it on my new site www.steve.iloveotavalo.com
When I came here I really loved this place. Now I have mixed feelings about it. But I will stay here for a while and see what I can do. They really need to learn to talk about feelings here and there are lots of wonderful children who need a lot of love. If you want to work with kids, this is one place that is wide open to do it. They are everywhere here! And the parents are not so paranoid as they are in the USA or England or Australia for example. But the parents do beat their kids a lot here. I have been trying to help two kids, Daniel and Anita, in particular, and so far the people in power have been no help at all. Daniel and Anita keep running away from the mother that beats them and the police keep sending them home.
So anyhow, please do what ever small part you can to help people start talking about feelings and listening and the importance of all of this. The world is a huge mess and more guns and more wars and more money and more paranoia are not going to solve our problems. On all levels we need to start or continue the work in the areas of feelings.
S. Hein
Otavalo, Ecuador
August 27, 2004