[Google search]
When I think something, I might be wrong. If I think Helsinki is the capital of Sweden, I'm plain wrong. If I think you are intentionally trying to hurt me (when in fact you're being careless or maybe your reasonable action is getting in the way of my unreasonable plans), I'm also wrong. If I feel you are trying to hurt me, ditto.
Stating that I feel something to be the case is simply saying I believe something to be the case but in a defended way. Real vulnerability is not stating what one feels but what one thinks, because beliefs, self-evidently, are up for challenge.
Of course, if one is genuinely talking about feelings: sad, angry, frightened, upset (which are all really the same thing), one is actually feeling those things, and it's quite right for others to recognise that one is feeling those things. The notion of 'understanding and accepting' those feelings is another matter. Of course, another person should understand what sadness is and accept that the person is feeling sad (in the sense of not denying the fact of the sadness). This is a different question than understanding the reasoning behind the feelings (which is the proper use of understand) and then 'accepting' that reasoning (which could mean acknowledging that the person is thus reasoning or, what is more likely, agreeing with them that the reasoning is valid). Understand is often used as a synonym for agree with: I understand how you feel often means I would feel that way, and your perception of the situation I believe to be accurate.
There is a frightful danger of this perfectly reasonable principle of compassion tipping over into co-signing the thinking that lies behind the feeling. If someone who is performing badly in the workplace is sacked (and feels ill-treated) or someone who behaves badly in an AA group is having boundaries set against them (and feels ill-treated), it's quite wrong to automatically agree that the person has been ill-treated.
This is for several reasons:
- When I am upset but my perception leading to the upset is distorted, it does not help me to have people agree with me. In fact, what I need is to be challenged and have my distorted perception overturned.
- If two people have a disagreement and are upset, and Sally comes along and 'validates' both (in their perceptions), she's not helping. Sally is then a Labrador puppy that just loves everyone. Labradors provide comfort but are no good in dispute resolution. They cannot arbitrate. It does no good to hold, in a situation of dispute, that both sides are right. One might be right and the other wrong. Both might be partly right and partly wrong. What is needed in this case is someone who can see where each person is justified and unjustified, can challenge what is unjustified, and can help the other side see where their opponent is justified. What is required is not blanket approval but discernment.
- If something is true because I feel it to be the case, bang goes objective reality and bang, also, goes morality. Without objective reality and without morality, life cannot be navigated. Emotion is put in charge, and the intellect is brought in to merely to bolster it and weaponise that emotion.
- This becomes even more dangerous when the negative feeling involves the perception that someone else has caused it. This renders all accusations just, and any accused guilty, regardless of culpability. If Sally is offended by Susan, Susan is guilty regardless of whether there is any validity in Sally's offence.
Now, in being skeptical and retaining intellectual independence, one must not throw the baby out with the bath water. If someone vulnerable is feeling frightened, one should neither say, 'I understand' and light a scented candle, biting one's lower lip compassionately, nor 'What a load of crap!' A middle ground is required: something like, 'I get that you're feeling frightened. Would you be open to reviewing the thinking that gives rise to the fear to see if it holds water?'
[Some footnotes about other elements of the quotation:
- Of course the person should not be judged, in the sense of condemned and scolded, for feeling something or even thinking something. But judge can also mean discern or assess. If discernment or assessment is to be feared, the perception of the situation is being defended, and that, itself, is something to be challenged.
- As with judgement, the person should not be rejected, but invalid perceptions and interpretations must be rejected.
- The person providing the help is not automatically right in their discernment of the situation by virtue of being the person from whom input is being sought. However, those who understand a context but are not personally affected often have a sharper discernment of what is going on, because they are not blinded by their own upset. Anyone seeking to share emotions with someone should also exercise discernment: share with someone who is genuinely sound of mind and judgement.]