During an intro call with a group last year, after I talked about how much I enjoyed Dale Carnegie’s book, someone recommended I read Non Violent Communication.
While the first few chapters were okay, it was one titled Identifying and expressing feelings that floored me. These were the knock out lines -
A common confusion, generated by the English language, is our use of the word feel without actually expressing a feeling. For example, in the sentence, “I feel I didn’t get a fair deal,” the words I feel could be more accurately replaced with I think.
For example -
“I feel that you should know better.”
“I feel like a failure.”
“I feel my boss is being manipulative.”
( these are not expressions of feelings )
Conversely, in the English language, it is not necessary to use the word feel at all when we are actually expressing a feeling: we can say, “I’m feeling irritated,” or simply, “I’m irritated.”
For example -
”I’m in pain”
“I’m sad”
“I’m (feeling) hurt”
( these are expressions of feelings )
I had been thinking a lot about someone in the weeks leading up to reading these words. Although we hadn’t spoken in two years, I still carried a mass of emotional discomfort in my chest, which had re-surfaced particularly strongly.
I didn’t know what I was feeling. I didn’t know what I wanted to happen. All I knew was an unpleasant weight in me that constantly turned my thoughts to this person, and how we had ended.
As I read through the list of feelings from the book, I recognized and articulated my feelings as I never had before. All the feelings that led to our parting, and the many that followed.
Recognizing a feeling was like picking away at a single string that made up a big mass. Each recognition loosened the mass, and came accompanied by visceral emotional release. Even as I write these words, an echo of that feeling washes over me. Relief, and gratitude.
I was overwhelmed, and had to stop reading. I then wrote this message -
Hi XXX,
All that time ago, we just stopped talking and never really spoke at the end. I feel sad and regretful for things having ended that way, because I think it was my inability to articulate how I was feeling that led to that abrupt ending, and some of the conversations leading up to it.
I have thought of writing this message a few times - I did actually write you a note not long after we last spoke, though I have no way of knowing if it ever actually made it to you. ( I mailed it to your apartment in XXX).
I still feel a lack of closure from our time together, and thinking about it is still painful for me. I’m not sure how much you have thought about all of this, but if you ever would like to talk, or write, to get a sense of closure, I would quite like that.
If not, my very very best of wishes for all that is to come for you.
Devansh.
And then, I felt empty. At peace.
In wilderness first aid training, we learned that bacteria grow anaerobically. So you shouldn’t seal off a wound that hasn’t filled. If you do, it festers, and never heals.
I imagine another body we all have, invisible, but susceptible to injury.
That is where we all carry scars, and most of us open wounds. The open wounds we seal off, wary of their pain. Apply enough bandages, and that body goes numb. Too many, and it asphyxiates.
That day was the first time I consciously cut open a bandage, and exposed a wound. It healed.
More than a year has passed, and lots has followed. But perhaps like a first cigarette or lover, I doubt I’ll ever forget that first time I learned to feel.