My son's counselor in Maryland introduced this to us. It can be hard to implement in the moments of intense emotion, but it can be practiced. The counselor I am seeing brought it back up this past week. It makes perfect sense, but like so many things is not so easy to remember and use.
I feel statements.
I feel ignored and unimportant when you tell me you are going to come see me and then do not show up or call. It would help me if you would either not promise to be there, call and let me know if the plans change, or keep the promise and be there for me.
What I felt was anger, and that is what came out, but what I really felt was hurt, ignored, unimportant. Anger was the expression of the feelings, but not really the feeling itself. But anger is strong and scary, and elicits an equally strong and scary response, but it may not necessarily be anger, depends on the person. Maybe the person responds with silence and abandonment? Or something else. We are all different. Decoding responses is hard.
I have to try to do this more often. But expressing feelings and emotions is not easy, it makes us vulnerable.
I feel the need to slip you a hug. You can get through this, I promise.
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