The Half-Empty Heart by Alan Downs Ph.D

Author:Alan Downs, Ph.D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

Relationships: The Crucible of Feelings

Here’s another, equally critical fact about feelings. Feelings almost always occur in the context of a relationship with another human being (this includes objects, animals, and organization to which we ascribe humanlike characteristics). Relationships are the fiery crucible of emotion.

Think about the times in your life when you’ve been most overwhelmed with emotion. Picture a specific event in your life. Did it involve your relationship with another person? Most likely, it did. It was the birth, marriage, reconciliation, separation, or death of another person. Perhaps it was an event, like graduating from college after years of night school. But think carefully about this event—is it possible that what made the event so emotional for you were the people who were present? For instance, could it have been because your parents, spouse, or children were there and very proud of you?

Feelings almost always emerge out of our relationships. You can be alone and feel something, say sad or excited, but that feeling, too, usually comes from something that is happening in one of your relationships—or maybe even the lack of a relationship. Perhaps it is a sad feeling about a troubling disagreement with your spouse or a joyous feeling about a successful business deal with a client. Feelings occur either directly because of a relationship or an event that has affected a relationship.

This is an extremely important point and worth pausing to consider. Feelings are almost always triggered by a relationship. It is a fact that goes against the grain of our “rugged individual” view that posits us as being strong, independent, and capable of functioning completely alone if necessary. In order to feel, we need other people. Furthermore, since we’ve seen that feeling is central to the meaning of life, we can say that we need other people to find meaning in our lives.

Consider, if you will, that biologists have long accepted human beings as “social animals” who function best in a group of other human beings. We are born into a family, and when most of us reach adulthood, we marry another person and establish our own family. We keep in touch with a circle of friends, many of whom we’ve known for most of our lives. We choose to live in cities and communities with other people. We work in organizations or in close contact with other people. We are, by all definitions, social creatures.

Our individual biology is wired to need and respond to other human beings. One of the primary ways our bodies respond to other humans is through feelings. In fact, evolutionists consider emotions as adaptive self-preservation. Our feelings help us to function successfully with other human beings. We need other people, and they need us. Feelings make this possible.

When we experience problems with our feelings, it is almost related to a problem with our relationships. Either we are struggling to form strong relationships or a previously effective relationship is no longer available.

Briefly, let me mention the idea of “codependence” and how this fits into the picture.

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