|
| |
Feelings
We all differ in the way we express
our feelings and differ also in the way we allow ourselves to acknowledge our
feelings, not just as individuals but in broader terms, according to sex, class
and nationality.
Just watch the TV the next time they bury an Italian or an Israeli, and notice
what the widow or bereaved parent is doing. She will be weeping, wailing and
screaming; kneeling by the graveside banging on the ground.
In our culture, if you’re not pushing a trolley around Asda within two weeks,
people say,” Oo Mary’s taking it bad.” Widowed after thirty-five years and she’s
expected to show a, “stiff upper lip,” …….literally.
You overhear people in the queue at the grocers, finish off a tale with the
words, “I’m not going to let it bother me,………he/she can do what they like for
all I care.” As though they have any control over whether it bothers them or
not. I see people who tell me they never cry, as though it was something to be
proud of. When others tell me that what so and so did made them feel angry, and
ask, “And how did they react when you told them just how angry you felt?”
They often say, “Well I didn’t tell her in so many words, but she knew I were
mad.”
It’s not just expressing anger that people seem to have problems with. When I
ask people who tell me they think such and such a person is wonderful, “How did
they react when you hugged them and told them?” They reply, “Get out,…………… she’d
think I’d gone nuts.”
If you’ve ever wondered why, as adults, we become so restricted on the way we
express our emotions or why it is that we even try to deny to ourselves that we
feel particular emotions, just sit for half an hour in a shopping centre and
watch adults with their children and grandchildren. Better still get yourself in
invitation to a children’s birthday party where none of your kids are involved.
And you’ll hear …………….
“Don’t cry,” …………..the kid’s trapped his finger in the door, or feels the
world’s come to an end because he didn’t win.
“Don’t show yourself up,” ……..he’s having the tine of his life, you feel
embarrassed and say, in effect, don’t show me up.
“Now Katy, that’s not the way to behave,” ……….. she’s as mad as hell at being
cheated out of pass the parcel by the creepy kid from next door and she’s just
about to throttle him.
"Now you're just feeling sorry for yourself"....... I'd love the kid to turn
round and say, "And?" I wonder sometimes if it's just amongst the Brits that
feeling sorry for yourself is some sort of sin.
“Oo ‘e’s a real lad,” or “Oo ‘e’s such a temper,” ………………….it really not his turn
but he barged to the front and you let him go first just to save all the fuss.
All he hears is, ” ’at a boy.”
“Here now shut up,” ………….mum angrily thrusting a biscuit into the hands of a
crying child, constrained in its push chair. Surprise, surprise, thirty years on
the same child feels like crying, doesn’t, then eats to excess, and says she’s
depressed.
The trick in our society is to demand that other people keep their emotions to
themselves.
The widow has to be brave, not for her own sake but to meet the needs of those
around her. Many have, “delayed-shock,” simply because it’s important to delay
their tears till everyone’s gone. Then they can cry all they want, so long as
they don’t insist on crying when you visit.
You see someone and ask, ”how are you since so and so died?” They say OK, then
burst into tears and blubber, “I feel terrible.”
Do you say nothing; just hold them and let them cry? Of course you don’t. You
feel embarrassed and wish they would control themselves; they sense your
embarrassment, sniff, apologise for crying and do you the favour of changing the
subject and ask about your kids.
It’s not just other people’s expressions of sadness that we have trouble with.
You’re going through M & S and you’re confronted by someone you were at school
with ….. who’s been in California for the last ten years. She shouts, “TERRY,”
runs over, flings her arms around you, kisses you, the whole store turns to
look.
Do you reciprocate? ……… not a bit of it. Even assuming that you’re thrilled to
see her, you still back off, blush, and almost whisper, “How are you?” In such a
way that invites any response to be made in the same sepulchral tones. You also,
sort of, crouch down. It may be nice to see her but you now feel awkward and
know that your response has been somehow inadequate …….and people are still
looking.
Life can be tough if you’ve been brought up in a non-hugging family, and get
mixed up in a hugging one. Even more weird are families where emotional
expression has been formalised and ritualised. Everyone is expected to kiss
Great Aunt Fanny’s cheek, either on greeting or taking leave. When someone grabs
hold of her and gives her a big hug and a kiss, it becomes a family joke, thus
defusing the embarrassment; they’re usually excused on the grounds that they’re
Irish. When little Johnny doesn’t wish to kiss her, he’s cajoled into conforming
and said to be embarrassed. No-one suggests that he thinks, as they all do,
that he just doesn’t like her. So why should he kiss her? The idea would be too
awful to deal with.
Remember,
All we control is how or whether we express our feelings. We can’t control
whether we have them or not.
It’s when we put a lot of effort into trying not to have feelings that we have
problems.
|
