I hear few complaints more frequently from couples than those concerning the expression of feelings. Yes, it’s often a male partner who seems incapable of either expressing or appreciating emotional meaning. But the truth is, many women are similarly less fluent in the expression of feelings. Indeed, fluency in the expression of emotional meaning is, in my opinion, a deficit that affects us all, even if a bit differently due to patterns of culture and socialization. And this deficit is not limited to the dynamics of intimate relationships. It can be a source of frustration in the workplace too. Although we can also find it difficult to express our more practical and rational thoughts without confusion, expressing emotional meaning involves a higher level of difficulty.
Why? Because we are conditioned to favor the rational mind and instrumental (means-end) modes of action. We prefer to think of ourselves as reasonable, in-control, and able to solve problems sensibly. But there is more to it. Our emotions and motivations operate with equal potency whether operating at the conscious or unconscious level. And our affective reactions to experience are more rapid-fire, strongly and viscerally felt. They make a different claim upon us.
The major symptoms of this deficit are observed in two polar opposite states: 1) emotion dysregulation, and 2) the suppression of emotions. The former is manifest when we are overwhelmed by our emotional reactions to things, the latter when our learned way of coping is to immediately suppress, deny, and avoid expressing intense feelings (especially negative ones) at almost any cost. Both are extremes of course and neither promotes a reflective exploration of meaning, that is, regarding our feelings as data that might inform us. Absent that reflective pause, we struggle to find the composure and words to convey their meaning in dialogue with others who have reason to care about understanding us, and who actually might prize greater mutual understanding in their relationship with us.
Meaning Felt and Expressed
So the question posed in my title is at once very simple and complex. On the one hand, to express our feelings means to convey what we are feeling to another person, an overt, communicative act. But it can also imply the conveyance of emotional meaning, which is more intentionally aimed at helping another person understand our feelings. In this latter sense, it means to disclose what we are “really” feeling when what we’ve expressed is perhaps more reactive and seems to leave something important unsaid. In that case, others can be left wondering “what’s this really about?”
Of course, we can replace the word feelings with thoughts, and the question can still make sense. But now the reference is to rational meaning, and the appeal for further disclosure suggested by the word “really” may refer less to further rational meaning and more to some underlying or covert intentions or motivations that inhibited a more complete or direct rational expression.
Notice that in both instances it is felt meaning that must ultimately be coaxed forth, the absence of which leaves others noticing that something is withheld. It is the affective impact of rational words that can make them difficult to express. It is the immediate, visceral power of emotional meaning that can leave us feeling at a loss for words, anxious or confused about what to say.
Covering: Passive and Aggressive
Using words that blunt the force we worry might be conveyed by a more direct expression of our feelings or thoughts is called covering. In this case, the covering usually takes on an accommodating style, although it may feel dismissive to those whose feelings are being minimized. It’s restrained and passive, it holds back direct acknowledgement of other persons emotions and tries to step over or around them because there is fear or at least concern that dealing with the feelings directly will generate more anxiety and perhaps conflict. In small doses and done with deliberate and prudent mindfulness, this response may serve as tact. But done less consciously and reactively can generate a conspiracy of silence.
Aggressive-defensive behavior is also a form of covering. In this case, what is often concealed are certain passive feelings of fear, insecurity, or vulnerability. While passive covering hopes to intimate what it cannot speak, this style closes off further examination of emotional meaning with an abrupt, demanding, intolerant tone. Neither style expresses what we “really” feel or think.
To be sure, both the passive and the aggressive modes of covering are defensive insofar as they help us avoid the feared consequences of revealing our vulnerabilities. One style brings all the noise and fury of anger, while the other may pretend at “nice” while being sheepishly afraid to spark conflict. Neither is properly assertive or fully truthful. Neither helps us grow in strength.
Fluency Avails Truth
Most of us do not consciously choose covering as a strategy. Covering is something we are driven into by less conscious sorts of motivation, usually stemming from early life experience in our family of origin. That is where we learn to self-disclose in safety. It’s where we learn to allow time for exploring our feelings and finding ways to adequately express them, to gain fluency.
Emotional meaning is more challenging for us largely because we have not properly valued it as a means of knowing. We are too ready, in a digital world, to reduce the original complexity of human experience to a shorthand of rational-physical objectification. There is little patience for exploring the fuzzier, nuanced data of primary experience for the meaning which comes through feeling.
To do so requires that we suspend theories and assumptions long enough to discern what emerges on its own. Letting the felt sense of our experience to first emerge, even as we struggle to find the right words to characterize these feelings is step one. Dialoguing to arrive at shared insights and understandings requires trust in our common goal of learning from our experience.
Closing Thought
So, don’t be so quick to react from motives and tendencies that serve as a cover for vulnerabilities formed in childhood. Their sheer power may deceive us, compel us to do their bidding in order to be safe. But they were constructed before we were able to think for ourselves and choose the bonds of trust and intimacy we wish to cultivate with significant others in adult life. If you can resonate with such challenges but find it difficult to deliberately change the dynamics of behavior on your own, seek out a psychologist or psychotherapist whose focus in communications is relational and who is able to help you explore how your tendencies in emotional expression were influenced early in life within you family of origin. You may find it very satisfying helpful in your personal and professional life.
