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Post by yasmin on Feb 6, 2018 12:37:29 GMT
As a note, happy for APs and secures to also pipe in to this conversation so all are welcome, but I'd love to also here from fellow FAs BreakingTheSpell and ocarina and all as well as the DAs @mary and @tgat on this subject... How do you know what your real feelings are about something?So for example, I often feel relief at the end of a new relationship that was almost a relationship (like the cause of my fear and anxiety is removed) but then these waves of sadness come over me a while later. I am not sure if I am happy or sad that the person is gone! Also, in terms of dating and relationships, how do you differentiate between someone who is freaking you out because you DO like them and someone who is freaking you out because you DON'T- meaning how can you tell / react when you meet someone and things are very new / first stages of courtship if you actually like someone, what is the emotional response, what actions are you drawn to? I am working out getting back to dating, and I am confused about these things because I sometimes just don't know what I feel. I don't know how to differentiate whether someone is a person I really like and want to be with and have romantic feelings for OR if my feelings are my attachment system kicking in. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 13:20:56 GMT
this is a great question.
I can really relate to it.
What i have found to be true to me is i need time to go inward when i am by myself and really pay attention to what my feeling is in my body and what my exact thoughts are.
i have noticed that my feelings are a lot like colors and they have specific sensations attached to them in my body.
so, warning signs of true incompatibility feel one way, disinterest feels another way, relief stemming from a right choice feels another way, friendliness (my own outreaching friendliness) feels another way.
So i don’t confuse them much just like i don’t confuse orange and green.
However!!! it takes conscious awareness and wanting to know , and taking the time to look. That’s the key. that is why i am posting my stupid dating endeavor here because i want to stay alert and conscious about choices i am making and ways that i am interacting.
I have practiced insight meditation in the buddhis tradition in order to develop my awareness of what is going on with me. it has changed my life and i notice happiness and contentment a lot more now too! go figure.
also, i don’t make hasty determinations of my feelings. Last night i felt completely ambivalent about talking to this new man, but this morning i reflected and found that put conversation was very good and he seems truly enjoyable and i felt a warm feeling of openness about it, so the scale tipped into wanting to talk to him again instead of not caring at all. So now i think i will let him know that i enjoyed it and look forward to another chat. and then its likely that at some point i will have a small reaction internally the color of something else and have to go take some time with it to name it.
This seems so rudimentary as i type it but in the past colors would blur and i would just toss the canvas
what a great question. thanks for asking!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 13:25:46 GMT
also, i don’t rely on simple feeling or emotion, i forgot to say that i examine the specific thoughts behind it and that points me to exactly what is going on, if it is old messaging or new messages from the environment or myself.
i no longer have a negative judgement internally about my feelings or thoughts so they are all welcome to come let themselves be known and i don’t push any away anymore.
gawd that makes it better. shame used to silence EVERYTHING. So did anger. totally dominated the space.
that has changed.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 13:32:44 GMT
also, i don’t rely on simple feeling or emotion, i forgot to say that i examine the specific thoughts behind it and that points me to exactly what is going on, if it is old messaging or new messages from the environment or myself. i no longer have a negative judgement internally about my feelings or thoughts so they are all welcome to come let themselves be known and i don’t push any away anymore. gawd that makes it better. shame used to silence EVERYTHING. So did anger. totally dominated the space. that has changed. so sorry, for multiple posts. still waking up with coffee. over time, seeking insight into myself like this has resulted in faster and more reliable recognition of my internal “colors” so i don’t always have to deliberate. i have rewired my “emotion recognition system” and experience, over time, with many situations have tested and proven it reliability. Not fail-proof, but certainly not malfunctioning like it did for most of my life! |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 13:45:25 GMT
This is the million dollar question. I always say I don't have an emotional guide, so I largely rely on logic. Logic though isn't a reliable guide either as you need both. This is actually the first time I have ever felt sad about a breakup. In the past, it was always relief. There were very good reasons in the past though that I ended relationships. For me, it wasn't just my insecure attachment, they were toxic. My problem was my brain was telling me to like the wrong guy. I am still working on differentiating the like from the attachment system, because I always picked the triggering guy.
Through therapy, I had to do the opposite of what my brain was telling me I like. Basically, not rejecting after one date. If I met a guy who seemed boring to me, I forced myself to go on more dates with him and get to know him more, before deciding. This process wasn't perfect by any means. I ended up with a pretty secure guy, but still had toxic attributes from my past. However, I am getting closer to the goal. He was much less toxic than my past relationships and did trigger me less.
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Post by yasmin on Feb 6, 2018 13:50:01 GMT
Geez I am finding this tough. Like you @mary I think I sometimes find secure people boring in some way. I really don't want to be attracted to someone because they are avoidant though so I am going to have to get to grips with finding my true feelings here. Logic is maybe a better answer than emotions if you're a complex attachment style.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 14:10:28 GMT
Geez I am finding this tough. Like you @mary I think I sometimes find secure people boring in some way. I really don't want to be attracted to someone because they are avoidant though so I am going to have to get to grips with finding my true feelings here. Logic is maybe a better answer than emotions if you're a complex attachment style. this used to be a real sticking point for me. now i notice that i like boring. it’s like simple breathing versus gasping or holding my breath. it’s peaceful and sustainable. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 14:15:24 GMT
Geez I am finding this tough. Like you @mary I think I sometimes find secure people boring in some way. I really don't want to be attracted to someone because they are avoidant though so I am going to have to get to grips with finding my true feelings here. Logic is maybe a better answer than emotions if you're a complex attachment style. It's so hard! I try to stick it out longer with people I would never have considered before, but then there are times I was thinking, why am I torturing myself with these boring dates? But now, I do pay more attention to things like their stability, education, past relationships, common interests etc. In the past, I relied too much on sexual attraction, which just isn't reliable at all. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 14:21:42 GMT
trial and error, and knowin when to fold lol.
i have to take a look at the difference between openness and self-torture haha!
it takes energy for sure.
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Post by alpenglow on Feb 6, 2018 14:55:21 GMT
Very interesting topic!
I'm an AP, and rely mostly on logic, as I have learned, through attachment litterature, how to recognise red flags. But of course it can go too far. Relying on emotions (anxiety-provoking situations for an AP) is not without its pitfalls. Sometimes it's good to listen to them (to avoid pursuing attractions to people that are clearly not good for me), and sometimes it's not (for example when it comes to the fear of not being good enough). Recognizing real feelings is therefore quite tricky.
Like tgat wrote, knowing when to fold...but daring to try things out is probably good advice for all attachement styles.
I have been attracted to quite a few secure people. Some of them boring, some of them not.
Sexual attraction is clearly not a good indicator. At least for APs (maybe others?), it's a sign of slowing things down a bit, because we get attached so freaking fast.
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Post by ocarina on Feb 6, 2018 19:26:40 GMT
Very good question Yasmin.
Emotions seem to me to be reactions brought up by thought processes - very often the thought processes themselves are unconcious, triggerred by past experiences which imprint upon our neural pathways to create personality and our own reality.
When we experience an emotion - we are infact reacting and then often attaching beliefs and thoughts to years of stored experience. We then attach meaning to this based on what the emotion signifies to us - usually something positive we cling to or try to produce more or, something negative we avoid or try to negate or numb.
The emotions we learn to believe are the ones we have been conditioned to react to by past experience. In the majority of cases though we are encouraged to listen to our hearts, follow our gut feelings - infact these inclinations may well bring us further into the mire of ego, avoidance, clinging or whatever our poison. bGut feelings can lead us into damaging relationships with the wrong people - intense chemistry seems to be a particularly dangerous thing!
Emotions are important in that they are beautiful recognitions of humanity and aliveness - but they are also reflections of all kinds of false beliefs and of an identity system that is of our own weaving and that can be mightily constricting. I have learnt over very many years that they need to be heard and observed - in the body and allowed to express themselves and pass through - ignoring or clinging to them will mean they become stored and create more of the same old story, reinforcing unhelpful old pathways and trapping us in the kind of avoidance/ clinging cycle that is the norm for most people - and prevents real freedom.
If you can "relax and "release" both stored emotional experiences and in an ongoing process, eventually life becomes a clean slate, where emotions are allowed but reactiveness ceases and it becomes possible to look at life with more equanimity and make judgements based on wisdom rather than either logic or emotion.
I don't know if this will resonate with anyone - it's pretty hard to explain in one post - anyone interested might want to read The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer - it's really accessible and non religious synthesis of this kind of thinking - life changing I believe. He has also recorded an online course on Sounds True which is a practical guide.
So - my answer would be believe none of them unless you want to start chasing preferences conditioned by life experiences and end up in a potentially confused mess - develop some clarity and then watch the world unfold without judgement after which - for me at least (well some of the time!) the right course becomes much more obvious!
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Post by BreakingTheSpell on Feb 8, 2018 14:56:29 GMT
As a note, happy for APs and secures to also pipe in to this conversation so all are welcome, but I'd love to also here from fellow FAs BreakingTheSpell and ocarina and all as well as the DAs @mary and @tgat on this subject... How do you know what your real feelings are about something?So for example, I often feel relief at the end of a new relationship that was almost a relationship (like the cause of my fear and anxiety is removed) but then these waves of sadness come over me a while later. I am not sure if I am happy or sad that the person is gone! Also, in terms of dating and relationships, how do you differentiate between someone who is freaking you out because you DO like them and someone who is freaking you out because you DON'T- meaning how can you tell / react when you meet someone and things are very new / first stages of courtship if you actually like someone, what is the emotional response, what actions are you drawn to? I am working out getting back to dating, and I am confused about these things because I sometimes just don't know what I feel. I don't know how to differentiate whether someone is a person I really like and want to be with and have romantic feelings for OR if my feelings are my attachment system kicking in. I agree with many posters here that it is difficult to recognize the emotion behind a reaction, particularly when we (as FAs od DAs) have been out of touch with our emotions as a way to survive. For me, I recognize I have an emotion when I am in a boat that I cannot control, the emotion controls all my thoughts and reactions, mainly when it is about negative emotions. Fear and anger make me loose myself and for the time that the high lasts, my thoughts shift 180 degrees and my actions too, driven to gain back control of my life. As an example, if I feel fear of rejection, I reject first as a reactive mechanism, to control the situation. If I feel anger due to powerlessness, I take action (usually illogical) to gain back power. Even if it involves manipulation. For positive emotions, I recognize them because I feel in a state of inner peace and my anxiety drops. Joy, friendship love, compassion, they all fuel my energy into a productive action. As an avoidant, the relief you feel at the end of a relationship may actually be relief that nobody is threatening your individuality anymore, relief that you are no longer vulnerable to that person you shared intimacy with. In my opinion, this relief that avoidants usually feel (I have felt it but not always at the end of relationships) is just another coping mechanism to escape the sadness of the loss of the relationship and absence of a person we had decided to trust. True, the anxiety drops, the anxiety of feeling that the partner will leave you or reject you. Because of course after a break up, the rejection or loss has already happened, there is nothing to fear anymore because it has already materialized. Pure sadness, without anxiety (hence those feelings of relief). Now... why does sadness take so long to appear? It is only when you start feeling "safe" again, that you can allow yourself to have a negative feeling, until then you are blocking it in limbo, or worse swallowing it up which will backfire terribly in the future. How do I differentiate between somebody who I like and somebody I dont like? If it is freaking me out, it is probably because I like that person and I am giving him control over my emotional state, therefore he can freak me out. If I dont like him or find him repulsive, usually I feel nothing negative about the guy, the dont freak me out, he will never make it past of friendzone or maybe not even there. Now, being aware that I may have confused attraction with love during all of my life, guys who give me positive emotional highs, like adrenaline rushes and butterflies in the stomach, were probably guys who were sending me mixed signals and it felt like a challenge to get their attention. It always felt like I am about to run a race. will I win this? will I not? If it starts like this, it is usually my sympathetic system speaking and not any romantic feelings. It can be very difficult to distinguish, particularly if sex is already in the way, because now you are chemically hooked as well. If you dont feel this immediate attraction, but you cannot see a major dealbreaker or red flag, it can help to continue seeing the guy on dates, trying to avoid getting physically intimate during these first stages, and observe how your feelings develop... maybe you can recognize anxiety, avoidance, or just peace. |
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