I’ve decided to write this blog post because this topic is one that is a bit of a juicy one for me! It is also pretty controversial within therapy circles so I would love for you to comment on this post and would encourage a debate on the subject.
I regularly deal with clients who say “he made me feel angry” or “it’s because she makes me feel so sad that I did this”. When working with couples I hear “you made me feel (angry/sad/scared/happy) when you did that.
The thing for me is that I’m not sure another person can make you feel anything. They can invite you to feel one way or another but there is no guarantee of you responding in a particular way. Can I really “make” someone else angry, sad or any other emotion?
Down the pub
To illustrate this I like to give the example of me walking into a pub and shouting “I’m gonna get you all!” at the top of my voice in an aggressive manner. Some would say that this would make others feel scared but is that really the case? I think some people would feel scared, but others would look at me and laugh, thinking I was a bit of an idiot. Another few may take it as a personal challenge and want to hit me – feeling angry. There may be some who look at me and feel sad for me, imagining how difficult it must be to live with such anger.
I’m sure you get my point. By doing one particular kind of behaviour I cannot be sure of how others will respond emotionally. I can invite them strongly to feel a certain way but how they feel may be linked to the experiences they’ve had in their childhood and how my behaviour hooks that.
The other point of view
There are people who feel strongly that my point of view is baloney! Claude Steiner is one such individual. In his book “Emotional Literacy – Intelligence with a heart” he states:
“Regarding emotions, we can indeed cause them in each other, and therefore we are often responsible for other people’s feelings”
Steiner goes on to give an example of when he has done this himself. He recalls a lecture that he was giving on feelings where a man stood up and protested that we cannot make each other feel. Steiner’s response was to shout at this man and tell him what he was saying was stupid and that he should sit down. He then asked the man what he was feeling (which was the point of the shouting). The man replied he felt nothing but looked flustered. When Steiner asked the rest of the audience how they felt they recounted a range of emotions from embarrassment to sadness for the man who had been shouted at.
In many ways this illustrates my point well. I believe we can give out strong invitations for people to have a feeling response but have little control over what that response might be.
Power and feelings
The reason why I challenge my clients to change their speech pattern from “he made me feel” to “I feel” is because I believe that “he made me feel” gives something important away. Power is being given to someone else. If other people can make you feel whatever they like then you are at the whims and mercy of others. This, quite frankly, sounds exhausting! It just does not sound like a healthy way to live your life.
Saying “I feel” takes the power back. It’s saying I own my feelings, I am responsible for them and I can do something about them. I can choose my response to them.
My experience is that when clients make this leap, from giving others power over their feelings to taking responsibility for them, change starts to happen. They start to believe in themselves. They start to understand that they have a say in how they live their lives and having feelings is OK. They take one step closer to being autonomous.
What do you think about this article? Please comment below. Do you think other people can “make you feel?” Am I talking utter rubbish? Please comment below.
Really interesting post, Ian. I don’t think it’s either/or. After all, one of the realisations we make in our relationahips, is that it is our responsibility to make it safe for the other to show up. That way we stand a chance of connecting; in other words we do have an effect on the other as to whether they feel safe or not.
Also I worry about the idea that we can never make the other feel something – it seems to let the bully off the hook, and of course that’s what the bully often tries to do when they disown their behaviour. There is also the issue of mirror neurons, firing away when we see someone’s angry face and promoting all sorts of links in our brains, whether we like it or not.
However I also agree with you that we do need to tell the difference between what happens and our interpretation, which feeds the feelings. When we learn to read our feelings we can understand them and then there may be a matter of choice whether or not to go with the flow in our minds. I think that’s what you are talking about when you witness people being able to change when they say ‘I feel’ rather than ‘you made me feel’.
I hesitate however to have a rule about this. It is very easy to persecute people with the idea that they are in a prison of their own making. A child who has been reared by bullying critical parents will have a brain that is supersensitive to bullying/criticism by others. Yes, in that sense the response is ‘only in the mind’, but boy is that a reality. It needs a really compassionate approach for them to begin to step away from their responses.
There is an ancient Sanskrit saying ‘As the mind, so the man; bondage or liberation are in your own mind’. But the ancients also knew that it took much devotion and discipline to achieve such a state!
Judith
The most compassionate response to “no-one can make you feel” is punching them to the floor and texting buddhist sutras to their hospital bed. At what point does their attachment to this world manifest itself? What enables them to determine where yours should?
It is the therapish translation of “cheer up love it might never happen”. It is as offensive as new-age evangelists telling cancer sufferers that they have chosen that reality. It is as riddled with cognitive bias as entrepreneurs claiming the poor could also be millionaires if they worked as hard. It is insufferably smug.
It invalidates the experience of those who are suffering. It requires deliberately misinterpreting the meaning of “make” to mean intentionally force an exact outcome. We make plans for the weekend, we make our way to the park, sunshine makes us happy – it doesn’t mean we control the park or the routes to it, or that the sun has been plotting our happiness. It means we have a certain feeling in response to a certain stimulus.
I find most people using this expression are excited by discoveries they have recently made about the power of the words we choose. Fair enough. Presumably their evangelising ends when, heart-broken, they phone long-suffering friends for support.
This is a very interesting topic. I’ve recently spoken this to a friend who has changed my way of thinking around this.
I don’t necessarily agree that people can “make” you feel a certain way. I believe we have been socially conditioned from childhood that other people have that power over us which enables a blame culture whereby we shift the responsibility of our own reactions/ emotional responses onto others.
Example; I walk down the street with my hood up and somebody else looks a little scared. Did I “make” that person feel scared or did that person feel scared as a result of their own emotional response? Is it my behaviour of walking down the street with my hood up or their association with it that had this person feeling this way? This is just one brief example to highlight my point.
I feel we have been socially conditioned even through displaying our love and affection to our kids that this type of thinking pattern comes into play which our kids learn. I’ve witnessed parents smacking thier child saying “don’t make me angry” and smack their hand etc. This form of behaviour highlights that their love and affection for their child is based on a condition that the child does not to anything to upset the parent. This places the responsibility of the parents emotional wellbeing onto the child; allowing the child to believe that there is a condition for the love and affection which can build resentment, among not allowing your child to feel love is unconditional.
I don’t agree that people can “make” you feel, I believe you felt as a result of your own emotional response (your responsibility) and your own experiences and associations. If I shouted in the street each bystander would have varying responses; its individual and it’s yours. The moment you say “you made me feel” you’re only serving to shift the blame for your own behaviours onto others which I don’t believe is fair.
Sem
I actually (seems like I’m disagreeing with the others commenting) really agree with this post.
I’m not saying I live this way, or always recognizing that the choice of how I feel or react is my own, which is also a matter of realizing that whatever the other person does or says is their issue, and it’s up to me to own my issues and not theirs, but it’s definitely something that helps me with some people.
It’s something I definitely think. That no one can make you feel anything. A person chooses for themselves what to feel, when. Most often it isn’t a choice, but is a pre-choice made by their own belief systems, but it’s THEIR system leading them to that reaction.
Perhaps it’s just the use of the term ‘make’ that sounds offensive to some. Maybe saying ‘this caused’ or ‘triggered my feelings of’ or ‘I felt such and such as a result of’ is making your point and keeping the power.
Truth is, we don’t even have control over our own feelings, far less anyone else. Like the writer said, different people will react differently when subjected to the same stimulus. This means a person does not control, but they may have the ability to affect. And if they did affect, isn’t it fair to say this caused me to feel…. ?
Just because a certain Movie doesn’t move everyone to tears doesn’t mean it didn’t cause some to cry. Just because some of the people who ate the same spoilt food were unaffected doesn’t mean it didn’t cause others to feel sick. U get my drift?
There are so many factors involved with a persons feelings so I get why it may be unfair to wholly attribute it to another’s actions, but in a lot of cases, if a person ‘s emotions were affected largely in part to a particular experience, I believe it’s fair to say this person made me feel when they did….
Just as I believe it’s fair to say my husband made me feel so special when he… or the staff at the hotel made me feel so welcome…
I feel that no body can make you or me feel anything. To say someone has control of someone else’s emotions I feel is a very inaccurate statement. I myself don’t have control of my own emotions. I can control on how I act on those emotions but I cannot control myself from feeling those emotions Within. I cannot make myself feel sad I cannot make myself feel angry shameful guilty embarrassed. I am not making myself sad by thinking about the death of my relative . I am simply thinking about the death of relative in my heart within becomes sad as a natural genuine response without being prompted . My emotions arise automatically based on things I see hear feel or do . I have no control and nor does anyone else of their own emotions, so to say someone else does is ludacris . So to blame feelings on other individuals I feel is an excuse and it’s simply somebody running from taking accountability for their own actions . Those emotions make themselves known to us on actions, influence or words that touch our hearts.
I had a conversation yesterday with a friend that feels that their significant other manipulates their feelings. I expressed my opinion as far as no one can manipulate your feelings to make you feel something. The term manipulation is obviously used as one person either twisting words or using words that are more understandable that are more likely to touch your heart and move you inside emotionally. You have those feelings for a reason. Something he said made you feel guilty and made you feel like you did wrong and there is a reason for that and there is only one way to handle it and that is to own it. People can influence your emotions but not control them. Influence is only possibly by using words that obviously give you a different perspective where your sub conscious agrees and those feelings arise. Its still very real and very much there. if you feel guilty or shameful or joyful or sad there is a true reason that you feel that way and your body and your mind and your subconscious agrees. the problem for many people is that they are not willing to search within themselves to find the truth and that it is easier to blame someone else then take accountability for what you have done and you feel guilty for what you feel good about. No one wants to admit they’re wrong or made a mistake. Its a pride and who thing and we are all guilty of it at one time or another. Its easier to make excuses and blame someone else.
If my wife tells me that it hurts her feelings when I talk to her sometimes the way I do and i feel guilty about that that is because I believed what she said and I feel bad for making her feelings feel hurt and it is a natural emotion out of my love for her. Yeah I could say she’s manipulating my feelings or I could say she’s right and I could talk to her better because I do care and I do feel guilty yeah I can say she’s manipulating my feelings or like it says she’s right and I could talk to her better because I do care and I do feel guilty because I obviously know within my heart that I did talk to her disrespectfully and that is why I know I feel guilty. I May not have seen that before she told me but her words gave me me perspective and it did make me feel guilty. Her words influenced my perspective and emotions. It doesn’t make it false. If I feel it that is because I know within myself I did something to feel guilty about.
Here’s a situation; not directly said ‘about’ someone but a co-worker who is out of the office got engaged over the weekend and I found out on Facebook. I had decided I wasn’t going to tell anyone; not my news to share but another co-worker came into work & told other others. I played dumb when I arrived but when I found out everyone knew, I said I wasn’t going to say anything. The co-worker that shared this news told me later that, “I made her feel terrible. Awful to the point of tears.” Did I? Might it be the guilt she feels for sharing news that wasn’t hers to share? Realizing that social media can and does share information whether you want to or not, I still feel it wasn’t our news and it should have been left for the fiance. So, did I “make her feel”?
Ok so I have a question about feelings. (this is just an example)
If a child is told they are stupid and worthless repeatedly is that child or adult not allowed to feel hurt, or even worse get to the point where they feel so low and self-worthless that they take their own life. Leaving a note blaming someone else for making them feel so worthless they can’t see a way out? Why is the emphasis on the child having to ignore there feeling? So what if the child doesn’t say you make me feel like ending my life but instead said I feel the way you act makes me want to end my left? What is the difference?
I think the way people act towards each other can have an effect of someone else.
I agree. “You make me feel” is erroneous thinking and thinking in that way (short of a physical assault) gives a person the power he does not have. This recent episode with Joe Biden “making” a woman uncomfortable by him touching her and kissing her hair is ridiculous when there was no physical or sexual aggression suggested. Biden said later that now he “gets it”–the change in new standards of behavior and it is likely that he will modify his behavior so as to not get into such a pickle again.
People with all these psychological triggers hanging out “make me crazy and uncomfortable”. I think I’ll go and cry.