Here are a few ways you can tell if the man you love has trouble with intimacy or struggles to open up:

• He's unable to discuss his feelings.
• He's determined to avoid his feelings.
• He's unable to express love, sorrow, or pain.
• He's unable or unwilling to cry.
• He's determined to make all situations into a joke.
• He's determined to lighten the mood or change the topic when emotional issues are discussed.
• He physically leaves the room when emotional issues are discussed.
• He's insensitive to the emotions of those around him.

Most men – unfortunately - don't undergo such traumatic experiences as the one described above. Yet many boys emerge from adolescence with a strong sense that being strong and unfeeling is the "masculine" thing to do.

When a male brain is saturated in testosterone, it doesn't take much, even from well-meaning family members, to give a boy the message that emotions and feelings are only for girls.

Here are some things your husband may have heard when growing up - things that may have shaped him into a seemingly uncaring person:

• "Don't cry unless you're hurt."
• "Tough it out."
• "Boys don't cry."
• "Only sissies get hurt feelings."
• "It's a sign of weakness to let people know you're hurting."

If you love a man who doesn't seem to be able to express his feelings, you might want to consider using word pictures to help him identify what's going on inside.

A word picture uses a story or object to simultaneously activate the emotions and intellect of the hearer. As a result, he experiences your words rather than just hearing them.

It's important to realize that helping your husband learn to express his feelings will take time.

You might have to use several examples or try for several days, weeks, or even months before he's able to feel and share with you what's in his heart. And until he reaches that point, he won't be able to connect with you on an emotional intimate level.

Based on what I've learned in my many years of counseling, I've found that a woman's definition of intimacy is very different from a man's.

Consider the following lists:

What women mean by intimacy:

• Deep emotional connection
• Daily time sharing your heart
• Daily time hearing the heart of the one you love
• Ability to cry easily and together at emotional moments
• A sensitivity to know immediately when feelings are hurt
• Understanding each other's dreams and goals
• Closeness of the heart and soul

What men mean by intimacy:

• Deep physical connection
• Foreplay
• Hand-holding, hugging, kissing
• Understanding each other's physical needs
• An ability to communicate physical needs
• Physical time alone together
• A sensitivity to know when physical needs are present

One of the reasons men may be more focused on physical closeness is that men aren't as sensitive to physical touch as women are.

In other words, it takes more physical touch to meet a man's physical needs. In the same way that a woman has twice the daily word count, a man has twice the need for physical stimulation.

The point is this: Women often feel unloved because their emotional needs aren't being met and in the same way, men often feel ignored because their physical needs aren't being met.

I think the problem is clear at this point: Guys have trouble with true emotional intimacy.

Newborn Feelings

author unknown

We'll look at the theory of emotional development before further discussion of the purposes for our feelings. Newborn babies feel emotions and some would agree they babies have emotions before birth.

In short, we express emotions at the time of birth. Babies don't understand their emotions; but they quickly learn that certain behaviors evoke certain responses from other. 

Do infants know the differences between emotions? They probably do but can't use words to express these differences.  Babies want to feel loved and accepted. If someone loves and accepts a baby, they help to assure the baby’s survival.

Even before we can seek love and acceptance, we must survive. This implies that sometimes a baby’s need for survival overwhelms her need for acceptance.

The baby has no means of expressing her survival needs except by crying or yelling. The people around the baby may not respond to her cries with love and acceptance, but will likely feed her.

Depending on the feedback she receives, she may experience confusion, frustration and other emotions without understanding them; but she gets what she needs to survive: food.

Let’s assume that at the moment of birth, a newborn is fully aware all emotions but can't understand or express them. Since babies have no worldly experience, they may have no need for an unconscious or subconscious.

There is no one single definition for the unconscious and/or subconscious in literature. I'll use these terms interchangeably in this discussion, but some authors differentiate between them.

For our discussion, I'll use a definition for unconscious from Webster’s New World Dictionary, which is, the sum of all thoughts, memories, impulses, desires, feelings of which the individual isn't conscious but which influence his emotions and behavior.

As the conscious and unconscious develop, a child receives feedback from his environment in many ways. They learn the relationship between actions that gain rewards and those that evoke punishment.

If we want to feel loved and accepted, then we might learn to try to reject parts of our self that don't help us attain these things. As we mature, we may experience many aspects of that our conscious mind can't store; in this case, we need to place some events and experiences out of our conscious awareness.

Therefore, the subconscious develops out of a need for storage for our experiences and emotions. We tend to repress events and emotions that we wish to forget, didn't receive love or acceptance from, or couldn’t understand.

As such, we begin to create an internal hierarchy of emotions and experiences to which we may or may not have immediate access.

Each emotional experience becomes a deposit of energy that we may use or store. The smaller spheres in the unconscious indicate these experiences. The varying size of each sphere shows the relative power or importance of each sphere of our experiences.

If a person wants to keep an experience or emotion out of the conscious mind, he must expend energy to keep it away. In doing this, the need for defenses arises.

Commonly, we use 1 of 2 ways to defend emotions and experiences that we want to protect. We can use emotions to intimidate other people or other emotions. The other means of defense involves a logical approach that might seek to outwit other emotions and individuals.

We use defenses to guard emotions and to fend off certain experiences.

We also use these defenses to protect us from external attacks. Depending on how the subconscious perceives a threat, it may call on defenses to protect aspects of itself from threats to the structure. Defense tactics will differ from person to person.

As stated earlier, through life events, a person may learn that emotions are bad, wrong and/or weak. Over the years, our conscious mind learns to rely upon logic as a medium for processing communication.

In this manner, if the conscious mind only needs reason, in theory, life should be easier to figure out and deal with.

Emotions may become taboo to the conscious mind. Although the conscious mind may seek to block emotions, it never fully succeeds. This situation is similar to a person standing on the other side of a fence calling you names.

You hear what they say and although you can't see the source of these insults, the words still hurt. You may try to distance yourself from the fence, but you can only go so far, because the fence surrounds you.

In other words, we can't escape our emotion and memories, but we can make every effort to avoid them. It's usually only a matter of time before we have to deal with them, in some capacity.

Let us continue this fence metaphor. Imagine the individual calling you names felt a strong need to let you know he was there; he may have a difficult time knowing whether you can hear him because he can't see our reaction. 

He may decide to try to tear down the fence. If that doesn't work he may dig a hole under the fence, or set the fence on fire (if he feels desperate enough). Besides these things he may try to find more people to make noise to get our attention.

In relating this to a person, research indicates that people who don't deal with emotions often have other health problems such as heart problems, cancer, etc. The relationship between these factors and repressed emotions is too high to ignore.

We can view this situation as our emotions way of telling our logic-based conscious mind that it's time to listen. It's clear, however, that people fail to listen to these emotions and blame their health problems on things like diet, smoking or genetics.

In order to consider the cause of disease, we need to look at theories about what causes disease. One important theory is The Diathesis-Stress Model of disease. This theory asserts that people contract a disease when they're predisposed and experience an amount of stress that activates the disease.

Without these stressors, or if the strategic group of stressors never occur, then it's less likely that the person will develop the disease. The Diathesis-Stress Model is similar to finding the weakest link in the chain. It doesn't matter how strong all of the other links of the chain are, if there's a single weak link, the chain will break.

The weakest link goes unnoticed unless we stress the chain.

Whether we realize it or not, we often use our emotions to manipulate others. We may use anger to intimidate, sadness to invoke fear, guilt to receive pity. Relationships become troubled when we question the sincerity of the emotions of others.

I've referred to strong vs. weak dichotomies used during conflicts. During a conflict, we use emotions such as anger, rage or even humor to protect our sense of power. It's worth noting that in a conflict, emotions that seem “most powerful” don't appear initially.

If you focus on the expression of these emotions, there is always some display of a weak emotion shortly before the conflict. As such, we see that a protective emotion always appears in the wake of a weaker emotion.

We need to understand the main purpose of these protective emotions; this information may help us to resolve conflicts. Taken further, there are unique features to each emotion that are important to discuss.

Concept of Emotional Identities

We often hear many different “voices” or “opinions” within us at any one time. We shouldn't confuse these “internal voices” with those of schizophrenics.’

The degree, to which these internal voices affect us, as well as the verbal content of the voices, may cover a range of expressions.

At the point where these “voices” interfere with our thoughts or suggest harmful behaviors, they become pathological.

I've developed a theoretical perspective that we all exist within the range of having a single identity to having many identities. If we only contained one identity, then we could expect to respond the same way in similar situations, much as a computer program operates.

We don't respond the same way every time; there are many times that we may do something and wonder why. In such cases, we may feel as if someone else took over and acted in our place. This model is difficult to prove through research.

Since we're all different and may have many several identities, no two people will respond the same way in a research setting. It's likely you've seen books on the “inner child” and other similar titles. In addition to inner children, so, too, could there be adolescents and other identities.

This theory can be used as a model to aid in understanding why we do the things we do, since logic from a single identity model often defies explanation.

Do most adults have more than one identity?

If so, why? Most likely it is because throughout our lives, we repress emotion and experiences. Instead, adults often have many different points of view. The extent an individual isolates his emotion falls somewhere in a range of values.

We use a range of value to indicate a person’s level of emotional disconnection. On this scale, the extreme represents those people with multiple personalities. 

We call this diagnosis Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.).

Perhaps you've seen movies or books like Three Faces of Eve & Sybil.  These provided examples of a person who has different personalities and the core personality isn't aware of the others. Such a situation is common for people with this condition.

During the periods when an alternate personality assumes control, the person often blacks out and can't recall what happened. Through therapy, the client may learn about the existence of these other identities and how they express themselves. D. I. D. creates some interesting psychological issues.

Some clients with  D. I. D. tend to form some identities that are psychologically adaptive and are very clear cut from other identities. Since the personalities are independent, they don't influence each other.

Looking back at the illustration, let's think about the hierarchical structure of emotions and experiences within the subconscious mind. We'll discuss internal power struggles in more depth in later chapters.

A person’s emotional hierarchy dictates which emotions a person expresses and which ones he/she hides. How do we form these emotional hierarchies?

Often, our interactions with society and family influence these structures. You may find that during a conflict you cast aside your belief system in favor of one more commonly used in society.  So, these events are often influenced by 2 of the dichotomies we mentioned earlier: strong vs. weak and win vs. lose.

We may consider our emotional identities and in doing so, find that they add another dimension to our understanding of complex behavioral and emotional patterns.

From this perspective, we'll examine the purpose of emotion.

Summary

In this chapter we've continued to establish a case for why we feel what we and do what we do. Some of these ideas may be difficult for you to swallow, but I ask you to read on with an open mind.

I think that we all can recognize when we've had many different thoughts at the same time, but it might be the case that explaining the idea of emotional identities may be too much. That's up to you to determine.

Questions:

1. Can you think of some instances wherein “undesirable emotions” served their purpose to your benefit?
2. Do you recall situations that led you to make an effort to reject your feelings in favor of logic in order to maintain control of a situation?
3. We commonly realize that we have different facets to our personality.  Does it sometimes seem that at various times, different facets become more dominant?  If so, how does it affect your attitude or actions?

Let the River Flow

Author Unknown

When feelings are present, why not let them flow?

One of the problems with therapy is that many people only get to certain feelings with the support of a therapist. This doesn't work if feelings are ready to be released on a day and time different from one's appointment. I say, let the river flow.

I myself am against pushing feelings out. Certain therapies access strong feelings through breathing exercises, pounding, or standing in certain physical postures. This could be helpful if a person needs to access feelings and can't reach the feelings on their own.

i.e., someone might be unable to cry and mourn a death. In such a case, any approach that helps the person release these feelings will be a relief.

For a more regular self-maintenance program, it can be helpful to express feelings as they arise naturally. Have a bad day at work? Find a way to consciously release those feelings, rather than taking them out on yourself, at the local bar, or on your spouse or child or dog.

Give yourself a therapy session at home - go to your private space and let loose with whatever wants to come out. This is also a useful tactic during a fight. Let's say you're really in a terribly upset mood with your partner and just about to explode.

Why not assess for a minute if this is really what you want to do. Are the feelings with your partner, or are they perhaps with someone else, or with yourself?

Are they leftover feelings from last night's dream? If so, why not release them yourself?

At home we're lucky to have a separate space where I see clients. I have saved myself a lot of relationship grief by giving myself a session in that room. It's also soundproof enough that the only ones who hear me are the horses, so I can really let go.

Crying and Emotional Release in Babies

by Marion Badenoch Rose, PhD

Aware Parenting is a term coined by Aletha Solter, a developmental psychologist who studied with Dr. Jean Piaget in Switzerland before gaining her Ph.D. at the University of California. She is the founder and director of The Aware Parenting Institute (www.aware parenting.com), an international organization with certified instructors in ten different countries. She is recognized internationally as an expert on attachment and non-punitive discipline.  Her books, “The Aware Baby”, “Tears and Tantrums”, and “Helping Young Children Flourish”, have been translated into several languages.

What is Aware Parenting?

Aware Parenting is based on attachment-style parenting, non-punitive discipline, and acceptance of emotional release.

Like other attachment parenting methods, Aware Parenting advocates:natural childbirth and early bonding, plenty of physical contact, breast-feeding, prompt responsiveness to crying, and sensitive attunement.

Solter also recommends non-punitive discipline, including no punishments of any kind (including "time-out" and artificial "consequences"), no rewards or bribes, the search for underlying needs and feelings, Nonviolent Communication, and peaceful conflict-resolution (family meetings, etc.)

However, Aware Parenting is different to some other attachment parenting styles in its approach to crying and emotional release, which is the focus of this article.

Solter’s approach advocates healing of babies’ and children’s stress and trauma through crying and raging in the context of a loving parent/child relationship.  Respectful, empathic listening and acceptance of babies’ and children's emotions is central to this way of parenting.

Why does your baby cry?

Aware Parenting proposes that when your baby cries, she is either crying to communicate, or crying to heal.  These two reasons for crying ask for very different responses.

When your baby cries to communicate, she needs something immediately, such as holding, food, stimulation, warmth, etc.  Here, your role is to fulfill her need as accurately and promptly as possible.

If your baby is still crying after you have checked her immediate needs, she is probably crying to heal.  There is a general lack of recognition about this type of crying.  Babies cry to heal from emotional or physical hurts or an accumulation of stresses.  Here, your role is to lovingly hold your baby, allowing her to continue crying until she has released her stressful feelings. 

When parents do not realize that their baby is crying to heal, they try to stop her crying by bouncing, jiggling, rocking, and walking her, feeding her for comfort, (breast, bottle or solids), giving her a dummy, or distracting her.  Her stressful feelings get stored up for another time, and she will keep trying to release that tension at every opportunity - especially when she is tired, when she is frustrated, or when she is lovingly held.

Babies who are prevented from crying to heal may appear contented, but may sometimes have a spaced out expression indicating that they are holding in painful feelings.  They might whine, be hyperactive, wake up frequently, bite, hit, or cry intensely to a seemingly small event.

Aware Parenting is very different from controlled crying or crying-it-out, where parents aim to stop their baby crying by leaving her to cry alone.  Solter suggests that crying alone is a terrifying experience for a baby, which leads to a loss of trust.  She repeatedly states that babies should never be left alone to cry.  If a baby is left to cry, she may develop thumb sucking, spacing out, or over-attachment to a blanket or stuffed animal to help her numb her distressed feelings.

Sources of stress for infants

Solter recommends aiming to keep stress to a minimum for babies. 

There are several sources of stresses for babies, which fit in the following six categories:

• prenatal stress
• birth trauma
• unfilled needs (e.g. to be held)
• over-stimulation (e.g. new experiences)
• developmental frustrations (e.g. wanting to be competent at a new skill)
• physical pain
• frightening events (e.g. separation from parents)

Stress and trauma are seen as primary causes of many behavioral and emotional problems if supported release does not occur.  Solter reassures us that it is never too late to help our babies and children heal from stressful events through allowing them to cry and rage with us.

How to respond to a crying baby

First, check your baby’s immediate needs.  In “The Aware Baby”, Solter gives guidelines for distinguishing between a need to cry and other needs.  Medical problems, allergies, and physical discomfort also need to be ruled out. 

If your baby is still crying, you can assume that he is releasing tensions caused by past hurts or stresses. Hold your baby calmly and lovingly whilst he cries, without bouncing or jiggling.  Look into his eyes, talk to him, (e.g. “I’m here with you.”),  and listen to him. 

This gives him emotional safety. Allow him to continue crying for as long as he needs.  Solter recommends never holding your baby for punishment, revenge, or to create submission.  Don’t ever let him cry alone.

After crying to release stresses, babies are often relaxed, calm, alert, and happy, or may fall into a peaceful sleep.

The physiology of stress and crying

Solter postulates that crying and raging after emotional stress may have evolved to reduce the negative side effects of the fight or flight response.  A biochemist called William Frey has detected certain hormones and neurotransmitters (such as ACT and catecholamines) in tears. 

These help the body prepare for fight or flight in situations of danger.  Afterwards, the remains of these chemicals keep the body in a state of tension and arousal.  Frey suggests that shedding tears when crying stops these chemicals from accumulating, thus preventing deleterious physical and emotional effects.   

The benefits of supported crying

The empathy and unconditional acceptance communicated when you hold your crying baby fosters her healthy attachment, self-esteem, and self-acceptance. 

Babies who regularly release stresses are generally calm, content, cooperative, and alert, with little whining or fussing. They often sleep at night for longer periods than other babies. 

Fears and phobias may be prevented when a baby is allowed to cry in a supported manner soon after a frightening or traumatic event. 

Allow your baby to heal from early stresses and traumas and she will probably have more attention for learning.  On the other hand if there is a high level of accumulated tensions in her body, it may be harder for her to concentrate, learn new things and think clearly.  

Allowing your baby to express her feelings freely whilst holding and supporting her may also lead to later emotional and physical wellbeing, and an intact ability to heal from stresses throughout her whole life.

Control patterns

When a baby is repeatedly prevented from crying to heal, he learns to repress his strong emotions and crying with this same method.  This behavior becomes repetitive or compulsive, and is known as a control pattern.  Control patterns are usually well-established by six months of age. 

Control patterns include:

• frequent feeding for comfort rather than hunger
• dummy sucking
• thumb sucking
• excessive clinging
• attachment to a special blanket or toy
• constant demands for entertainment or distraction
• hyperactivity
• self-rocking
• head-banging

These methods only postpone the crying, putting the baby into a kind of trance-like state, where he dissociates from, or numbs, the feelings, but does not release them. 

Once a control pattern is in place, responding accurately to a baby’s needs becomes more complex.  For example, if a baby is given the bottle every time he cries, he will soon learn to ask for the bottle when he is upset, as well as when he is hungry.  His request for the bottle seems like a need for milk every time.  This control pattern can lead to frequent feeding and night-waking in older babies.

Control patterns become hard to change unless the parents or caretakers lovingly allow and accept their baby’s crying.  Then the control patterns can disappear, often quite quickly.  

Alternatively, these control patterns continue into adulthood, for example when we avoid our feelings by eating, drinking, smoking, or watching TV.  When control patterns are used to protect ourselves from traumatic feelings, they are possibly the precursors of addictions to food, alcohol, and drugs. 

We often pass on our own control patterns to our children.  For example, if we tend to eat to repress our feelings, we are likely to feed our baby every time he cries.

When a baby is tired she has less energy to repress her feelings and so will cry more readily.  Encouraging her to continue this release is the recipe for a restful night’s sleep.  If she has already released her tensions during the day, she will fall asleep simply by being held.

A baby who has pent up feelings finds it difficult to fall asleep even when she is tired. She resorts to control patterns to distract her from her tension long enough to fall asleep.  Chances are that she will not sleep well because the emotions are still lurking just below the surface.

Young babies commonly wake up hungry more than once during the night. However, frequent night waking in babies over six months old is most likely caused not by hunger, but by the need to relieve stress with a cry. 

Solter recommends not using a control pattern to put your baby to sleep, i.e., not feeding, rocking, singing, jiggling, or using distractions.  Instead, you can hold your baby lovingly, reassure her, and give her your full attention so that she can cry if she needs to. 

After crying, she will relax and fall into a comfortable sleep in your arms. She will also learn to distinguish between when she is tired, hungry, or feeling upset.     

If your baby over six months old wakes for a second time in the night, you can hold her and offer her a drink or snack rather than the breast or bottle.  If she is not hungry, thirsty, or simply needing closeness, she needs to release.  Hold her in your loving arms.  She will cry out her remaining tensions and fall into a deep satisfying sleep.

My experience with Aware Parenting

I researched alternative sites for birthing and parenting, and found many references to Solter’s work.  I felt intrigued, especially reading reviews of her books, such as:

"This book is so important, for the health of our children and our society, that ... I am recommending it to every professional and parent that I know." William R. Emerson, Ph.D. (Pioneer in infant and child psychotherapy)

“... Tears and Tantrums. This book needs to be in every library... The information therein will free families of emotional trauma in order to journey through life's challenges together in trust."
Jeannie Parvati Baker (Midwife and author of Prenatal Yoga and Natural Birth)

After reading and rereading Solter’s books and practicing her methods, I feel as passionate about Aware Parenting as these authors do!    

I read “Tears and Tantrums” whilst I was pregnant, yet for the first 3 months after my daughter Lana was born I never let her cry.  Whenever she began to cry my own feelings of distress would get triggered, and I would feed her immediately. 

When I look back I see that I fed her even when she needed to cry to release stored feelings.  I fed her for hours in the evening, even though she fussed, repeatedly came on and off the breast and frequently threw up.  These are the kind of signals that a baby may give when she is needing to release accumulated tensions.   

When Lana was 3 months old, I started letting her cry in my arms when I thought she needed to heal from daily stresses.  The first few times I felt really worried that she might be hungry, even if she had recently had a long feed. 

However, I soon felt comfortable when the beneficial effects became clear.  Before crying she was tense and avoided eye contact, and afterwards she was deeply relaxed and would gaze blissfully into our eyes. 

After a cry she was more content and slept more peacefully and for longer periods.  She would have a cry every evening for between 15 minutes and an hour.  However, I still sometimes felt confused about distinguishing her hunger from her need to cry, and so feeding was still a control pattern for her. 

When she was seven months old, I reread The Aware Baby and took Solter’s advice about breast feeding on both sides at each feed.  Lana started going for longer between each feed, and then I felt more confident differentiating between when she was hungry and when she needed to cry. She stopped being sick and only woke up once during the night.  A few months later she began sleeping all the way through.

Lana is now 18 months old and has a cry most days, often before she goes to sleep.  She sometimes goes for a few days without crying, such as when we go out a lot.  At those times she shows an accumulation of tensions - at night she becomes unsettled and fidgety, sometimes waking up, and during the day she is less contented and more frustrated. 

I joined an Aware Parenting web list when Lana was about 8 months old, and a month later I started a local weekly support group for other mums who were putting Aletha Solter’s methods into practice.

Finding out more

If you feel interested in this way of parenting, I recommend reading one of Solter’s books first.  See the reviews below to find out which one would suit you the most.  I also suggest reading one of her books before joining the web group.  You can join by going to www.awareparenting.com and following the links.

References

Frey, II,  W.H. and Lang Seth, M.  (1985)  Crying:  The Mystery of Tears  Winston Press.

Solter, A. (2001)  The Aware Baby (revised edition)  Shining Star Press  ISBN 0-9613073-7-4
I recommend this book for pregnant mums (and dads) and parents of young babies, as it has chapters on pregnancy, birth, and attachment, as well as feeding, sleeping, crying and playing. 

Solter, A.  (1998)  Tears and Tantrums  What to Do When Babies and Children Cry Shining Star Press  ISBN: 0-9613073-6-6
Describes the purpose of crying and raging from birth to eight years of age, and how best to respond. 

It includes: helping babies sleep better (without ignoring them); helping children heal from stress and trauma; increasing children’s attention span and intelligence; improving children’s self-esteem and emotional health; reducing children’s violent behaviour and hyperactivity; and strengthening the parent/child bond. 

Solter, A. (1989)  Helping Young Children Flourish  (Two to eight years of age)  Shining Star Press  ISBN: 0-9613073-1-5 
Focuses on the emotional needs of children from two to eight years.  It provides insights to help you understand your child, maintain a close, loving relationship, and cope with day-to-day problems.  It includes chapters on tears and tantrums, fears, learning, playing, conflicts, friendships, and eating.

This article first appeared in Byron Child magazine www.byronchild.com in 2003.

source site: click here

Author: Maxine Cohen, M.F.T.

When I was first asked to write on the topic of sexuality during divorce, I declined. I'm not in favor of that so why would I write about it? But then I got to thinking, "Why not?" since, as we all know, sex has always been a fact of life and is here to stay. So I thought it might be helpful of me to offer my own two cents worth of common sense and professional expertise on this loaded subject.

The bottom line is, while you're divorcing (unless it drags on for years and years) and especially newly divorcing, it is my opinion that it's best if sex is left out of the relationship.

Why is that?

That's because divorce is such a devastating life passage that people's hearts are gravely wounded and they have too little equilibrium and self-support to be in another complicated relationship at the same time.

Just as you would naturally protect a serious sore on your body from further harm, so, too, your heart. A wounded heart takes care of itself by refusing to let anyone close and being unable to trust. So there's great emotional and psychological distance in relationships that form too soon after the marital separation. It may not feel like lots of distance; typically the divorcing person literally falls into the lover for life support and sustenance. But the new union is frequently off again, on again, and both people are unable to commit in any real and lasting way.

Quite often , people leaving a marriage yearn for someone to love them wholly and unconditionally. Their heart has been ripped wide open from the deprivation of long years of living with a spouse who they feel criticized rather than loved them, from the pain of leaving the marriage or being the one who got left, and they are dying to find a person who will love them unconditionally and fill the gaping void inside.

They're alone and lonely, psychologically if not in reality. And they are falling apart emotionally. Jumping into a new love relationship can be a way of self-medication, of easing the pain of marital loss, just as if they were taking a drug that calmed anxiety.

It can all get very mixed up. For some people, sex is an analgesic. It's numbing and soothing. For some, it's a catch-all; all emotional needs get bundled together and labeled "sex." The need to feel good about yourself, to feel desirable, to feel lovable and loved, to be comforted and close, to stroked and touched and held, all get lumped together and satisfied by "having sex."

This is true for both sexes but it is far more prevalent with men. As a result of their socialization, men have traditionally had difficulty allowing themselves to feel and express the softer emotions. It's manly and macho and definitely okay to want to have sex. It's less okay, and downright not okay for some men still, to be so "weak": as to want to be held, comforted, soothed, or petted.

Having sex may work in the moment but it will not have any lasting effect on bolstering up your self-esteem or calming your anxiety. In fact, it ups the ante in the relationship, especially for the woman, and complicates greatly both people's ability to learn to trust again in a new relationship.

According to the 1996 Census, half of America's adult population is single. That's 77 million people and it's bound to get higher when the 2000 Census is completed. The fastest growing segment of the single population is people who have divorced. There is a wonderful book by Tina Tassina, PhD, titled The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again, which gives intelligent and detailed information on not only how to negotiate the single world but on how to create and maintain healthy relationships. I wholly recommend it.

Dr. Tassina suggests several ways to meet people without hanging out in bars. One good way is to go to a group that has a focus. It's easier to talk to people when there is a reason that you've come together. Talk about the theme or particular activity. Go to events that you are truly interested in so that you can lead your own life while at the same time hoping to meet people who share your interests.

Pay attention to what the other person is about and what you think of him/her instead of being wholly wrapped up in trying to make a good impression yourself. Watch to see if he/she is interested in learning about you rather than talking constantly about him/herself.

It is important early on to set the tone of the relationship. Hopefully the two of you will be able to support talking about who you are together and what that means rather than silently guessing, wishing. or making assumptions. The Talmud teaches wisely, "We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." The things that occur between us can have very different meaning depending on how you see the world and what you want.

So try to minimize misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and unmet hopes and expectations by having what Tina calls"state of the union" meetings. "How do you feel about the way we get along? this is what I want.What do you want?"

Include such topics as how often should we see each other, how many phone calls are too many, do we date exclusively and if so exactly what does that mean?

This leads to what Dr. Tassina calls the "it means what?"  discussions. For instance, what does having sex mean? Will we be monogamous? Will we date only each other? Are we committed?

Be willing to discuss the hard stuff, especially sex. Don't just let sex happen because you had too much to drink or you didn't see it coming. A good rule of thumb is that if you can't talk about beforehand, don't do it. Especially in regard to sex, feelings get more tender afterward, so it'll be even harder to talk then. And if you're going to have sex, use your head and use protection. A latex rubber condom is your best protection against HIV and it'll prevent pregnancy as well.

Yes, he/she told you he/she has been celibate for months. Yes, you believe him/her. Still, use protection unless the safe period has been at least 6 months and then get an HIV blood test. Yup, you read it right! It takes 6 months from the date of exposure for the antibodies to HIV to form.

So be cautious. Be safe. Be respectful of yourself and your partner. Treat yourself the way you want others to treat you and treat others the way you want to be treated. This is the surest way to build a new relationship for yourself, post-divorce, that is nourishing, loving, and works.

MAXINE B. COHEN, M.F.T. IS A LICENSED MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPIST SPECIALIZING IN DIVORCE RECOVERY. SHE OFFERS INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING, SUPPORT GROUPS, AND WORKSHOPS AIMED AT HELPING PEOPLE WORK THROUGH THE GRIEF AND REBUILD THEIR LIVES. MAXINE COHEN IS IN PRIVATE PRACTICE IN NEWPORT BEACH AND CAN BE REACHED AT (949) 644-6435.

Myths About Anger

In Co-Dependent No More, Melody Beattie lists several assumptions that keep people from expressing their anger.

They include:

• It's not okay to feel angry.
• Anger is a waste of time and energy.
• We shouldn't feel angry when we do.
• We'll lose control and go crazy if we get angry.
• People will go away if we get angry at them.
• Other people should never feel anger toward us.
• If others get angry at us, we must have done something wrong.
• If other people are angry at us, we made them feel that way and we're responsible for their feelings.
• If we feel angry, someone else made us feel that way and that person is responsible for fixing our feelings.
• If we feel angry at someone, the relationship is over and that person has to go away.
• If we feel angry at someone, we should punish that person for making us feel angry.
• If we feel angry at someone, that person has to change what he or she is doing so we don't feel angry any more.
• If we feel angry, we have to hit someone or break something.
• If we feel angry, we have to shout and holler.
• If we feel angry at someone, it means we don't love that person any more.
• If someone feels angry at us, it means that person doesn't love us any more.
• Anger is a sinful emotion. It's okay to feel angry only when we can justify our feelings.

Like all myths, on occasions some of these reasons may have some truth, but most often they don't. However, many of us live as if these are facts.

There are similar assumptions about other feelings, such as:

• men who cry are weak
• men shouldn't be scared
• women shouldn't be too aggressive
• if you go into your sadness you might not be able to function and so forth

Positive Effects of Expressing feelings

I have created a summary of positive effects of expressing feelings to balance some of our ideas about negative effects.

Finding a healthy way to express feelings is good for your health and can prevent psychosomatic ailments. There's evidence linking emotional factors to a range of physical problems including:

• asthma
• arthritis
• cancer
• ulcers
• allergies and other conditions

One of the most dramatic improvements I've seen was with a woman who came to one of my classes when I first started teaching dream work. She had developed a problem in one of her legs when she was taking her daughter to meet a plane.

Suddenly, she couldn't walk on one leg. She was scheduled for surgery the following week. We worked on her feelings about her daughter and as the anger and hurt came out, her leg suddenly got better.

Another time a man carried his wife, who was a client of mine, into the office.

She was having such terrible back pain she couldn't walk. After releasing a lot of feelings and making some decisions about a job situation, she walked out of the office. Another time I was working with a teenager who was scheduled for surgery for an abdominal problem.

We worked on this symptom. She began pounding on a pillow and letting out incredible rage against her father. That week when she went to the doctor for a pre-surgery exam, the condition was gone and didn't return.

This instant disappearance of a symptom is certainly not the norm - sometimes it takes a very long time for psychological work like this to help move physical symptoms, in cooperation with physicians, chiropractors and other healing practitioners.

Sometimes conditions don't get better at all, but these few cases are powerful enough to point out the positive effects of emotional expression.

Expressing emotions can help make for rich and interesting relationship experiences and emotions are an important part of forming intimate connections. In fact, for many people, being able to freely express their feelings with someone is the turning point in having a deeper connection.

People who can express their emotions free up energy to do other things in life.

Being open with one's feelings is often an important ingredient in accessing one's own creativity.

People who're able to express their emotions freely are less likely to become addicted to alcohol or drugs. Many of the addicts I have worked with needed their drugs or alcohol to help them deal or not deal with difficult feelings.

People who can process emotions deal more constructively with  grieving.

Losing people close to you through someone dying or the death of a relationship is difficult for everyone, but people who can feel and express their feelings handle these situations much more effectively than those who can't express them.

Those who process emotions regularly are less prone to emotions coming out in uncontrolled ways, so these people tend to feel more in control of themselves. This is in contrast with people who're without emotionality until they explode in ways that are inappropriate and cause pain and damage in their lives.

Whether it's emotional development, learning to work with dreams, spiritual development, or developing the health of one's physical body, I've found people make incredible progress just by learning to value and give time and energy to the growing aspect of one's life.

Once I was at a conference on different methods of working with symptoms. I noticed all the teachers deferring to the wisdom of one man, Sun Bear, a Native American teacher.

This experience led me to study with Sun Bear and other Native American teachers whose traditions have a tremendous wealth of knowledge in the fields of healing body, mind and spirit. Sun Bear teaches people the importance of keeping emotionally clear. He has a beautiful method that I recommend to everybody.

He tells people to go out, preferably into the forest for privacy, or wherever you feel comfortable in nature and dig yourself a hole in the ground. Then you lay flat on the ground with your head over the hole and scream your feelings and cry and speak whatever needs to come out into that hole.

The final step is to take a seed, place it in the hole and cover it up with dirt, therefore symbolically composting your negative feelings and helping plant something that can grow. I've tried this method and at times have found it very effective.

One time my wife and I were visiting another medicine man who told us that, in his tradition, people go up on in the mountains and scream out all of their pain. These healing traditions have helped people for centuries. The catharsis that goes on in a modern therapist's office is no different than screaming on a mountain.

I find all of these approaches useful and as emotionally repressed as our culture is, any or all of these approaches offer important ways to balance and compensate for too much importance placed on intellectual development and material well-being.

When I first moved to my small town, I met with a doctor who was known for his progressive views. He asked me how I could help some of his patients who were depressed. Most of the people he was talking about worked in the mills.

When I talked with him about helping his patients explore and express the feelings in their depression and then to make life changes based on this work, he looked at me with distress and said "You can't do this with these people."

The doctor believed in the old myth that if people get in touch with their emotional reality, they wouldn't be able to continue in their present lives. He believed that I might help them emotionally, but only at the cost of their lives falling apart.

After several years of working with people in situations similar to the ones he described to me, I find that his concerns were more myth than fact. When people are in touch with their feelings, they have more choices.

They can make wholesale changes in their lives, or incremental changes, or no change at all. They know, though, what they're feeling and this helps them live their lives in ways that give them more satisfaction.

i.e., I'm thinking of a man who told me he didn't like his job. He even knew what kind of feeling the job tended to produce in him that made him want to change jobs. He didn't fall apart and stop functioning.

Instead he made some very intelligent decisions. He decided to keep working, since he had to feed his family, but to remain aware of his unhappiness and begin searching for new job possibilities. He began researching the outer job market and searching in his heart for a career that was really right for him.

There are many stories like this one. People who process their feelings are better employees, not worse ones.

They take fewer sick days and tend to stay with their jobs longer because they don't need to leave just because they have some negative feelings towards the job or their supervisor.

Dealing With Body-Centered Feelings

Another part of dealing with feelings is to be aware of and find the meaning locked in sensations and feelings in our physical bodies. In process work we call this the proprioceptive channel.

There are several ways to deal with this when working on yourself. One way I've learned is common both to Gestalt work and process work. This is the simple method of feeling and amplifying the feeling.

One way to do this is to get comfortable and start feeling what's happening in your body. When you find something interesting - maybe a tight spot, or a place you feel heat, or an itch, make this feeling happen even more.

If you feel tightness, tighten more. If something itches, focus on the itch. If you feel heat, experiment with letting the heat spread throughout your body. In Gestalt, one just lets whatever happens go along on its own.

In process work, there are some ideas about structure that can guide us. One can try switching channels. If you have a feeling, try making a picture of this feeling, or let the feeling go into movement, or maybe sound. Let the feeling move through all the different channels.

The difficulty with switching channels is why people often get stuck in one form of expression, such as always being angry, or always crying.

People are stuck in one channel - they can hit but not say angry things, they can cry but not talk about their sadness, they can have lots of pictures of confronting someone but not do it.

Another useful concept in inner work is that of the edge.

Let's say you're feeling your body and suddenly you feel an itch. As you focus on the itch, you start to feel a bit sexual and then you get feel like going to make a phone call rather than have that uncomfortable feeling.

This was an edge. Something became uncomfortable or unknown. Experiment with holding yourself at that point, finding out what exactly the edge is, for you. If it's right for you, try going over that edge, having those feelings and finding out what they're about.

I remember one of the most shocking pieces of work I ever did on myself. I started working on myself by just noticing what I was feeling.

Then I started feeling scared and suddenly I started feeling turned on sexually. It felt really uncomfortable and I was about to go read a book to avoid the feeling, but somehow I held myself at this edge. Suddenly I began to feel the most amazing love for all the people of the world, for every human being on this planet.

I was shocked by the intensity of the experience. When we work on ourselves, holding down our edges is important. Uncomfortable feelings will come up and behind these feelings are rich experiences trying to come forth.

You can also work on your physical problems with this same method of meditating on a problem, feeling it and taking it into other channels.

Draw it, sculpt it in clay, or make visual images. Take the symptom into movement, or sound. Sometimes just working in this way can help symptoms improve.

When material is accessed, understood and integrated, whether the original material is a dream, a body symptom, or a relationship problem, the boat starts moving down the river again.

If you want to go even a step further in working with your symptoms, imagine that you weren't the victim but the creator of the symptom.

• What kind of force are you who is creating the symptom?
• Are you a monster, a witch, a disciplinarian?
• What is the meaning behind the symptom?
• How do you want the part of yourself that is a victim of this symptom to change?

Now you've gone beyond processing the details of the problem; you're picking up the deeper meaning behind your symptom.