Feelings versus Non-Feelings

A common confusion, generated by the English language, is our use of the word feel without actually expressing a feeling. For example, in the sentence, “I feel I didn’t get a fair deal,” the words I feel could be more accurately replaced with I think. In general, feelings are not being clearly expressed when the word feel is followed by:

  1. Words such as that, like, as if:

    “I feel that you should know better.”

    “I feel like a failure.”

    “I feel as if I’m living with a wall.”

  2. The pronouns I, you, he, she, they, it:

    “I feel I am constantly on call.”

    “I feel it is useless.”

  3. Names or nouns referring to people:

    “I feel Amy has been pretty responsible.”

    “I feel my boss is being manipulative.”

Distinguish feelings from thoughts.

Conversely, in the English language, it is not necessary to use the word feel at all when we are actually expressing a feeling: we can say, “I’m feeling irritated,” or simply, “I’m irritated.”

Distinguish between what we feel and what we think we are.

In NVC, we distinguish between words that express actual feelings and those that describe what we think we are.

  1. Description of what we think we are:

    “I feel inadequate as a guitar player.”

    In this statement, I am assessing my ability as a guitar player, rather than clearly expressing my feelings.

  2. Expressions of actual feelings:

    “I feel disappointed in myself as a guitar player.”

    “I feel impatient with myself as a guitar player.”

    “I feel frustrated with myself as a guitar player.”

    The actual feeling behind my assessment of myself as “inadequate” could therefore be disappointment, impatience, frustration, or some other emotion.

Likewise, it is helpful to differentiate between words that describe what we think others are doing around us, and words that describe actual feelings. The following are examples of statements that are easily mistaken as expressions of feelings: in fact they reveal more how we think others are behaving than what we are actually feeling ourselves.

Distinguish between what we feel and how we think others react or behave toward us.

  1. “I feel unimportant to the people with whom I work.”

    The word unimportant describes how I think others are evaluating me, rather than an actual feeling, which in this situation might be “I feel sad” or “I feel discouraged.”

  2. “I feel misunderstood.”

    Here the word misunderstood indicates my assessment of the other person’s level of understanding rather than an actual feeling. In this situation, I may be feeling anxious or annoyed or some other emotion.

  3. 3. “I feel ignored.”

    Again, this is more of an interpretation of the actions of others than a clear statement of how we are feeling. No doubt there have been times we thought we were being ignored and our feeling was relief, because we wanted to be left to ourselves. No doubt there were other times, however, when we felt hurt when we thought we were being ignored, because we had wanted to be involved.

Words like ignored express how we interpret others, rather than how we feel. Here is a sampling of such words:

abandoned

abused

attacked

betrayed

boxed-in

bullied

cheated

coerced

co-opted

cornered

diminished

distrusted

interrupted

intimidated

let down

manipulated

misunderstood

neglected

overworked

patronized

pressured

provoked

put down

rejected

taken for granted

threatened

unappreciated

unheard

unseen

unsupported

unwanted

used