One concept I found interesting in this chapter was "The Ineffective Expression of Emotions". There are three main types of ineffective ways to express emotions: speaking in generalities, not owning feelings, and counterfeit emotional language.
Speaking in generalities is when we describe how we're feeling with overly broad or general terms such as "I'm sad," or "I'm angry." This is an ineffective way of communicating how we feel because it expresses an emotional state but it remains so broad that it prevents others from getting a clear understanding of what exactly we mean. Sometimes we do this because we don't know how to describe how we feel more thoroughly, and sometimes it is because we lack the vocabulary to express our feelings more clearly.
Not owning our feelings refers to when we state our feelings "in a way that disowns personal responsibility for the feeling" (pg. 181). In other words not owning our feelings is when we, in a sense, blame others for the way we are feeling. Saying "You make me so mad!" relies on you language, implying that they are the one responsible for your feelings, not you. While it is true that others impact how we feel, we are the ones interpreting what their actions mean to us and we are the ones responsible for our feelings.
The third ineffective way of expressing emotion is using counterfeit emotional language, which means that we appear to be expressing our emotions but we don't actually convey the emotion accurately. The book gives the example of the phrase "Why can't you leave me alone?" which can mean many things and therefore doesn't accurately express the emotion(s) the person is feeling. Sometimes we also say, "That's just how I feel," which isn't helpful because then the person you're communicating with doesn't know how you're feeling or what you want them to do about it. Often times we just don't know how to describe what we're feeling in these types of situations, but it's up to us to know how to convey our feelings if we're going to choose to try to express them.
I found this topic particularly interesting because my boyfriend often uses the phrase "That's just how I feel," or if I ask him why he feels a certain way he just says, "I don't know." This used to frustrate me a lot until I read this section of the text and realized that it's common to not know how to clearly express why we feel a certain way, especially since in American culture men aren't expected to show a lot of their emotions, much less know how to describe them.
Hi Allison! I read your post and found your description great for the three ways of ineffective expression of emotions. I believe world over men can never express what they feel or what they want and it is definitely irritating specially to anticipate from men you are in relationship with. Sometimes I argue with my husband for not telling what he feels like about a certain thing. The difference between us is when he asks me how was my day, I tell him everything in detail from morning till night, whereas he answers great! He just cannot explain in detail or express his emotions attached to the event. I also realized an interesting thing about men that many a times they know but they do not express just because they don’t want to. And they do not want to because they do not think it is important. I know this may sound a little weird, but it truly is complicated with people who do not express their emotions that lead the situation in different direction.
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