GIVING OURSELVES GRACE BY BEFRIENDING OUR INNER CRITIC (Part 2)
This is a 3-part article exploring the Inner Critic through Satir's Personal Iceberg Model
“I should be able to do this by now, how come I can’t?”
“What am I doing wrong?”
Are you familiar with these lines?
These are narratives that pop up in my head from time to time especially now that I am navigating the space of going back to adjunct therapy treatments for breast cancer.
10 years ago, these words would have taken me into a tailspin. I would have gone on the “berate one’s self” mode and not easily find the compassion, empathy, or grace to give myself some slack. But that was 10 years ago, when I first had my experience with breast cancer.
Now, whenever I hear these lines pop up in my head, I take the time to listen to it some more.
Where is it coming from?
What’s underneath it?
In the first part of this series, I shared about different coping tendencies that Virginia Satir highlighted in her work. Underneath your coping tendencies are the wealth of feelings that we have. Feelings are our body’s physiological response to events, pictures, expectations, and dreams. They are universal with every human being. Sometimes, they can be disproportionate to the interaction that may strain relationships and foster conflict and ongoing misunderstandings.
"Like icebergs, we show only parts of ourselves. Much of us lies below the surface. We also show only parts of what we know."
-Virginia Satir
Satir suggested that, like a thermometer, our feelings and can give us insight about our inner self. Our feelings are intrinsically tied to our family of origin. We learn how to manage our feelings, hide them, ignore them, deny them, or accept them based from experiences with our family of origin. According to Satir, “feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible - the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.”
" The full life is filled with vulnerability, not defense. You face whatever feeling there is.” -Virginia Satir
Yet, it is difficult to understand our feelings, let alone articulate them.
I know for myself that it was only through Nonviolent Communication (NVC) training that I finally understood what Satir meant about “The idea is not to lose the feeling, but how to use it.” When I tune in to my feelings, I find deeper layers to myself and to my needs.
Feelings are the bodily sensations that arise in you as a result of having interpreted a stimulus in a certain way. These are descriptions of what is going on inside of you. However, it is easy to fall prey to evaluations, judgments, and opinions hence we need to distinguish our feelings from our thoughts.
From NVC, I learned that we often use the word “feel” without actually expressing a feeling, i.e. “I feel like you don’t love me” is an expression of thought, not a feeling. It is important to use words that describe actual feelings rather than words that describe what we think others are doing.
According to Marshall Rosenberg, creator of Nonviolent Communication, faux/pseudo feelings are evaluative words that are often confused with feelings. Pseudo-feelings express an evaluation of someone else’s behavior. These are words that generally carry a message of wrongness or blame.
"...when you can differentiate between feelings and faux feelings, you can more accurately describe your own internal experience, which in turn allows you to more easily connect with others."
- Marshall Rosenberg
Understanding pseudo feelings was a game changer for me. It helped me to pay attention to evaluative or judgmental words that I use in my communication not only to others but more so with myself. Peeling the layer of feelings through these questions can support you in connecting with them:
What am I feeling?
Where in my body do I feel these feelings?
What’s it like to have these feelings?
What’s the intensity of these feelings?
How frequent and with whom do I experience these feelings?
How did I express or handle my feelings?
These questions also point me to the next layer of the Satir Iceberg Model: Feelings About Feelings.
The feeling about the feeling is often referred to as the second level feeling. This feeling is more difficult to surface and may be hidden or non-existent with specific events or pictures. According to Satir, as an individual grows in self-understanding, the person can more easily access this area.
The second level feeling may often be:
guilt
shame
fear
hurt
rage
or it may activate a survival message.
Questions to explore this layer with are:
What feelings do I have about those feelings?
What is the story/event/context in which I experience
such feelings?
What thoughts are closely connected to what I am feeling now?
P.S. Let me know what this exploration of feelings, pseudo feelings, and feelings about feelings stir in you. Feel free to connect and share in the chat or message me directly :)
Hiraya manawari,
Lana