The following is a transcript from a lecture given by David Klugman, MA, MS, LCSW, at the Nyack Public Library in November, 2006

LECTURE ON THE FEELING LIFE

PART ONE

One of our greatest cultural shortcomings is that we do not encourage or teach our people how to feel and deeply explore feelings.

Partly out of the Puritan work ethic, which still rages strong in the background of our cultural mindset, but mostly out of fear and ignorance, dwelling in and deeply exploring our feeling life is simply not an integral part of what we value as necessary for a good and healthy life.

There are exceptions - pockets in the folds of our social fabric where this activity occurs. And of course, we are big on sentimentality, theatrics - we love to pay lip service to feelings. But the truth is that deep, sustained attention to the feeling life is by and large considered to be an optional task, reserved for the weak, those in crisis, or the mentally ill.

One of many consequences of this shortcoming is that we do not serve our feelings well, and that we neglect our feeling needs.

And this is a problem because: it is always feelings we are after. Indeed, this is the first thing to know about feeling - it is its alpha and omega: that it is always feelings we are after. For if we are honest and ask ourselves why it is we want whatever it is that we want, we will discover that we want what we want because of the way we imagine the attainment of the object of our desire - be it a thing or an achievement - will make us feel. In other words, we covet feelings, not things or achievements. We desire the feelings we imagine will come to us as a result of attaining the things and achievements we believe that we need.

This is not to say that things and achievements don’t matter. They do – they matter a lot. But just what things will seed our genuine growth, what achievements will enable us to become more of what and who we truly are, will only ever become clear to us when we adhere to the simple, but not always easy practice of feeling first.

The second thing to know about feeling is that we have no say in what we feel. We simply wake each day, and like the weather, feelings will be there. But just what they will be and how we will have to respond to and contend with them is something we must search out and discover…or not.

And so this is consequently what have in regard to the feeling life; a choice:

We can choose to feel what we feel, deeply and fully, and attend to the feeling needs associated to our feeling experience.

Or we can choose to act our feelings out.

That is the simple choice we have: either to feel or to act out, to identify what we are feeling and build our life out from there; or to ignore our feelings and act them out in unconscious, often destructive ways.

A simple example of acting out feelings is illustrated by Hugo. Hugo started his adult life with an overwhelming feeling of being worthless. Choosing not to feel this feeling and explore its source, Hugo made it his goal instead to become a powerful multi-millionaire, which he did, only to find himself  feeling bored, wretched and even more worthless than when he started out. “At least when I was young” Hugo once told me, “I had the illusion that something could take these terrible feelings away, something could change me. Now I have achieved my dreams, reached all my goals, and I still feel horrible, even worse than before – only now I have no hope that anything will change the way I feel.”

The lesson to be drawn from this simple tale is this: since it is always feelings we are after, why not then start with feelings, with feeling itself. In other words, when we find ourselves wanting a thing – be it money, fame, romance, a lifestyle, whatever – why not ask ourselves why it is we want what we want? Which is to say, what are we feeling now, and how do we imagine getting what we want will change that?

It can take a great deal of work, and we often have to shift some very primary gears and priorities in our psychological life, but once we are clear about why we want what we want, we can remove that thing or achievement from occupying the center of our attention, and put there in its stead the effort and energy that will allow us to work from where we are now toward what and where it is we would like to be.

This change entails a different sort of working out, the kind of work that takes place at a feeling level, not at a doing level. Eventually, however, if we are persistent, the goal is accomplished through psychological exploration and the emotional vitality and expansion that results from that effort.  

It can be a profoundly disorienting enterprise, especially at first – this decision to put our feelings first. But it is the only choice that will displace our ongoing ignorance of the feeling life, and allow us access to its precious rewards, among which are self-knowing, emotional vitality and a sense of purpose. Indeed to put feeling first is nothing short of putting human being before human doing – the horse before the cart – in an ultimate desire to transform ourselves into a human being, doing.

I have never seen it fail, just as I have never seen its opposite succeed; namely that upon reaching clarity regarding why it is we want whatever it is that we want, we embark on a journey to become intimate with our feeling-beliefs and feeling needs – feeling-beliefs that drive our doing life and that, when they remain hidden from us, prevent us from attending to our true feeling needs.

Once these feeling-beliefs are unearthed, on the other hand, our feeling needs becomes transparent to us, and we are able to approach the world of things – the world of action and doing – with confidence and trustworthy eyes; with a centered intention and sense of purpose that frees us up and allows us to go after, perhaps even attract, the things and achievements that will promote our genuine growth, healing and expansion.

Regarding Hugo, it didn’t take us long to figure out that his feeling of worthlessness had its source in his father’s image of him as worthless, as never being enough. When he was boy, and all through his childhood, whatever this man achieved, his father was always present, not to cheer him on in what he was good at, but to remind him how much better he could be in those areas where he had no natural talent, or even interest. When he performed excellently, for example, as he did in wrestling and football, his father transmitted this message of not enough-nesss until it became a sort for hologram of his self-image, burned into the very soul of his being. And so when Hugo set out to achieve his initial goals in life, they were all based on the things he hoped (at a level below consciousness) would bring him up to snuff in his father’s eyes.

Using this understanding as a basis, Hugo and I worked for many months, teasing apart his own view of himself from the view he inherited from his father. When our work was complete, Hugo was able to make genuine decisions about the direction he wanted his life to go in; choices that took him back to school where he pursued interests that were always dear to him but that he never felt free to really honor. The luxury afforded him by virtue of the money he had earned made it possible for him to act on these new choices and follow through with them as his feeling life opened and began to lead him in different, unexpected directions. The old feelings of worthlessness and boredom diminished and gradually peeled away as Hugo reclaimed his emotional vitality and innate sense of purpose, free now to act on these and create a new life for himself.

Audio may be heard on the Testimonial page.

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