The speaker (a therapist/counselor) explains that Western psychological approaches often equate expressing feelings with intimacy, but deeper intimacy requires identifying underlying needs. The webinar will offer 75 examples mapping challenging feelings to essential needs, qualities, actions, and self-compassionate inquiries. The emphasis is on shifting from feeling-centered expression to needs-focused care for oneself and relationships.
Today, what we're going to really focus on, which, much to my shock as a therapist and counselor in my early years, is the relationship between feelings and needs. And it really highlights that in the world of psychology, so often expressing feelings is really considered to be intimacy. And the underlying needs that we have are usually very secondary. And so I think if you look at your own communication with your closest friends, your spouse, your relationship, you'll see that the conversation much more frequently goes to I feel so and so about what just happened. And that is just not the primary way to really be intimate. And so what we're talking about is including what you feel. Of course, you know, I feel sad because of course I, I want to move toward happiness in some way as a need. And so we're going to be giving you 75 examples of challenging feelings and what is a variety of essential needs and qualities, actions and even thoughts about whatever feeling you're having. So if you're anxious, it's important to be able to start with, I recognize I'm not being anxious on purpose, or how do I take care of myself while I'm anxious so that I can move toward my needs and the needs of those around me. And so that's kind of an example of 75. And of course there's more than 75 that really would support you to be aware of your feelings, to value your feelings, to experience your feelings. Yet somehow a real depth goes into I want to get to what my partner needs and to what I need and encourage each other to convey that. So tell me if you agree with me, that part of your early education, psychological education, spiritual education, didn't really include the discernment between challenging feelings or difficult feelings. And how do I focus on what I need? How do you focus on what you need and what your partner needs or your group around you needs? And so today we're really going to emphasize in great detail how you can start from a particular feeling and really lean into what's really going to take care of you. And the initial focus is really self compassion. So if you are angry, how do you become compassionate towards yourself rather than just be angry? You know, we're a very feeling centered world, especially Western world. And that feeling centered is sort of like a half truth, where you've got half the half the deal, which is, this is what I'm feeling. I'm feeling empty or angry or frustrated or exhausted. And how do I take care of myself? Is a magical question, which sometimes we refer to those kind of questions of how do I take care of myself as inquiry. But the questions are always, and I really emphasize this, the questions are always to support your heart, to support your peace, and never questions like, what's wrong with you? It's always what can be right with you, what can be supportive of you. And the more you support yourself, of course, the more you're going to support the people around you.
