by Paul Johnson, LMFT, LPC, NCC
December, 2019
Dads lecture a lot. Something clicks in our genetic code when a baby is born to us where dads somehow think that lecturing is a really good idea and a very viable tactic. Oh, if it were that simple…. Yet, it is what we do. But why? What is all that lecturing about?
I was on a conference call recently with a group of men talking about working with our wives in raising our families. One of the men mentioned that he was always careful to ask his wife what she was feeling—he wanted to know whatever she was feeling, or could potentially feel, in plenty of time, so that, in his words, he could “head it off at the pass.” I furrowed my eyebrows and wondered what that meant, though immediately old western movies came to mind. Unfortunately, I knew— it meant a lecture on how important it was not to cater to emotions. I am sure there was an attempt to assure his wife that though she was fearful of something or worried about another or afraid someone would quit or nervous someone would get angry, the reality, in his opinion, would be that none of that was likely to happen. In fact, it was guaranteed! (as if…). The question to his wife was not to begin an empathic and bonding conversation, but to introduce a lecture to stop something before it started anything, to shut down the emotion before the feeling overcomplicated anything that he was trying to do, or any goal he hoped to accomplish.
I sat on my stool while on the conference call and silently sighed to myself, and thought of old westerns; and my hatred of lectures, even though I tend to use them a lot (and I mean a lot)—double sigh.
“Head it off at the pass…”—oh, good grief. “Heading it off at the pass” is like sensing where the bad guys are going, so you go left, and I’ll go right and we’ll meet at the pass before the bad guys get out and into the village (I saw that movie—or is that in all Westerns? I remember it being in the 80’s version of the Lone Ranger). My beloved bride Cathy uses that phrase when she senses one of the kids has a cold coming on and thus starts shoving vitamin C down their throats. So while Vitamin C and going left and right may work on sore throats and in cowboy movies, it will not work with emotions. Emotions are not colds, they are not bad guys, and by golly they are not lecture-able, thus responsive to dad-isms (or any kind of “-ism”). Our lectures are merely an attempt to take a shortcut on a crucial and potent process; a process that takes time, energy, and personal investment—which we too often think we don’t have enough of (but we do). While it is important not to cater to our emotions, when used as they were designed, emotions, too, actually are trying to save the village.
Unfortunately, we are raised to treat our feelings as an immediate prompt to action. We are taught to play angry, to soothe everyone’s sadness, to pursue “if it feels good, do it”, not to worry about anything that might worry us, and to drop anything or take a pill about everything that might make us experience anxiety. We are taught emotions are not to be trusted, and any negative emotion is bad and not to be tolerated and to be treated by immediate attempts to find the “feel better.” We believe the ultimate aim and goal of life is to be happy—“whatever makes you happy, man; you know what I mean?.” No, not whatever—ever. Correct, emotions are not meant to be catered to—but then again, they were never meant to motivate us.
Emotions are meant to inform us. They are an integral part to our creative processing. They inform us of possibilities, both positive and negative, of things we cannot readily see but are very very useful in our decision-making. We have to develop the mind-set and habit to listen to them and then fold in or incorporate into our decision-making the information they are illuminating. Emotions are a language that we have not been taught to understand. They are experiential information, but we have not been taught how to speak experience—only to cater to it or shut it down. With emotions, we are taught to “head them off at the pass,” to assure with a too-quick-“it’ll be ok” (a short version of lecture mode) to un-motivate, or stop something from happening, like the dad trying to head off his wife’s feelings. Emotions are not colds, they are not bad guys; they too actually are trying to save the village. Emotions are not advisable because they themselves are advice. They are trying to assist, if we have the peace and patience to listen, and translate. We have to develop the skill and creativity to consider and utilize what they say. We must take the time and use the energy and make the personal investment to learn the language of emotion.
But what do I know? I’m just a lecture-loving dad.
To talk further about effectively processing your emotions (or refining your daddy lectures), please consider LifePractical Counseling for your counseling or consultant needs. You may reach us at 205-807-6645, or visit our website at www.lifepractical.org. Paul Johnson is a professionally licensed marriage and family therapist and professionally licensed counselor in the state of Alabama.
[Ok, ok, ok. I realize in the previous article, I have left you, the reader, hanging with very little practical advice (c’mon, Paul, this is supposed to be life practical—give us something practical about our emotions). I know, I know—but this is a really big concept, or rather paradigm shift, that needs more than an article to facilitate such a shift. So I have made an introduction to an often under-considered practicality—that there are more to emotions. Emotions are incredibly practical if we can learn to listen to them as a language rather than treating them as leverage toward action. So that is where I am heading in 2020—making emotion practical as information, but that, practically speaking, means seeing them in a new light. Let us start there. We want to treat the core of the head-cold, not merely throw medicine at the symptoms so we can keep functioning, as if that were the most important thing in life. Life is for living, not merely functioning. Been there, done that, seen that movie a thousand times; lectured that lecture into the ground—let’s do something real with our emotions. More to come.]