Parents: thinkers and feelers, which one are you?
I’m so excited today to share about thinking for feelers and feeling for thinkers.
Everyone has their own unique set of coping strategies in times of stress. For parents, I suggest considering whether you’re a thinker or a feeler.
If you’re a thinker, you have a theory about why you do things the way you do. You can see and argue multiple possible reasons, with stories and examples to back up your opinions.
Thinkers avoid feelings. In therapy, I could ask, “What’s the feeling?” and a thinker will say, “I think …” or describe the situation differently. Thinkers use the mind, unintentionally, to feel safe. Thinkers tend to come across as walled off or inauthentic in relationships.
Feelers, as you can probably guess, lead with and can become engulfed in feeling. Their stories are speckled with bursts of emotion; they express memories or experiences passionately; they can easily feel deeply wounded by others.
Feelers can drown in, or be swept away by, their emotions. The emotion becomes big and all-encompassing. It has draw and strength, and it can be compelling or push others away.
The feeler's challenge is to access the wise, logical mind, and the thinker's opportunity is to begin to trust the body and sink into it to access feeling.
Inner freedom, emotional intelligence, and maturity all depend on our capacity to use both the thinking and feeling sides of our consciousness.
For parents, knowing which way you lean is a goldmine of self-knowledge and can help you stay calm, loving, and in charge with little ones.
Thinking parents can be emotionally disconnected from their kids and partners, and this often frustrates the feeling parent more than the thinking parent.
Feeling parents can ooze their emotions all over partners and children, and thinkers tend to clam up or avoid a feeler because of the volatility and their discomfort with emotion.
For both types, here’s a tool to try.
1. Notice if you’ve gotten triggered: This is the most important part! Triggered feels like everything is happening fast and intensely. For feelers, this could feel like a rush of frustration, overwhelm, explosive feelings, or a profound pull toward despair, sadness, or loneliness. For thinkers, it could be justifying, blaming, judging, shaming, criticizing, dismissing, explaining away, shutting off or shutting down, walling off.
2. Decide to take a grown-up time out. I love Terry Real’s version. Take a pause, take a deep breath, and remind yourself of these things or anything that is soothing to you: “I’m a grown-up. I’m in charge. Everything is ok. I can handle this.” Rest in the peacefulness of your wise mind, the center of your body, an inner stillness guided by reassuring thoughts. You could rest a hand on your heart and hold the intention of sending love there. You could hug yourself, consider your needs, and ask, “What am I feeling right now?” Wait for an answer.
3. Re-enter the situation with greater composure. Congratulations!!! You just did a super grown-up, responsible, beautiful, radical, and enlightened thing for yourself, your family, and the world. You transformed unconscious psychic energy and made the world a more peaceful, loving place. Wow.
4. Don’t beat yourself up for not doing it perfectly. I can hear some of you out there dismissing the profound gift of what you’ve just done by pointing out that you were maybe still a little irritable, that you didn’t catch it soon enough, that it’s not that big of a deal. If self-esteem, inner criticism, and self-judgment are trying to steal this moment, please let me insist they’re wrong. If these experiences often steal your good feelings, it may be a good time to consider therapy and give yourself the gift of positive self-regard. You deserve it!