Differentiation can feel cold if you are still fused. If you feel cold when you are refusing to be manipulated by another person's whining that is because you feel their pain and the effort of "switching off" the pain you feel for them would be like switching off your own pain - hence it feels cold. If you are in touch with your own emotions but compassionate towards the other's emotions then you can be guided to do the right thing according to your own emotions and your own thoughts and you don't feel cold.
When my kids are begging for something they can't have (like to watch a movie that is over their age group) they do their best to make me feel like a "bad mummy". I don't feel like a bad mummy because I know I'm being a good mum and protecting them from scenes that would likely disturb them and give them nightmares. Hence when I say "no" I do not feel like a cold person, I feel like someone who is protecting her children in an appropriate way. If I was fused with them I would give in because I wouldn't be able to deny the pain they are trying to transmit to me.
Until you manage to untangle your own emotions from the other person's you will continue to feel cold while acting differentiated. I guess when you get that cold feeling it's a sign you need to really concentrate on getting in touch with your own feelings on whatever's going on.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
And what I meant with the beating metaphor was simply about the personalization aspect. I just don't think it's realistic to expect that being repeatedly ranted at, threatened, whatever will have no negative effect on the person on the receiving end .... even if they *do* realize it's "not about them". To the extent that they're the ones wiping the venomous spittle off their face, it *is* about them. It would be wonderful if one could develop an impervious spit-shield of compassion ... but I don't think that's reachable for most of us. Or maybe just me.
I understand what you are saying here... but what immediately comes to my mind is... why are you still standing there taking it? The most compassionate thing you could do for the person in this instance is walk away or leave.
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Compassion and differentiation ... that's a tricky one. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this whole diffy thing. Gut response: Compassion with differentiation means you want to ease the pain of the person you love, for *their* sake and happiness. Compassion with fusion means you desperately *need* to ease the pain of the person you love so *you* don't have to feel it.
Wanting to ease someone's pain does not necessarily mean you 'do it' for them. It could mean you stop your own behaviors that enable the other person to avoid their responsibility to heal. I'm thinking of alcoholics and enabling friends/family/spouse...
I think compassion with differentiation... is compassion with conscious awareness of my chit/your chit.
I think compassion while fused... is probably cleverly disguised manipulation... at least at first.
Compassion on its own... I think of Mother Theresa. I'm not sure why it matters if there IS a dif.
Nice discussion of all these concepts, and great example, fran, of how to be differentiated and not feel cold - I do this with my kids all the time. Sometimes, though, even with them, the denial of their wishes sometimes leaves me feeling cold. However, I am usually able to reason it out and understand that my decision is the right one.
Fran, you asked earlier on if I do actually "flip" the situations with my wife, making myself the 'victim'. Yes, I have done this before. It's not a constant thing...sometimes I have done it, and sometimes I don't. I think it's one of my NG tactics - get comfortable back in the victim role, don't let her focus on my flaws. I've got to work on this one.
The words "damaging to the relationship" weren't actually a direct quote of her statements to me, more of an "essence" of what she was saying. The thing is, I am able to look at my actions and say, "yes, I did this thing and it was wrong and it damaged the relationship by (e.g.) eroding her ability to trust me." Your point, however, that her withholding of sex can be seen as damaging the relationship, is valid. I am working on seeing the whole "withholding of sex" issue as something that I had a MAJOR role in. Making myself into a person she would not want to have sex with; sabotaging the sexual relationship; accepting bad sex, like a dog begging at the table for scraps; criticizing her sexual skills - making her the cause of my own inability to make sex last long enough for both of us to enjoy it; etc. Still, it does take two to tango, and she has less tolerance and patience and empathy for her "dance partner" than most women I've encountered, and, from what I read here and elsewhere, less than most women, period.
Cobra - Kett : The talk about "infantilizing" MsHdog was interesting. I don't know if you recall, but there was one particular argument I had with her and I tried, right in the midst of it, to think "she is saying this because of some past hurt suffered at the hand of her father". Once I thought of that, the anger I was feeling really did go "whooosh" and was gone, and I felt a wave of compassion for her. The problem is, I am just not able to consistently do that in the heart of the fray (even with the many opportunities to practice :)) And yes, even if I did that, what then? Do you indulge her? Do you tolerate her? Do you try to reason with her? Do you say, "you are saying this because of the emotional abuse you suffered as a child."? Do you duck after or during saying that?
Once I thought of that, the anger I was feeling really did go "whooosh" and was gone, and I felt a wave of compassion for her. The problem is, I am just not able to consistently do that in the heart of the fray (even with the many opportunities to practice :)) And yes, even if I did that, what then?
Good question... let me know when you figure it out!
Differentiation can feel cold if you are still fused.
Dammm. Just as I think I am getting somewhere with this differentiation stuff, I see I am still a fusion puppet. In fact, I am beginning to see how my depression ( although in part genetic)was a manifestation of fusion.
