Posted by gardenergirl on April 5, 2006, at 13:56:23
In reply to It should be ok to ask to hug, posted by Deneb on April 5, 2006, at 13:24:29
> >
> It's safe to ask to hug me. I shouldn't be made to feel bad about asking to hug someone. Hugging is supposed to make people feel good. If one doesn't feel good about it, one should say that. The hugger doesn't want to make the "huggee" feel bad.
>In the spirit of being direct...I just have to point out that the other person cannot "make you feel bad" just because they might react to something you do in a negative way. Feeling bad about it is something that begins within you. If you were entirely indifferent to the others' feelings, you wouldn't feel bad if they reacted negatively. Or, your own empathy about how the other person now feels may lead you to feel bad for your perceived role in it. But that comes from within you in reaction to what happened.
For examople, my FIL gets very angry when someone comments on his memory. But when a mistake comes up and needs to be clarified or corrected (say, he forgot what time an appt. was), are we really "bad" for dealing with the problem since he got mad? Yes, he gets mad about it, but that is his reaction. Our behavior did not cause it. We didn't "make him feel" mad. It comes from how he interprets the incident and what is said, how he feels internally about it, and anything else in his psyche related to how he might process such an incident. Does that make sense?
I guess in some ways this relates because it's about emotional boundaries. I'm still working on this myself, but being able to separate out our actions and reactions to others from their actions and reactions is a healthy boundary and goes a long way to feeling balanced about emotions.
Another example is one I discovered recently about my feelings for my FIL. I am very angry with him about certain behaviors I have. I found I was intensely angry, and in thinking about it, I realized that some of that anger really is about my own father and stuff from the past. That part of the anger is my responsibility to manage separate from my anger towards my FIL. Being able to start separating that out has helped me figure out what my real reaction to my FIL's behavior versus what has been heightened by stuff from within myself. It's helped me feel more balanced in my feelings towards him. And it's helped me feel more in control of those feelings. So in figuring out what's mine and what's his and what's current and what's past, I've been able to "re-set" the emotional boundary to a more balanced and realistic place.
I'm just babbling now. But I'm really big on (probably because I still need to work on it) taking responsibility and "owning" your own feelings versus placing the origin of them on someone else. When I center the origin of my feelings on oters actions, that leaves me feeling more helpless about my emotions and like I'm twisting in the wind about how others may or do react. I don't like that feeling.
As far as asking for hugs...you're right in that you can ask and be answered. But physical contact is a more personal intimacy than what the usual custom is in many cultures. I think that the usual social norm in my life is that a hug or other physical show of affection comes with a certain stage of a relationship development beyond the intial stages. Of course, the internet makes forming and developing relationships a bit different, in that you often can become close to someone without ever meeting them in person. But it can also foster a false sense of closeness (or distance, I suppose), since the in-person and non-verbal aspect of someone is not present. I guess I'm saying that there needs to be a mutual level of development of the social relationship, ideally, for the asking and answering to feel comfortable and appropriate for both. And your right to set your own boundaries ends where another's begins, in my opinion. Yours can only get as close as the other person's boundaries allows. Certainly you can try to encroach, but if you think of that in a physical sense, it could feel quite threatening, uncomfortable, intrusive, etc. to the other person. Sort of like if you keep mowing your grass more and more into the other person's yard. They may be fine with a few inches, but if it gets to a foot or more, or right up to their doorstep, I think they might not be so fine.
I don't have a magic formula for how to identify when a relationship has moved beyond a social acquaintance phase. I suppose someone's figured out actual "markers" for this in some study, but usually it's more of just knowing. I've been wrong before, and I've felt awkward about it afterwards.
It sure is complicated. I agree. I guess I am writing all this in order to encourage you to think more about where your boundaries and Dr. Bob's boundaries are and how you best can manage them. How far into his yard do you think is okay to mow, metaphorically? What are the potential consequences of mowing further than is the "norm"?
gg
poster:gardenergirl
thread:626334
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060331/msgs/629265.html