Secondary feelings

In Connecting Communication (CC), we distinguish between primary and secondary feelings. Primary feelings arise when certain needs are met or not. Secondary feelings accompany negative judgemental thinking about others.

Primary feelings

Primary feelings arise when certain needs are met or not. Unpleasant feelings indicate that a certain need is lacking. Pleasant feelings point to fulfilled needs. Primary feelings are, in a way, indicators that show whether someone’s needs are being met.

Two examples:

• Someone gives me a compliment and I feel happy because my need for appreciation is fulfilled.
• I hear a reproach from someone and I feel sad (or frustrated) because my need for appreciation is not being met.

Secondary feelings

Secondary feelings like anger at someone, irritation toward someone, jealousy, envy, resentment, hatred… arise when a certain need is lacking in combination with negative judgemental thinking about others. Someone else gets the blame for my unpleasant feelings and the unmet need.

Two examples:

• A friend sends an invitation to everyone in my circle of friends except me. Initially, I feel sad because I have the need to belong. When I start thinking my friend deliberately left me out and I hold him responsible for my sadness, I develop feelings of anger, hatred, or irritation toward that friend.
• I hear that someone from my year at university has a particularly enjoyable, well-paid job. When I compare this with my own job, I feel frustrated because I become aware that my need for appreciation and recognition is not being met. By thinking it is unfair that someone else has more success than I do, feelings of envy and resentment arise.

In CC, we often become aware that secondary feelings dominate our consciousness. This keeps us estranged from the primary feelings and the underlying unmet needs. Secondary feelings eat away at the relationship like a cancer and contribute to the formation of an enemy image. Everything a particular person does or says gets coloured by the negative judgements and the accompanying secondary feelings. A lot of energy often gets wasted on the negative spiral of blaming thinking and communicating. Much of the available life energy goes toward fighting, being right, gossip… instead of toward caring for the need that is lacking. Transforming secondary feelings In CC, the focus of life energy is directed at taking care of one’s own needs. Judgemental thinking, in terms of good/bad, right/wrong, we see as typically dysfunctional human mental fabrications that do not contribute to one’s quality of life. Attention is no longer focused on meeting needs but on retaliation, being right, revenge…

What can you do with secondary feelings?

In CC, we want to deal with judgements and the secondary feelings that flow from them in a gentle way. In the process of self-empathy, we consciously explore the judgements. Being allowed to judge and being able to relax into that helps initially to give meaning to the pain and dissatisfaction. Exploring the judgements often helps in discovering the unmet needs, because they are frequently the opposite of the reproach or judgement.

Two examples:

• I think someone is a stupid idiot because he failed to send me an invitation to a party. By turning the judgement around (so: not failing to invite me), I discover that my need for care, respect, and belonging is lacking.
• I think it is unfair that someone with the same education has it so good: a model family, a meaningful job, and a nice salary. Behind the envy and jealousy, I can see that I am worried about my need for meaning and my need for security.

The awareness of lacking needs is a bridge back to becoming conscious of the primary feelings. These feelings are, as it were, waiting to be felt. Being able and allowed to consciously feel these primary feelings restores the link with the unmet needs, or with the illusion of them.

Two examples:

• Consciously feeling the need for care, respect, and belonging makes me feel sad, scared, or frustrated. This conscious feeling can contribute to meeting the needs and taking concrete action.
• When I consciously experience that my need for meaning is lacking, I can ask myself what I can concretely do to create more meaning in my life and think of a different strategy to meet that need.

Transforming secondary feelings and the connected judgements into primary feelings and the underlying needs means reconnecting with your own life energy. The focus of energy shifts to fulfilling what you need and stops wasting energy on forms of violence (verbal and physical aggression).

Finally

Some feelings exist in both a primary and a secondary variant. For instance, we distinguish between ordinary (primary) anger because a need is lacking, and secondary anger at someone else because the other person is seen as the cause of the unmet need. With jealousy too we know both variants: jealousy as a primary feeling where you genuinely grant the other person what they have and you do not. And jealousy as a secondary feeling where envy and resentment result from begrudging thinking. In CC, we welcome all feelings, primary or secondary. By giving them full attention and exploring them, feelings gain meaning. They make us aware of the needs required to live a quality life. We attach great importance to a conscious process of self-empathy where feelings, primary or secondary, are explored and felt, and where relaxing into the judgements gives a clear view of the needs that matter right now. This self-reflection often leads to accepting a situation or choosing a strategy that leaves aside the person who was first seen as the “cause” of the pain. When one chooses to connect with the other in a radically honest way, we see it in CC as meaningful to name only primary feelings and to express needs without naming the other as the sole person responsible. Reproaches and judgements carry no connecting energy toward the other. Secondary feelings and the associated judgements are above all useful in the process of self-empathy. We welcome your reactions and further questions.