Bad at expressing feelings, need your opinion

I’ve been told that I am bad at expressing my feelings and am cold in caring about the feelings of others. What am I to do?

Channel your inner Les Grossman (NSFW language):

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odd8Zdhuj9o]

^ That guy is very funny and extreme. I disagree with said characteristics of being cold and unfeeling in general. It is most likely true when someone becomes my enemy or is adversarial. The trouble is expressing feelings.

Grab them by the pussy. No one will say you’re cold and unfeeling.

^ LOL, basically that is the answer to all questions, just “grab em by tha pu$$y”.

Ok, are you serious here, or just riffing on the essay thread? I assumed the latter initially.

Assuming you are genuine here, it’s potentially an interesting topic about what are or feel like appropriate ways for men to express feelings.

Now the question is, what contexts are you talking about? Are your romantic partners calling you a cold fish? Or is it that you’re pissed off at work and feel you should let it show more?

Do you care that you can’t express your feelings? Or do you just want people to stop saying that you’re cold and unfeeling?

All of those are interesting questions, but they likely have different answers.

https://www.amazon.com/Unbeatable-Mind-Resiliency-Toughness-Succeed/dp/1508730512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476293407&sr=8-1&keywords=unbeatable+mind

But even after admitting this, there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.

Can you give me a synopsis of this book? The reviews say there is a program to follow. What kind of techniques are there?

Therapy

How many times have you watched that film in the past week?

hard to explain. it’s an integrated philosophy that helps you orient to the world in the most beneficial way possible IMO. based on stoicism, eastern spirituality, and warrior traditions. it wasn’t like this book gave me all the answers, but it helped me figure out where to look and how to concentrate my energy on certain aspects of self development (if that makes sense). I refer back to it often. I highly recommend everything Mark Divine.

There are some “cookbook” type things in here to help you get started, but that’s not the value in the book IMO.

edit: a big piece of the program is intense physical training and yoga. more on those here:

https://www.amazon.com/Weeks-SEALFIT-Unconventional-Training-Toughness/dp/125004054X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476296462&sr=8-1&keywords=8+weeks+to+sealfit

https://www.amazon.com/Kokoro-Yoga-Maximize-Potential-Warrior--/dp/1250067219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476296487&sr=8-1&keywords=kokoro+yoga

I would second the book that TF referenced. I picked it up back in 2015 after Turd referenced it. I have read it and am re-reading it again working my way through it slower and more deliberately. Reading it and journaling is part of my morning ritual.

I think the book is a guide to self-mastery…not that you’ll attain it after reading it but it provides direction on conquering the Five Mountains (physical, emotional, mental, intuitional, and spiritual), leadership, warrior spirit, and a lot of inward reflection.

There is a quote in the book that I read daily, as part of my 3 P’s and One Thing (read the book and you’ll understand):

“Within you is a voice that is yet to be born; it is the voice of your most authentic self. You can continue through life constantly upgrading what you have already mastered or you can give rise to a version of yourself that is the most powerful loving self. To do that you must choose to follow the path of the warrior - a path few men dare to travel. But when you do, you will meet yourself for the very first time.”

Safe journey, fellow traveler.

yo CDM - you do sticking to a daily practice? mine is tethered to physical training but I’m less disciplined in the mental training. I sit maybe once or twice a week.

@ TF: Thank you for the book reference; I just ordered it based on your (and CDM) recommendation.

@ StL: I just want to fit in.

@ bchad: Serious post.

Are your romantic partners calling you a cold fish? Yes, my SO.

Do you care that you can’t express your feelings? Yes, to the extent that I want her to be happy so that she feels connected.

I assume his wife frequently finds him passed out pants around his ankles with this film playing in the background

OK, this can be interesting.

Do you A) think you are expressive and disagree with her that you are not, or is it B) that you want to be more expressive, but you feel it is some combination of unmasculine/undignified and/or it just feels unnatural.

If you come from an anglo saxon culture, expressing feelings just isn’t a big part of our idea of what it is to be masculine. However, if you look at some other cultures (French, Italian, Spanish, Latin-American), those guys can be very expressive, and many of them manage to be masculine as well (think Pablo Escobar in Narcos). I grew up anglo-saxon, but it was primarily my encounters with Latin Americans that helped a lot in this regard.

One thing you can do is to try writing down your feelings for her (women tend to love that stuff anyway, but this is just for practice). Then try to find another way to say the same thing, or to highlight a different aspect. Keep doing that again and again, trying to rephrase or highlight a different feeling. They are like flavors in food, sometimes.

This gets you practiced in using the words, but since you are writing, you 1) have a lot of control over what words work or don’t work, and 2) it doesn’t feel like you have to be responsible for saying them unless you want to, so it can combat some of the natural feeling.

You can also try writing poetry (also go read it, for ideas). Then it can to become a bit of a game to make things rhyme and have nice meter, yet say things. If you feel awkward saying things that reveal your internal state, you then have a bit of cover by saying “I only chose that word because it rhymed and/or fit the meter.”

After doing that a bit, you’ll start to have a collection of phrases that start to feel more natural to you, and you can start to speak them more often as situations arise.

Most women love it when you write them poetry (even silly poetry, it’s the effort more than the mastery), it’s a great skill to develop on its own.

Dirty poems are also a big hit, provided you’ve gotten some kind of green light to touch those subjects. Once I wrote one to a woman, who wrote another one back to me and wow, you suddenly understand why women love it so much when you do it.

^holy mumbo jumbo.

^ Dirty poems…I like where this is going.

Fortunately for us psychopaths this is easy; we don’t have feelings, and we don’t care.

Listen it’s probably her, not you. What you really need to do is take her out to dinner at some fancy place, let her know that you’re in touch with humanity but that you don’t think you should see each other any more. She sounds excessively emotional so if she starts to get upset tell her you’ve assessed the situation and that you’re leaving. If she is still being irrational, quickly explain that you have to return some video tapes and bail. Problem solved.