Ever feel like you’re being taken for granted?

Ever feel like your phone is listening to you in secret?

Ever feel that the whole world’s going crazy and it’s stressful for us?

…if so, it might surprise you to learn that it’s impossible to feel that way.

Because none of those are feelings.

I first came across the idea of pseudofeelings when learning NonViolent Communication, and it has greatly deepened the degree to which I function in relationships (and understand myself).

This email is an attempt at explaining the concept in less than 5 minutes—so you can play with it in your personal life and experience the impact it can have:

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The concept in 7 bullet points:

1) We feel feelings.

​Feelings are highly relevant because they tell us something is important for us to pay attention to.

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2) We feel feelings in relationship to each other.

When one person does something, another person feels something in response. (In Authentic Relating, we call this “Impact“.)

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3) Communicating these feelings invites intimacy.

We learn what’s important for each other, and how to be in relationship together.

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4) Communicating feelings directly can be vulnerable.

Because it is. When you show someone what’s important to you, you are exposing how they might harm you or wield power over you.

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5) We have all sorts of strategies to get our needs met & feelings validated without having to make ourselves vulnerable.

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6) Pseudofeelings are words that sound like feelings, but are actually stories or judgments.

• “I feel misunderstood”
• “I feel criticized”
• “I feel ignored”

None of these are feelings. Notice that they aren’t necessarily facts either.

They are often stories about facts—for example:

Fact: They didn’t reply to my message.

Story: They ignored me.

Feeling: I feel angry / sad.

Pseudofeeling: I feel ignored.

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7) To tell them apart: pseudofeelings arise in the mind, feelings in the body.

Feelings come with clear physical sensations.

For example: there’s no mistaking the presence of fear in the body. You can directly sense it.

Pseudofeelings tend to be evaluations of things that happen outside us. (“I feel accused” is not a feeling because it points at another person’s words. You can’t witness some accusement going on in your body.)

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8) Why it matters? Pseudofeelings challenge empathy in all directions.

Believing the pseudofeeling is a genuine feeling can stop us from realizing that we are blaming another person or situation for our inner experience (impact is not the same as cause). This makes us less likely to empathize with them.

Trying to express our feelings as pseudofeelings can put that person on the defense, making it less likely for them to empathize with us.

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How to play with this concept:

1) Find a situation where you are experiencing some sort of drama or conflict.

2) Without thinking much, write down at least 20 sentences about it, each starting with “I feel____”

3) Re-read what you wrote, and for each item on the list, ask yourself: “Is this actually a feelable sensation in my body?”

4) If it is not a feeling, hold the story in mind and observe how your body feels in response. That’s the feeling!

5) Once you’ve done this a few times, try to practice this in conversation with a neutral party. Can you track the times when you use pseudofeelings and express the real feeling instead?

6) The next step is doing this in a conversation where you’re expressing your feelings of conflict after the fact.

7) The final boss-level is to learn to do it during conflict itself.

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If you end up explorimenting with this and it made any kind of impact on your relationships, feel free to share it in reply to this email.

Much love,

Pep