Think Before You Feel

If virtues and morality are going to be part of a system of healing and understanding the truth for our children and ourselves, we must adopt a thinking mentality over a feeling one. If it feels “good”, you still need to think through the situation to properly assess if it is good or right. Children and adults must learn to look objectively at situations based upon the virtue categories of love, respect, and honesty to decide whether or not to behave in certain ways.


Susan met Moses at a nightclub where they would dance for hours each Saturday night. He loved Susan from the first time he laid eyes on her and told her how he loved her shyness and nervousness around him. Moses was very outgoing and appeared very sure of himself. Susan admired Moses for being so sure of himself and for making her feel so good. He always wanted to hear about her past and promised her he would make everything all right. Moses always bought Susan flowers after she became upset with him. He had occasions when he would go out and drink all night or would hit her when she asked him to remain at the apartment they shared together rather than go out partying. Moses always threatened Susan that he would end up killing himself if he did not have her in his life. Susan felt so needed by Moses and knew she could help him find happiness. Susan received an engagement ring right one-week after she threatened to leave Moses. Susan told Moses that she was tired of being hit each time that she asked him to spend time with her. The one-carat diamond was so beautiful. Susan knew Moses loved her and that things would be better once they were married.

Many factors contribute to how we behave. We base the way we act on how we think and feel. For those who have been hurt by others, they tend to base their responses to these events on how they feel about the person who hurt them. They, in turn, base their bad feelings as being part of who they are and not the person who has just hurt them. Another example of this regards persons who have been physically abused. Victims of abuse adopt feelings of fear and pain and consider themselves weak or inadequate based upon their feelings. Feeling bad about and placing blame on oneself begins to erode one’s self-esteem and self-worth. This makes this person more vulnerable to those who act in ways to make them feel good because this is what they are desperately seeking. The problem is that the person seeking to feel good is oblivious to the character and integrity of the person they are seeking this “feel good” situation. How many people who continuously become hurt by others emotionally, physically, or sexually continue to spend time with the same type of abusive people or become abusive themselves.

Poor Relationship Example

Jackie was married to William for over 20 years. Their children were both in college and Jackie found herself lost and unfulfilled in life. During the time her children were growing up in the home, she spent her every moment at home with them. She read them a story, said their prayers with them, and held them each night they had a nightmare. She took them to the doctors, made their meals, and helped them with their homework. Jackie also worked a fulltime job, which carried much responsibility. Through the years, she and William had many arguments concerning his lack of involvement with the children. William always claimed to be tired after his day at work and would not go on family activities with the family. William was not someone to yell or criticize anyone. His wife knew William was a safe guy and was not abusive, but she did not feel loved by him since he would not help her with the children or with other responsibilities in the home. Although he recognized her efforts, he did not make any sacrifices for her or the children. Jackie separated from William and she spent her time helping her children when then asked for her assistance. She continued to correspond with her husband and went to those events that honored him. She had an occasional meal with him, some which were made by William. William has now initiated some contact with his children and Jackie has felt better about her new relationship with her husband. Jackie has made many friends who share in her joys and help her to feel appreciated and loved. Jackie does not know if she will divorce her husband or not. She does love and respect him. For now, she is very happy about those people she spends her time.

You are the Best Gift in Your Relationships

How do you rate the persons that you interact?  Do you rate them as intimate, friend, acquaintance, or stranger? Intimate relationships can include friends. Intimates are those persons you frequency have contact, disclosures personal information during contacts, and come close to in either physical, emotional or sexual ways. If you have many intimate relationships, you may need to re-evaluate what criteria you have used to determine this. These relationships take much work to maintain and should be with people you want to spend the majority of your time. Physical and emotional closeness is not to be confused with sexuality. People who are intimates and friends allow persons to get close in physical distance from them. They do not feel threatened when someone hugs them or touches them in non-sexual ways. Friends are people you can have frequent contact and even disclose personal information. What is the dividing line between intimates and friends is the disclosure of deep and dark secrets. There are many who allow friends to share in these secrets but this can strain relationships with intimates especially if the disclosures include information about them.


I consider acquaintances those persons you meet that you choose not to pursue contact other than those times you run into them in community places or work. This level of a relationship can consist of people you see often, but have not chosen to share any extra time or disclosed any information other than current events, publicly known information, or work related information. Strangers are those people not known to you other than maybe a brief encounter. You may see these people frequently if they frequent places that you attend but you do not engage on any consistent level by your choice. In each of these two types of relationships, the frequency of contact, type of disclosure, and physical, emotional, and sexual closeness is affected. Persons who are acquaintances and strangers are distanced through less planned contact, superficial disclosures, and the absence of physical, emotional, and sexual closeness. Today, there are more incidences of discreet sexual encounters with strangers and acquaintances. This does put people at risk for hurt.

When you first meet someone, how would you rate the content of your interactions in relation to personal information discussed and frequency of contact? Are you placing people in the wrong category? How are you making the distinction of who should go in what category. These are the 3 questions that victims of hurt struggle on a daily basis due to their difficulties reading people and situations. Many victims of abuse guide their decisions on how good a person makes them feel or how guilty or bad they may feel for the other person. As I have stated throughout this book, your feelings should not be the basis alone for decisions regarding your relationships with others. The virtues of honesty, respect, and love will help you make more rational distinctions among those you engage each day. When you begin to disclose intimate information to strangers, you have made this an intimate relationship right from the start. This places the stranger in a position of power due to their possessing information regarding your vulnerabilities. This places you at risk to be taken advantage by this person. Many people who are walking with open “emotional wounds” hold on to an ideal that they can be open with everyone when in reality this does not hold true. When you begin to inventory all of your relationships, you may see that your ideals about family, friends, significant others, and even helping professionals do not match the reality of what is occurring in these relationships based upon my criteria outlined in my book about the virtues of love, respect, and honesty.

Teach Students Problem Solving Skills in School

Have you ever been part of a therapeutic group? Group process is a good forum to teach behavioral expectations and problem solving in the middle and high schools. This is where relationship skills can be generalized. With a trained facilitator that works to develop a cohesive group, students will be drawn to openly discuss their trials and tribulations with one another. The facilitator will create a forum to teach students and have them practice new relationship skills in relevant ways.


The group will keep each of its members accountable to follow through with problem solving activities. Group members will provide peer pressure to those that refuse to resolve conflicts. This will have a greater impact on resistant students than their receiving pressure from a group facilitator. As a teenager, did your peers influence you more than an adult? Each group will contain those students that will initially test the patience of the remaining members. Facilitators will need to allow for some distractions and for peer pressure to address negative behavior.

Groups should consist of a gender and racial mix if all possible to allow students to test one another’s beliefs and attitudes to promote healthy conflict. This will promote realistic situations for students and prepare them for the adult world.

Since many of the behavioral expectations may not be demonstrated or evaluated in the classrooms, the group process will serve as a forum for students to practice and evaluate these behavior expectations. The group process will also serve as the forum for students to practice problem solving through role-plays. Have you ever play acted? Try it some time. You will see how much fun this can be. The goal of the group would be to help students recognize their actions, both positive and negative, and resolve issues. This will be a system that is grounded in a rational approach to relationships.

The group process will teach students how to be assertive by communicating to students that hurt them. The facilitator’s ability to prompt frustrated students to use “I statements” during escalating moments in the group is extremely important. The student’s irrational instincts will be to verbally attack the other student or to withdraw. The facilitator will need to intervene and prompt students to take ownership for their thoughts and feelings. Have you ever been asked to make an “I statement”? This type of statement takes on the following structure: I (felt, thought, behaved) in such a manner, because you acted in such a manner (in which I saw, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched).

Can Love Destroy

Takers and caretakers – they often seem to find each other! As a counselor who has worked with relationships for 25 years, I can tell you that this is the most frequent relationship dynamic that I encounter.


Takers are people who tend to be narcissistic – that is, they are self-centered with an excessive need for attention and admiration. The taker attempts to control getting love, attention, approval or sex from others with anger, blame, violence, criticism, irritation, righteousness, neediness, invasive touch, invasive energy, incessant talking and/or emotional drama. The taker uses many forms of both overt and covert control to get the attention he or she wants.

Takers not only want a lot of control, but are often afraid of being controlled and become overtly or covertly resistant to doing what someone else wants them to do. The taker might resist with denial, defending, procrastination, rebellion, irresponsibility, indifference, withdrawal, deadness, numbness, rigidity, and/or incompetence.

In a relationship, takers operate from the belief that “You are responsible for my feelings of pain and joy. It is your job to make sure that I am okay.”

Caretakers, on the other hand, operate from the belief that “I am responsible for other's feelings. When I do it right, you will be happy and then I will receive the approval I need.” Caretakers sacrifice their own needs and wants to take care of the needs and wants of others, even when others are capable of doing it themselves. Caretakers have the need to be needed and sometimes resent others when they become independent of their assistance and nurturing.
Neither takers nor caretakers take responsibility for their own feelings and wellbeing. Takers generally attempt to have control over others’ giving them the attention and admiration they want in overt ways, while caretakers attempt to have control over getting approval in more covert ways, such as compliance, doing to much for others, and/or withholding their wants and opinions.

When we are not seeing, valuing, loving, acknowledging, or understanding ourselves, and when we are not attending to our own wants and needs, we will always feel upset when others treat us just like we are treating ourselves.

Codependent relationships – relationships of two takers, two caretakers, or a taker and a caretaker – will always run into problems. Many people leave these relationships, only to discover the same problems in their next relationships. Takers and caretakers can switch places in different relationships and over different issues, but the problems remain the same – anger, resentment, distance, lack of sexuality, boredom, feeling unloved and unloving.

There really is a way to heal this.

Relationships heal when individuals heal. When each partner does their inner work and atone for the hurt that they cause.  Love, repect, and honesty are the behavioral approaches to change in the relationship. When each person learns to take full personal responsibility for his or her own feelings of pain and joy, they stop pulling on each other and blaming each other. When each person learns to fill themselves with love and share that love with each other, instead of always trying to get love, the relationship heals.

Learning how to take full responsibility for your own feelings is one of the essential ingredients in creating a healthy relationship. This means learning to be conscious of what you are feeling and being open to learning about what you are doing to create your own feelings, instead of being a victim and believing that others are causing your feelings. Blaming others for your feelings will always lead to major relationship problems.  Blaming others for your life will only cause you to become more isolated from others and the truth.

Why not start today by taking your eyes off your partner and putting them squarely on yourself? In reality, you are the only one you actually have control over. You are the only one you can change the outcome of your life and your relationships.