Adam McHugh, author of The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction, offers the following suggestions for after we've had a conversation that elicited an emotional reaction. McHugh's reflection will help you understand why you reacted as you did, and better position you for the next conversation.
Now is the time you can give the feeling, impulse or reaction that arose a deep listen by asking questions of it:
- When in the conversation or experience did the emotion arise? What exactly brought it out? What did the other person say or do?
- What was the feeling that I experienced? How would I name it (or them)? Anger, hurt, disappointment, shame, etc.?
- How did my body react to that emotion?
- How intensely did I feel it?
- Do I feel it often?
- Why did I feel it in that moment? How did I respond?
- Is there a word or a memory attached to that feeling?
- What is the source of the feeling? When else in my life do I remember feeling that emotion?