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Section 4
Radar Set

Question 4 | Test | Table of Contents | Printable Page

Fourth counseling session—October 21st

ELI, THERAPIST: Comfortable, JACK, CLIENT? Okay . . . at birth, everyone gets a radar set called "feelings". Most people have never been taught to use this internal radar set. Many of us are unaware that we even have one!

Did you see the movie, Titanic? JACK, CLIENT: Who didn’t?

ELI, THERAPIST: The Titanic did not have radar, and ran into the iceberg with disastrous results. Not knowing how to use our radar . . . our feelings, causes us to run into life’s icebergs. When we do not know how to use our emotions, we, like the Titanic, sink into the Sea of Despair.

The feeling language has five main words: Mad, Sad, Glad, Hurt, and Fear.

JACK, CLIENT: You remember, at our first session, when you first asked what I was feeling? I had a hard time identifying what I was experiencing. I think I was numb then. However, last night when I was returning from my AL-Anon meeting, I was crying big alligator tears.

There is so much pain in my life now. I do not often cry, but the strange part is that at the same time, I experienced a sense of joy or gladness. Isn’t that weird? How can you have two completely different feelings at the same time?

ELI, THERAPIST: You were feeling hurt and joy at the same time?

JACK, CLIENT: Yeah.

ELI, THERAPIST: Were you emotionally numb at that time?

JACK, CLIENT: No, I had all strong feelings coming out all over.

ELI, THERAPIST: Did you feel alive when you were numb?

JACK, CLIENT: Ah, now that I think about it, no. When I went numb it was like a color TV that suddenly changed to black and white.

ELI, THERAPIST: So you were feeling pain last night?

JACK, CLIENT: Yeah. When I was numb, the pain wasn’t so acute, but last night it was very painful. I felt the pain. I wasn’t hiding anymore. Is that what it was? I was actually feeling my feelings. I felt alive! That was so much different from being numb. I felt the joy of now being alive . . . it was such a relief.

ELI, THERAPIST: Wow! You allowed yourself to feel the pain, to become real, and you felt alive.

JACK, CLIENT: Yeah, numb no more!

ELI, THERAPIST: It all started with those five words of the feeling language.

JACK, CLIENT: Mad, Glad, Sad, Fear, and Hurt.

ELI, THERAPIST: You’re learning well! The path of internal discovery is to claim our self-love, Self-worth begins with the Locus of Control pointed inward, thumb work. The portal to this inward journey is through the doorway of emotions.

JACK, CLIENT: Being emotionally numb kept me moving in the wrong direction, not real, not alive, and especially for me, incredibly unhappy.

ELI, THERAPIST: You got it.

All decisions involve a large component of emotions often either overlooked or not dealt with. Just witness the stock market gyrations. Its excessive highs and lows are guided by either unbridled euphoria or the "sky is falling" fear mentality, neither proving true over time. These reactions are led by the feelings of euphoria or fear.

JACK, CLIENT: I lost a bunch of money in the stock market when Chicken Little cried, "The sky is falling", and I believed that damned chicken.

ELI, THERAPIST: You had a lot of company.

I helped Gulf Coast petrochemical company’s employees in their Louisiana refinery to improve their plant culture by changing from the command/control style to one that increased employee empowerment, responsibility, and communications. In a meeting with their senior directors, I asked them what they were feeling about the concept of empowering their employees.

JACK, CLIENT: You asked managers to express their feelings? I can’t picture that. What response did you get?

ELI, THERAPIST: Many expressed thoughts as opposed to feelings, as to why this will never work. But one got honest with the answer, "Stark raving fear!" Once that honest emotion was expressed, it gave everyone else permission to be emotionally honest. Then these managers began to deal with their fears.

JACK, CLIENT: I’d like to have been a fly on that wall!

ELI, THERAPIST: Since all decisions involve a large component of emotions, often the very feelings that are driving these decisions lack acknowledgment, lack expression. The results are reactions to these hidden feelings rather than the cool calculated thought process. When emotions are not dealt with they are exhibited in unintentional and destructive behavior.
Knowing we have this hidden radar set capable of navigating through life is a powerful realization. When we begin to

acknowledge our emotions, our radar set, and understand how it operates, we then have a powerful guidance system.

JACK, CLIENT: I guess I’ll have to dig out the manual to my radar set!

ELI, THERAPIST: Very good, JACK, CLIENT. Well, our time is up. See you next week.

Acknowledge feelings;
use your radar set.

QUESTION 4
The feeling language has five main words:
To select and enter your answer go to Test.

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