What are mixed feelings?

As the English lawyer George Carman said, “Mixed feelings, like mixed drinks, are a confusion to the soul.” And ambivalence and contradiction are within the normal emotional range. Who hasn’t happened to it? Feeling opposite emotions towards someone or being immersed in doubt between what you want and what you don’t want?

You don’t have to be in a particularly turbulent time to feel love and hate or attraction and rejection towards someone, for example. These types of situations occur in the lives of many people and are part of the nature of our psyche.

The mind is not a perfect device, but that does not mean we should settle for feeling that contradiction.. How to get out of that loop? What really are mixed feelings? We analyze it!

What are mixed feelings?

Mixed feelings, also called conflicting feelings, are those that appear in each of us at different moments in life and that They are apparently contradictory.. That is, they are opposite feelings that are directed towards the same object or situation. A simple example: feeling love and hate towards someone at the same time.

It is a paradox of emotional coexistence that can cause strong discomfort, as well as conflicting feelings within oneself. In the words of Freud himself (1926), whoever is a prisoner of mixed feelings “experiences a well-founded love and a well-justified hatred towards the same person.”

However, mixed feelings do not only include love and hate (although this is generally the case), but also encompass feelings of attraction, repulsion, affection, respect, disgust, anger, indifference, etc. As we know, the emotional range is very wide and the emotions themselves, individually, are full of nuances.

The ambivalence of emotions

The term ambivalence in the emotional spectrum was used for the first time by the psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler (1910) to refer to “those situations of psychic life in which opposite feelings of equal strength coexist without a choice being made. between ones and others”.

In fact, it is normal for mixed feelings to respond to different characteristics of the same object of our attention.. For example, a person can attract us because of his appearance but also reject us when he exposes his political ideas.

In these cases, the most intense emotion will be the one that ends up guiding the behavior. However, the power of reasoning should not be underestimated.since people have internal discourses that prevent them from following their feelings when these can take them to inappropriate places.

How to deal with mixed feelings?

Accepting and managing a situation in which there are mixed feelings within oneself is not easy. In fact, this difficulty increases if any of them is of low desirability – such as the feeling of liberation that we can feel when a person we have been caring for for a long time dies.

Thus, the very confrontation between simultaneous feelings can generate frustration, anger, sadness, uncertainty, indecision, etc.; and it can make us feel like we’re not moving forward (and that we have no idea how to do it). What can we do? We leave you some ideas:

First of all, accept that you are feeling these doubts, and that precisely this makes you human. Don’t judge yourself, it’s not bad to feel that way. We all doubt, we are afraid and we make mistakes.Try to stop and analyze what you feel inside. Give yourself time to think, to flow, and don’t pressure yourself when deciding anything. Try to regain serenity.To manage ambivalence, it is key to observe it from the outside, know it from the inside and finally understand it. Try to look at yourself from the outside: What would you say to that person if it weren’t you?Identify the consequences of your emotions. Does this ambivalent situation stress you out? Do you behave erratically? This will give you the key to the change you need. If you still feel overwhelmed by this constant doubt between what to do and what not (and what you feel and what you don’t), perhaps you should consider asking for help: Psychotherapy is a good option to illuminate this path.

What does science say?

Various studies reveal that mixed and contradictory feelings are not necessarily synonymous with indecision, but rather have to do with the emotional complexity of people. So, People have such a rich emotional world that allows us to experience these types of emotions. apparently contradictory.

Mixed feelings and cognitive dissonances

The term cognitive dissonance, coined by social psychologist Leon Festinger, suggests that We can experience psychological discomfort when we have two or more ideas that contradict each other or when our beliefs and thoughts do not match our actions. To counteract this discomfort, we often fall into self-deception or try to coexist, without success, with the contradictory content.

Mixed feelings can be understood from this theory, understanding that having contradictory thoughts, beliefs and even emotions is a regular part of our mental universe as human beings. The important thing is not to deceive ourselves and prevent emotional conflict from leading us to make hasty decisions.

Ability to differentiate emotional states

A study (2016), carried out by researchers at the University of Waterloo, specifically by Grossmann, Huynh and Ellsworth, which included a sample of 1,396 people from 16 different cultures, delved into these types of feelings, with shocking results. Participants had to indicate what emotions they had experienced in certain life situations (for example, when they had a problem with a family member, when they became ill, or when they were overworked).

What did the study reveal? That, in Western culture, we tend to think that mixed feelings are negative or undesirable and we directly relate them to indecision. However, according to the study, People with this type of contradictory feelings are better at differentiating their emotional states, and they also manage to find greater balance in their lives. Curious, isn’t it?

Final thoughts

And you? Has it happened to you? How have you acted in these cases? We have seen some ideas to do it, although the reality is that There is no magic formula to get out of that emotional loop in which we can find ourselves immersed.

However, it can help us to become aware that we are complex beings, that each and every one of us doubts, at times, and that many times we must live with this emotional ambivalence that makes us, at the same time, unique beings.

Of course, if you feel that the situation is overwhelming or overwhelming you, ask for help. You can get out of that loop and All emotions have their reason for being: let’s learn from them, let’s allow ourselves to feel; Let’s not go against him.

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