Affect

The Feeling of What Happens

She asked, “Was she cute?”

The question hit hard. Why would she ask that?

The conversation escalated quickly. They hung up almost at the same time, something they had never done before.

A tight, hot pressure filled his chest. He called his brother and cursed his wife for what felt like several minutes though it probably wan't more than thirty seconds.

Screaming didn’t help. He realized his brother couldn’t fix this problem and ended the call.

In the car, the feeling worsened. Tight. Hard. Dangerous.

Like black barbed wire wrapped around his chest.

The feeling of what happens

We’ve already talked about attention, and about the senses as our way back into the present moment.

Now it’s time to talk about affect.

Affect, in its most basic sense, is the feeling of what happens. If life is about using energy to move toward what sustains us and away from what threatens us, then affect is how we experience that process in the body.

Affect is not a thought.

It’s not a story.

It’s the felt signal that something matters.

Affect alerts us to meaning

We feel things because they mean something to us.

Affect tells us that something important is happening, either within us or around us. Before we can explain it, justify it, or control it, we feel it.

Babies make this obvious.

When a baby feels safe and satisfied, they rest or play. When something is wrong, they cry. They don’t yet have concepts or language to organize experience. Things happen, and affect responds.

This is the foundation of attachment. The nervous system learns whether its expressions of affect lead to needs being met, misunderstood, or ignored.

At its most basic level, affect is simply good or bad, strong or weak. As adults, we may not notice it clearly, but it is always present, shaping how we move through the world.

Why affect matters

Affect is the raw material of emotion. If we want to change how we feel, we have to work at the level of affect.

When affect is misidentified, nothing moves.

Imagine a baby crying because it is hungry. A parent assumes the baby is scared and begins to rock and sing.

The baby cries louder.

The parent checks the diaper. The baby cries louder still.

Only when the parent recognizes the correct need and feeds the baby does the crying stop. The affect resolves because the need has been met.

The same principle applies to adults.

If the feeling is real but the label is wrong, the system stays stuck.

So what happened to the “black barbed wire”?

The man sat in traffic, going nowhere. The feeling was intense, but calling it anger didn’t help. The tightness only grew.

Finally, he asked himself a different question.

“Is this anger?”

No.

“Is this fear?”

No.

“Is this sadness?”

At that, something shifted. The pressure loosened. The sensation began to move. What had felt rigid and dangerous softened into release.

Images followed. Distance. Disconnection. The growing gap between himself and his wife, and the recognition that he was part of it.

He drove home quietly, ready to repair what had been broken.

When he reached the door, she opened it before he even stepped onto the porch. They held each other for a moment, moved inside, and sat together to talk.

What changed wasn’t the situation. It was the meaning beneath the anger. The sadness revealed what mattered, and that made reconnection possible.

If you live in the Houston area and feel stuck in patterns that don’t resolve no matter how much you think or talk about them, therapy may help. Learning to listen to affect, and respond to it accurately, is often where change begins.