Feelings just are.
I think I spent most of my life trying to manage my feelings. Born a HSP (highly sensitive person) and an empath, my world was a giant stew of sensory perceptions. If I had a brain, I didn’t have control of it, that’s for sure. My senses ran my life. My parents did their best to help me live in the world, but loaded me up with do’s and don’ts. Hidden in these dictates was the thinly disguised message, “stop feeling your feelings, and bury your feelings and do what you’re supposed to do.” That’s how they lived their lives. I tried and failed so many times I lost count.
The age of free love and hippie beads arrived in time to give me another way, and that was to follow my feelings wherever they led. It added shape and form to my rebellion against my upbringing and to follow the beat of a different drummer.
Responsibility Called to Me
As you might guess, this didn’t work for long! Responsibility called to me and when I did not ante up I ended up worse off than I began. Clamping down on my feelings and doing the “right thing” seemed the only way out. The up and down roller coaster took me through more valleys than peaks and by the time I’d hit rock bottom a half-dozen times the universe gave me what I needed to shake it all up and start over.
Now I understand that my parents were half right, and half wrong. I was half right and half wrong. Add to that a long history of therapy with a dozen different therapists and things finally fell in place. The answers came from a different place altogether, neither my thoughts or my feelings.
The Unraveling
As human beings we are equipped with our various senses that are designed to take in information from our environment. Once we take in this information, we run it through the filter of our rational minds where we process the information, draw conclusions and make decisions. Since the dawn of the Age of Reason, humankind has come to revere and trust the rational mind above all other forms processing. In fact, we’ve come to distrust anything that can not be proven scientifically. The God is dead movement was a natural result. How could we possibly believe in something as grandiose as God when there was no scientific proof?
Our culture in the 21st century relies on scientific evidence for everything from the food we eat to addressing mental health problems. Once again, however, the winds of change are upon us. Out on the frontier of the evolutionary of the human being, something else is arising that seems to be pushing us beyond relying completely on the mind. It’s a mistake to assume this is similar to the religious belief of the past, because it is something quite different. This growing awareness works in concert with the reasoning mind, not in place of it.
In order to understand where we are headed it is helpful to see the relationship between thoughts and feelings.
Feelings are a Part of Us
Feelings just are. We can’t control them, nor should we try. Controlling them, at least to the western mind, means shoving them down or pushing them aside. Science is showing us ever more clearly that this is an unhealthy, unproductive way of dealing with our emotions. The pushing down or aside is being shown to not only to cause immense, ongoing suffering, it also contributes to illness and early death. Therefore, our primary goal must be to allow our feelings; to give them room to breathe, pass through us and dissipate, without judgement or interference by the will. They won’t kill us. In fact, allowing our feelings facilitates mental processing and enables us to find more productive ways of solving problems.
When we give our feelings room to breathe, we will begin to notice that they arise, live for a time and then fall away, much like a wave that rolls in to the shore, leaves a seashell and rolls back out again. The rational mind can pick up the seashell and decide what to do with it.
A Third Avenue
Another avenue of operation is emerging in our awareness that is neither the rational mind or feelings. It is something that might be called awareness. Spiritual teachers and guides refer to this third avenue as a wide variety of things, from God and soul, to consciousness and self. I personally have confused it sometimes with my feelings and other times sometimes with my rational mind, but it is separate and distinct. It is not ego driven but rather has the capacity to manage the ego.
If you practice mindfulness or meditation you are likely familiar with this third place. It can be found by spending time in silence or mediation, or deep reflection. It’s that part of the mind/being that is aware of thought. Being aware of thinking is different from the thinking process itself. Is there not a place where you can be that is outside of both our thoughts and our feelings? Finding this place helps us understand and accept that we are more than our thoughts.
Intuition vs. Feelings
Many, many people confuse feelings and intuition. Intuition is akin to a “gut feeling”, a knowing. Feelings are emotional reactions. They are untrustworthy as a decision-making source. Intuition is an aspect of the third avenue available to us for navigating our life. Intuition is an extra-sensory perception that has the ability to see beyond what the rational mind or the feeling self can see.
The Process of Expanding Consciousness
As we begin to work with this new and expanded view of ourselves, we can begin to sort through the mental constructs that are causing us so much suffering. The process is simple in theory but requires great awareness and practice to begin to see the results.
- When a situation occurs, allow your feelings to arise. Sit quietly with them and feel them, allow them, breathe through them. Yes, they will hurt, deeply sometimes. Resist the temptation to squash them, push them aside, deny them. They will harm you only when you lock them away.
- Once the intensity of feelings has begun to subside you will notice that you feel calmer and your rational mind is clearer. Ask yourself, “what seashell did this wave of feelings bring to me?” An awareness, a desire, a false belief are some of the things that might arise. For example, you become aware that you feel deeply hurt and betrayed by a co-worker and that the feeling is very similar to how you often felt as a child.
- Spend some time examining the seashell. Let it teach you about yourself. What unresolved issues, or unexpressed feelings are still living in you. What can you learn from them?
- When all is said and done, you will be just a little more conscious of why you responded to the situation the way you do. When you are more aware, you can choose to respond differently. A reactive response that is tied to old feelings is always excessive and often completely off the mark. The result is more pain, more difficulties.
