Whenever we think of feelings, we think of our reaction to whatever is happening in our life.
“She is happy because he loves her.”
“He is sad because he didn’t pass his exams.”
“I’m pissed off because you ate the last biscuit.”
It looks like emotions are how we respond to the world around us.
It’s actually mesmerising how much we have changed our perception of feelings in the last century.
Up to the 50’s, any talk would focus on people’s behaviours and motivations, dismissing feelings entirely.
We later discovered there were feelings behind those behaviours and we suddenly got a bit overexcited with our approach to it.
In the field of psychology, therapists came up with all sorts of strategies to deal with feelings.
This led people to believe emotions should be managed and controlled.
Of course this approach didn’t really help anyone in the long run.
Now days there is a new understanding of how feelings are part of a larger system and what their value is.
Feelings are immensely valuable in fact, because they give us information about the quality of our thinking.
They tell us what we are thinking.
Through the principle of Consciousness we get to experience every single thought that catches our attention.
We get to see how Feelings equal Thinking and Thinking equals Feelings.
This is extremely helpful because it will be our own personal GPS through life.
Feelings are literally our “built in navigation system” as they point out to the source of our experiences.
If we are thinking of anger, we’ll be feeling pretty pissed off.
If we have thoughts of love, we’d be feeling all warm and fluffy.
And depending on our understanding of Thought, feelings may come and go or they may linger for a while.
Truth is, Thought is like an enormous iceberg and we only ever get to see the top of it.
What’s underneath this massive body of ice always reaches extreme depths, same as our thinking.
So we may be thinking somewhere deep in our psyche of how, years ago, we’ve been wrongly accused of something we never did.
And that feeling of wrongness lingers around, becoming more visible whenever something in the external world triggers that old wound.
Understanding where feelings come from helps us taking them in stride rather than succumbing to them.
So how does our built in GPS work?
Feelings will be our alarm bell whenever we drift away from our innate health.
Believe it or not, we humans all share the same default feeling of peace of mind and well being when our mind is free.
Life will flow and we’ll be in peace with ourselves and the world.
But we also have free will and the ability to think ourselves out of this lovely and heart warming feeling.
It’s the human condition: our tendency to be in & out of our innate health via our power to think.
Our emotions will let us know then whenever we drift away from our lovely “home base” because suddenly life won’t appear to be that easy anymore.
Thanks to this self correcting system we needn’t be scared of how we feel.
Once we see how feelings are information about our thinking rather than the external world, we simply wake up to that and find our way back to well being and mental health.
This goes for each one of us, and it gives us immense hope.
No matter what kind of psychological turmoil we are in, we’ll always be able to calm down and experience peace again.
Sometime sooner & sometime later.
It’s evident then how our physical & psychological health are both oriented towards healing & wellness.
While our immune system will protect us from external aliments, our feelings will take us back to ease, grace & calm.
The intelligence behind life will always ensure that what needs healing comes up and is healed, either through the body or the emotions.
It’s a perfect system which has our back through life, allowing us to enjoy our experience of it.
Sounds too simplistic?
We get used to feelings, especially when their habitual.
We get so engrossed in them that we can’t see they are not coming from the outside, but it’s our thinking coming back onto us.
So if you felt worried all your life, of course you’ll be looking at the world through “worry lenses”.
You haven’t let fresh thought come in and see that you will only ever feel what you are thinking moment to moment.
The rest is just stuff you got used to.
So you may be on a sandy beach drinking cocktails, but still be wearing your “worry shades”.
How you feel then is not coming from the idyllic scenery of course, would you not agree?
When you understand how thoughts & feelings always go hand in hand, you let ourselves off the hook and start living with joy and ease.
Would you like to learn how your thinking can be both very compelling and deceiving?
My coaching program Evoking Grace will offer you inspiring and effective ways to deal with everyday challenges while keeping your cool.
I can be contacted by email for more details on the work I offer or to schedule a “Wisdom Within Session“.
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