Dealing with Feelings

One area that is very tricky for most people is listening to and relating to their feelings. Feelings are natural and part of the ongoing process of being alive and being touched by different experiences. They are part of what makes you human and they contain energy. Without feelings, your life would be a dull, gray, and soulless place. Yet feelings can be so changeable and potentially chaotic. How to deal with them? In order to operate well with your feelings, here are a few helpful skills to keep in mind:

1. Firstly, to realize that you have feelings and yet are more than your feelings alone. This allows you to acknowledge and listen to your feelings yet still to have a choice over whether or not to act on them.

2. Secondly, you want to be able to express your feelings effectively and appropriately when it serves you.

3. Thirdly, you want to be able to acknowledge your feelings and put them to one side when that is not what serves you best. You want to have feelings and yet not be run by your feelings.

When you are able to access your feelings, without being taken over by them, you can continue to listen to yourself and frequently go to another level of subtler feeling and knowing.

For instance, you may feel scared at the prospect of doing something new or different. Yet if you dig down deeper you may “feel” or “know” that it is the right thing for you to do–or not. The first level of emotional reaction is valid and human and needs to be acknowledged. Then you can access your deeper wisdom. If you try to deny or fight with your emotional reactions, you will get rigid and will not be able to reach this other level of knowing. Equally, if you think that your feelings always have to take center stage, you will become an emotional danger zone and will also be unable to access your deeper wisdom and resource.