What can The Universal Guide to being Human tell us about Feelings? (If you didn’t read the first chapter about the universal guide to being human, start there.)
Feelings aren’t facts.
There are two types of feelings.
We’re very comfortable talking about sensory feelings – such as touch and taste – even of a negative kind. E.g. “I’m freezing – let’s turn the heating on.”
We’re less comfortable using emotive feelings – unless they’re the ‘good’ ones – “happy”, “excited”, “positive”.
And many people avoid the use of feelings altogether by responding with a judgement instead; “I’m okay” or “I’m good”.
Sometimes, experiencing a feeling can be so uncomfortable that not only will you resist talking about it, but you’ll do everything in your power not to feel it. Hanging out with friends, watching TV, reading a good book – far better than feeling jealous, guilty or resentful.
Who taught us to deal with our feelings this way?
Nobody. It’s probably the result of the adhoc education syllabus handed down from our parents. Remember the following instructions from your childhood?
“Don’t be sad.”
“Don’t be angry.”
“Don’t be so excited!”
So now we have 7 billion people walking the planet trying not to feel, or experiencing serious frustration at not knowing what to do with everything they feel.
At Activator Academy, we’ve been surveying Executives and Business Owners this year (male and female) on emotional intelligence.
We’re currently up to 167, and this is what they all say:
“We hate talking about our feelings.”
In fact, most score themselves as ‘poor’ to ‘very poor’ when it comes to understanding and communicating how they feel.
They were never taught the purpose of a feeling – or how to process a feeling.
Our brain is the only thing that adds meaning to our feelings.
We think our feelings are a fact.
We don’t know how to release feelings.
We don’t know how to feel with any sense of freedom.
In order to understand our feelings, and how we process them, we have to understand the mechanics of how we operate as human beings.
A feeling is simply a chemical rush; a reaction to something in the external world. It has a lifespan from start to finish of just 90 seconds.
Within that 90 seconds, the chemicals will flush out of your body. You can watch and feel the process happening, and you can watch it go away.
So how is it possible that you’ve been feeling stressed for months and guilty for years?
3. You THINK about the feeling (and start the cycling process again).
Tiring just thinking about it, isn’t it?
Learning about your feelings is liberating. You can feel them, enjoy them (even the ‘bad’ ones), and let them pass so you’re free to move forward with clarity and calmness.
We’ve created a community called Activator Academy to empower people to practise a methodology that teaches us how to process feelings and make better things possible in life.
