YOUR FEELINGS ARE NOT YOUR EMOTIONS.

YOUR FEELINGS ARE NOT YOUR EMOTIONS. 

I woke up feeling on edge. 

I was fearful, stressed, and I had not even made it to the first sip of my morning coffee. 

My partner followed through on his morning routine like clockwork but our feet which normally touched during our morning wake up routine were not touching. 

This made me feel insecure and as if he was armored up against me, not wanting to connect, even possibly mad at me for some reason I was not aware of, as all that I could recollect was that we slept. 

As I sat there, hyper focused on the fact that our feet were not touching like they did every morning, my mind ran with the situation, telling me how I must have messed up somehow to make him not want to connect first thing in the morning. As I searched inside my head for an answer, wanting a solution to what I perceived as a problem, I became fearful of reaching out to him. I held my coffee close, closed off my arms, pulled up my knees and made up my mind that he was upset with me. 

As the day progressed, I found myself coming back to this fear that something was wrong between us and I had no clue what it was. We had been under some stress, but “we” were not fighting or mad at one another, it was just outside influences that were causing drama. Nonetheless, I could not change what my feelings were. My body was tight. My stomach was on edge so much that I could not eat the entire day. I did everything that I knew to do to change this feeling, meditation, listening to positive mental mindset things, up beat music, masturbation to drop down oxytocin and dopamine to help me shift gears, but nothing was working. Finally I just committed to breaking through this crazy state of feelings and to ask for what I wanted – what I felt I needed- TIME. A date away from everything else, where we could just settle in and be together, reconnect, laugh, enjoy a moment. I knew that I for one needed that. And so I pushed through and began a text to request just this, only to have my phone mess up multiple times and to get interrupted by calls, children and anything else that seemed to be putting itself as interference. 

The feeling of “it’s not supposed to happen” overcame me. And with it sadness. Then a guilt for even thinking about asking for something. My childhood program of “ don’t ask for anything, you will only be a bother, just be grateful,” set in hard and strong and I felt shame and guilt for even wanting what I wanted. Timing certainly was not good and the universe was trying to get me to just drop my desire. And so I did. 

Then my partner got home, I looked at him and all I wanted was to run away with him, escape just for a few moments, get away from everything normal and have some space to breathe and connect. I told myself that my want was okay and healthy, and so I began my ask again, only to have it cut short a final time. My body wanted to throw up from its desire, it felt horrible to spend the day in anxiety over the asking, bouncing around with this feeling of wanting but believing that I was wrong for the asking and supporting myself with all the times in my life that i had asked for small things and was met with a consistent no. This moment, was not different. 

I felt like God/universe was telling me no – repeatedly. 

And now, I was not just feeling tightness and pain in my body, I had now processed what all these feelings were and translated them into an emotional state of being. 

I was now officially depressed and shameful. 

I was in a mood. 

I had held this feeling for a long enough period of time and looked for supportive evidence to make it such all day long to develop a strong hold on an emotion that was getting supported by thoughts, that was creating a state of being or mood. 

FEELINGS CREATE THOUGHTS WHICH CREATE EMOTIONS WHICH CREATE ACTIONS – 

EMOTIONS LIVED OUT LONG ENOUGH CREATE A MOOD OR STATE OF BEING AND OVER TIME CAN CREATE A PERSONALITY TRAIT

You should be saying “WOW” or Holy F-CK! To that. 

I want you to read it again a few times. 

Have you ever wondered why grumpy grandpa is so grumpy?

Why is your aunt who was once sweet and funny is now so glum and sad?

How did these people’s personalities shift like that? 

We say that life happened, we finally just grew up and are taking things more seriously. 

Yes, all that is true, but the reality is that these folks, and maybe you too, simply did not understand how your feelings can shift your personality as stated above. 

If we allow ourselves to have a habit that we do not want, even if it feels as though we have no control over it, then we are supporting this new state of being. We are becoming a victim to this mood and allowing it to alter our life and personality. 

We are not taught how to turn away from the things that do not feel good. Instead we are told to buckle down and find a solution, work harder, search within the problem and just get use to what the reality is. We are told that we must suffer through. And we wonder why we get so bitter toward life and the people we are in relationship with in it. It’s because we are turning over all of our power to outside influences and just accepting what we get as our new norm. 

This is what I was guilty of in my tale above. 

I ran with one little thing ( our feet are not touching) and created a story of he is mad with me, he is pushing away, so fine, I will push away too, to wait I want to be close, to no I can’t ask, I am not worthy of asking, I am wrong for wanting and finding evidence ( because I was looking for it) all along the way. 

I CREATED MY EMOTION. 

Just like you create your emotions. 

It sounds crazy to think that anyone would want to create negative emotions, but we do it out of habit. We do it because we are programmed to look for supportive thoughts and influences from our world. They then get translated to support these emotions as well, because we are unconsciously and even consciously “thinking” about what we do not want. 

We spend the majority of our time thinking negative things. 

We spend the majority of our lives feeling worried, stressed, anxious and fearful because we refuse to think positive thoughts. 

We may spend 10 minutes attempting to think positive thoughts, but we spend the rest of our day in a state of negativity. And this is what holds our physical body in a “feeling of negativity.”

Our emotions are nothing more than a translation over time of what we are thinking and feeling. 

Our bodies tell us within 3 seconds how we feel about any situation. 

That edginess in the gut, that pain in the heart, the slight headache that came from nowhere, or sudden pain in the back – these are all symptoms of thoughts that have been allowed to create a state of being and the physical body is supporting what is considered normal. 

WE HUMANS ALWAYS GO TOWARD WHAT WE CONSIDER NORMAL- WE PERCEIVE IT AS REALITY AND SAFETY

How can pain equate to safety you may wonder?

Logically it does not. Pain should trigger your fight or flight response, however pain that becomes a low grade acceptance of suffering is often supported as “this is just the way life is,” and we learn how to accept it and tolerate it, making it appear to not be as bad as it actually is and then anything outside of that feels so abnormal that we get scared and look for the gotchas as to sabotage what may be a healthier choice. 

This is where one must start to realize that free will is not true. 

You have no free will as long as you are operating from this state of believing what your feelings are telling you. As long as you allow your physical body to be the pilot you will miss the opportunity to actually “feel” because you will be approaching life from a  state of constant triggering instead of paying closer attention to your emotional state of being and the thoughts that you are supporting your emotions with.

I do a ton of work with clients on this topic, teaching what I call – sensation talk- to help people come back into a state of awareness in their physical body instead of just running off with a feeling and assuming that they have no control over anything. 

SENSATION TALK- 

When you re feeling a sensation in your body and find yourself wanting to react to something try this practice to help you to gain better clarity into how you actually feel and what is happening so that you can become more proactive instead of being reactionary. 

1. Take a good deep breath, maybe three if you are feeling a ton of anger, fear, anxiety etc. 
2. Notice where you are feeling a sensation in your body and name it. ( I feel edgy and anxious in my gut.)
3. Take one of your hands and place it on your body where you are having this feeling. 
4. Soften your muscles around this area by consciously focusing on the muscles and softening your breathing. 
5. Ask yourself, “what is my body trying to tell me right now?” wait and listen to your thoughts and your heart. You may want to bring one hand to your heart at this point and ask your heart. “ What do you want me to know right now?”

This emotional intelligence practice is a powerful skill. People who have experienced trauma may find that they feel numbness or an emptiness when they do this practice. It is often the case that with trauma patients that they cannot find answers easily and will fall back to looking for what is the right answer to please the situation or someone they are dealing with instead of being able to retrieve what their true answer is. This exercise however with practice, patience and commitment will help anyone to discover a truer version of who they are and how they actually “feel” about anything being presented to them. 

If you find yourself dealing with trauma, stress, anxiety, anger,PTSD, apathy or depression and have seen its impact on your life, relationships, sex and work and would like to learn more comprehensive skills to overcome thse emotional habits please reach out to me today for an extensive consultation where we together will create a success blueprint for your best life. 

As Always, 

Stop Existing & Start Living

“Coaching for Grown A*s Believers”

-KW