Feelings – Our Compass and Our Guide

We’re concluding Mental Health Awareness Month with a conversation about feelings. Feelings seem to be the most difficult part of life for many people. We tend to avoid any type of painful emotion at all costs. Conversely, we often go to great lengths to feel good. Both are wrong. 

Feelings aren’t good or bad, right or wrong. They are just part of being human. They should never rule us, yet we allow them to.  

If we could embrace all of our emotions, we’d be happy most of the time. If you drive through a mud puddle, you don’t stop your car and sit in the puddle and scream about your car getting dirty. You drive on through as you scream about it, then you get the car cleaned and forget all about it. When we let our anger and sorrow out, we can heal and forget what bothered us. We can also learn to avoid the mud puddles. Sometimes, we might keep driving through the same puddles and complain about the bad roads instead of going down a different street. 

Instead of feeling life’s events, we use our feelings to try to manage others. If someone causes us distress, we blame them instead of changing ourselves. Instead of requesting what we want from others, we feel resentful when they don’t provide it. Instead of facing someone’s lack of character, we keep trying to change them instead of walking away. 

Facing reality and taking a different route could prevent most negative feelings. Then those that are an inevitable part of life – when we suffer loss or poor treatment – could be eased by feeling the pain and letting go of the person or situation that troubles us. Instead, by holding on, our pain gets suppressed or “managed” in any way possible and then calcifies, hardening our personalities toward love and life. 

The quest for constant nirvana is equally self-defeating. We search for the next quick fix or opportunity to feel good. We wind up on things that are designed to get us hooked. Then we deny we’ve got a problem because we don’t want to feel what quitting will bring. 

When depressed or anxious we seek medication instead of healthy nurturing or comfort.

Instead of curling up in bed with a big fluffy blanket or sobbing on someone’s shoulders, we swallow our pain. Instead of being vulnerable and getting support, we allow fear to consume our minds. We can hide from ourselves, but we can’t escape.

What if we simply learned how to just be with our feelings without judgment? “Be like little children,” as a great master once advised. Children don’t hide their feelings.   

There’s a lot of talk these days about being authentic. Being real sounds easy. Real authenticity means having the courage to face our insides and dance with that internal state. When we heal the pain, it gives way to the joy that is our natural childlike self. 

Our emotional pain isn’t that different from physical. If you ignore a broken bone, the pain won’t subside, and the wound won’t heal. It must be tended to. If you ignore a broken heart, you must listen and feel what it is telling you – it’s there to serve you. Your heart will tell you when someone or something is right or wrong for you.

Just feel.  Don’t act. Wait until your mind is in the neutral zone before you speak. 

Just feel and you will naturally heal. You’ll be free of any baggage that weighs you down. Like a spring bringing forth fresh water from earth’s internal reserves, joy will seek into your heart when you let go of your pain. 

You are human and humans have feelings. Your feelings are your guide to happiness or suffering. Listen to them. Allow the pain to warn you something is wrong and let go. Allow your sorrow to cleanse your pain. Then allow peace to come into your heart and bring you joy.

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