Written by: Susan Salter, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
What is a Feeling?
What is the difference between a feeling and a sensation? Sensations are involuntary and start in the body. Feelings, or emotions, start in the brain and are a vibration we experience in the body.
Feelings are caused by what we think. When describing your feelings, a good practice is to tell them in one word.
As you become more familiar with the Model, you'll realize that your thinking causes your feelings. This realization makes people want to change their thinking immediately. This is called thought swapping. "Oh, this thought is making me feel horrible! I need a better thought!" But it's not as simple as just trying on a new thought. That may work occasionally, but the first step is to increase your awareness for the most part. Pay attention to your thinking and noticing what you're feeling is not something most people do regularly.
Also, from new houses and cars to relationships and good fortune for loved ones, we all have hopes and desires for ourselves and the people around us. But the truth is, what we really want are the feelings we believe we'll have once we get those things.
Take a moment and think about what you want. Then go a layer deeper and ask yourself what you really, really want. Finally, ask yourself how you believe you'll feel when you get what you want. You'll find that in every case, it's the feeling you desire, and that's great news when you consider that all of your feelings come from your thought, which we get to choose.
As humans, we typically don't like the way negative emotions feel, so much of our behavior is an attempt to change or avoid them. Most people are unaware of what they are feeling most of the time and can certainly label their feelings. If you want to change your life, you must become aware of what you're feeling in the present moment.
Resisting, Reacting, Avoiding
We're not taught to feel emotions. The feeling is the ability that most of us need to learn because the media and social conditioning teach us to escape emotions. We are even taught that positive emotions aren't enough by themselves; they need to be highlighted by purchasing something.
There are three main things we do with uncomfortable emotions. First, we tend to resist them. This is confusing because so many of us think that resisting emotion is the same as feeling, but it creates no relief. It's the difference between opening the door of emotion or holding it shut. They both might seem productive, but resistance creates more tension and perpetuates the emotion.
Reacting is another way that people like to describe the feeling. Yelling or screaming or crying is not the same as feeling. When we act out our emotions, we seem to be releasing something and feeling something, but we're often just acting them out and not processing or feeling them at all. The feeling doesn't look like "acting"- the feeling is something you can do sitting on a chair and experiencing a subtle vibration.
Our culture has made avoiding emotion quite easy and acceptable. The two most common ways people avoid emotions are by overeating/overdrinking and working.
What are the feelings you have? When you start to become more conscious of your feelings, you'll spend much more time observing yourself. This may be awkward and might not come easily. It is important to remind yourself that feelings are harmless. A feeling is simply vibration and nothing more. Feelings can be felt without taking any action or reacting at all.
How To Allow Emotion?
Allowing is a skill you have to learn and practice. It is not the same as reacting to emotion. It's not the same as pretending it's not there. Let's say you're feeling angry. When you allow the feeling of anger without resisting, reacting, or avoiding it, you will notice it by observing it with compassion.
The easiest way to do this is to describe the emotion in detail. Write it down. Ask yourself, "what am I feeling? Where is it in my body? How do I know I am feeling it rather than another emotion? What Is specific about this one?" Then, instead of trying to get rid of it, breathe it in. Allow it by opening your heart up to it. Move toward it. Know that you can handle the emotion. It's just a vibration in your body.
Often, you will feel your body wanting to tighten up against it. That's OK- release it. Let the emotion be heavy or buzz or vibrate or agitate. Whatever the emotion needs to do in your body, allow without suffering. As soon as you're observing and describing the emotion, feel yourself soften. Accept the emotion without judgment and notice.
It's like the metaphor of carrying around a heavy purse of emotion for as long as it takes. This skill is one of the most important you will ever learn. Once you are good at it, it can completely change your relationship with yourself and all the people you contact because you won't be reactive but rather the compassionate observer.
What Are The Feelings You Want To Create?
Because everything we do is based on how we think it will feel, it becomes important to think about what we want to feel. We can't create any feeling we want to create regularly.
Indulgent Emotions — The most common indulgent emotions are worry, confusion, and overwhelm.
The Worst Feeling — When you begin to realize that the worst emotion you can feel is just a vibration, you start to be willing to feel anything- and there's nothing you won't be willing to do to get what you want.
An Overview On Feelings: Negative and Positive
Feelings are a part of the human experience. We have a contrast of positiv and negative feelings that makes all feel possible. If we experienced only positive emotion, we wouldn't even know it was positive. We couldn't be able to appreciate beauty without ugliness.
Despite this, most of us assume that life should be better than it is. We desperately want there to be more good in the world than bad. Many of us feel that our true purpose in life is to conquer all the bad things so we can live in a paradise of good without any evil.
We don't realize that this one belief has caused more pain and violence than has ever been necessary. It has also proven to be impossible. As we use violence, hate, and judgment to reduce violence, hate, and judgment, we inadvertently do the exact opposite.
Some people talk about standing up for themselves and fighting for what they believe in. Most often, what they believe in is kindness and peace. They miss the fact that fighting is actually the opposite of that. I want to introduce you to a new way of looking at the world that will change the way you think and ultimately feel.
Negative And Positive
Consider for a moment that maybe our human experience is supposed to be a balance of positive and negative. If you accept this concept, you will be thrust into a world with much less negative about the negative. Think about it. If we could stop hating the hate, there would be less hate. But how can we overcome injustice if we don't get mad and fight for it?
That is a great question, and your mind might quickly go to all the examples of times when fighting an injustice brought a win-but the win was the balance to the fight. This can apply to big social issues and smaller daily issues. If you understand the balance of emotion, your power in the world and your ability to change it increase tenfold.
We Must Wrap Our Minds Around The Following Concepts And See How They All Work Together
We create the thoughts that create our feelings.
The human experience is a balance of positive and negative emotions.
We have the ability to create and resist emotions.
Evolved Language Has Increased Our Need For Emotional Awareness
Our emotions have evolved as our brains have evolved. Our thinking causes our emotions, so our thinking has become more sophisticated with expanding language, so have our emotions. As our brains move into new territories of thought, we will move into new territories of emotion. This is exciting, but only if we develop our understanding of balance.
If our language and thought patterns convince us that we should be happy all the time and that negative emotion is something to eradicate, we will get lost n thought loops and buffering. Buffering comes from our need to experience more pleasure than pain. When we accept that pain and discomfort are actually a healthy part of the human we can release the need for false pleasure.
If our thoughts cause our feelings, think about how much pain these seemingly positive thoughts have brought to the world:
Parents should be kind.
Parents should provide a lovely upbringing for their children.
People should live to old age.
There shouldn't be hate.
People shouldn't hurt each other.
Weather events shouldn't damage lives.
There should be no mental illness.
Husbands and wives should always be faithful.
There should be no abuse.
These are just a sampling of thoughts that cause so much unnecessary and unhelpful suffering.
The Example Of Abuse
Let's take the last thought: There should be no abuse. But there is abuse. There has always been abuse. Most of us have committed some abuse in our lives. There will always be abuse as long as there are humans.
Accepting this does not put us in a victim mentality-in fact, it does just the opposite. It gives the truth a voice. Instead of hiding it in shame, it becomes more easily discussed and understood. We're under the false impression that resisting abuse and attempting to eliminate it is somehow working to remove it from the human experience altogether. But that hasn't worked and will never work. Human abuse will always exist. So now what?
Emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse are actually more the norm than you would imagine. Many victims make this abuse mean something so terrible that they're unable to move forward. They're filled with hate toward their abusers and shame toward themselves. Resisting negative emotions perpetuates the negative instead of allowing for balance and healing.
Accepting the negative is nothing like condoning it. What it does is bring the negative out in the light of day. Many clients have never spoken f abuse because it isn't supposed to be happening, but it is happening in so many families worldwide. What if we all knew abuse happens as part of the human experience and we all talked about it more openly? We would understand it more, and there would be no shame to compound the suffering.
This applies to all things negative and all things human. Humans are a terrible mess half the time. Most of us know this is true in our lives, but we spend much time pretending it isn't. We hide and resist that part of us in the dark. This pulls us away from consciousness.
Hiding it in shame, it becomes more easily discussed and understood. We're under the false impression that resisting abuse and attempting to eliminate it is somehow working to remove it from the human experience altogether. But that hasn't worked and will never work. Human abuse will always exist. So now what?
Emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse are actually more the norm than you would imagine. Many victims make this abuse mean something so terrible that they're unable to move forward. They're filled with hate toward their abusers and shame toward themselves. Resisting negative emotions perpetuates the negative instead of allowing for balance and healing.
Accepting the negative is nothing like condoning it. What it does is bring the negative out in the light of day. Many clients have never spoken f abuse because it isn't supposed to be happening, but it is happening in so many families worldwide. What if we all knew abuse happens as part of the human experience, and we all talked about it more openly? We would understand it more, and there would be no shame to compound the suffering.
This applies to all things negative and all things human. Humans are a terrible mess half the time. Most of us know this is true in our lives, but we spend much time pretending it isn't. We hide and resist that part of us in the dark. This pulls us away from consciousness. To feel disappointed, even though we know this feeling is optional. We want to feel horrified when the negative happens--not because it shouldn't be part of our experience but also because it is part. We are "given" (for lack of a better word) emotions to feel and experience as we journey on this planet. We want and need the negative ones. We don't want to feel joy all the time--we want to feel the range based on what's happening in the world and how we think about it. Once you accept this, you can live a more conscious life.
What Are The Feelings You Choose?
Positive:
Love
Abundance
Motivation
Focus
Desire
Negative:
Sadness
Pain
Loss
Disappointment
Fear
You can't choose to feel happy all the time, and you shouldn't want to. But you can decide what emotions serve.
Discomfort Is The Price Of Growth
To be happy all the time, we stay away from the discomfort that could help us evolve and inspire us to make our dreams come true. We would be willing to fail epically and try courageously if we accepted that emotional balance means 50% of the time, we'll be on the other side of happiness. That is the normal human experience.
How do we reconcile living a life where we're responsible for what we think and feel while also embracing that half of our life will be hard and painful? Consciously and deliberately. We get to select our emotions on purpose by what we think. This does not mean we should always be selecting emotions that are happy and positive.
Being happy 100% of the time is not the goal. This is a misunderstanding. The goal is humanness, to live the human experience as well as possible, knowing that it includes many contracts on purpose. Choose humanness over happiness to have more peace.
When someone dies, and people will, we want to feel grief, even though we know death is part of the human experience. When someone abuses us, we want to feel angry, even though we know abuse is part of the human experience. When we lose, we want. The emotions we tend to avoid are the same emotions we need to work through to get the results we want.
The Most Common Of These Are...
Discomfort
Deprivation
Urge
Overdesire
Boredom
Dissatisfaction
Failure
Insecurity
Rage
Anxiety
This isn't a complete list, but you get the idea. The unwillingness to stay conscious when these emotions come up is a cause of suffering, addiction, overeating, overdrinking, and behavior disorders. The skill of allowing emotion is something I am passionate about teaching my clients. Discomfort of all kinds is the currency to your dreams.
More on Indulgent Emotions
Allowing emotions is different than indulging in emotions. Sometimes we indulge in emotions as a way of staying stuck you best in this balance between positivity and negativity. Imagine a silver platter filled with emotions. What are the ones you need and the ones you want to feel on purpose?
What about those feelings we don't seem to choose, the ones that come upon us without our permission?
As you go through this process of accepting the balance f emotion, you will feel less accosted by your unwanted emotions, but you will still experience them. The "thought error" and the brain mechanism will repeat for you. Again, this is another human normality.
Unwanted Emotions You Choose To Experience
Consider the unwanted emotions you're willing to experience as part of being human.
Indulgent emotions are the emotions you would be willing to experience, but you might also tend to indulge in them without realizing it.
It's an important distinction—allowing an emotion versus indulging in an emotion. For example, we sometimes need to allow emotions that we would normally resist or avoid. This is important because the negative effect of avoiding and resisting emotion is needless.
The Most Common Indulgences We See Are:
Confusion
Doubt
Worry
Pity
Self-loathing
Anxiety
Defensiveness
Pleasure
Overwhelm
Victimization
These feelings seem important, and it may seem justified to feel them on purpose. But these feelings are the ones that keep us from taking the action we most want to take. These emotions and the thoughts that cause them are the "dream excuses" that curtail our ability to amaze ourselves with the lives we could lead. The way to stop indulging is to go on a diet from these thoughts and feelings. You don't want to allow these emotions to pretend to be necessary for your life.
Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and visit my website for more info!
Susan Salter, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Susan Salter is a thought leader specializing in success coaching and personal styling. After a successful corporate career as an executive working for companies like Bank of America, PayPal, and Barclays, she decided to retire and start her own company, Life Styled By Susan. Through her coaching programs she helps women and men reach their next level of success, whether that's scaling the corporate ladder or becoming their own CEO. Susan believes that in order to be successful you must have a strong mindset and a confident physical presence. Her signature 1:1 and group coaching program, Elevate Your Success, starts with exploring your mind so that you can break free from the negative thought cycles, improve your communication, and build better relationships. Next, she focuses on the external by focusing on how you present yourself, your body language, and how how you dress. Susan is a sought after speaker, and has made it her life's mission to lift up and elevate your success, so that you can achieve your impossible goals.
