Feelings are more important than thoughts.
The issue is that most do not understand the difference between feelings and emotions; it’s critical to know the difference, and why that matters.
I love to simplify complex stuffs. This particular phenomenon is something which requires constant repeating, because even if one read it last time, it might not have been their turn. Not everyone is ready to hear certain things. This time around it might be.
The main reason this culture is such a wreck is because 99% of us are abused. Here abuse means, we were told who to be instead of being allowed and supported in being who we actually are. Because of this, indoctrination, right from the beginning of life almost everyone gets the gap. The mind/body gap. Feelings, which are of the body, become separated from consciousness, and everyone identifies with their thinking almost exclusively.
We must define the terms. Many people interchange these terms, so to understand what I am saying, my meaning of the terms must be applied. I was speaking to someone about this phenomenon recently, and they shared an article with me that completely reversed the terms as I use them. It’s important to see the phenomenon instead of getting caught up in the words. To understand what I am expressing my definitions need to be used. If a person tries to use their definitions for my terms one will never understand what I am saying.
Feelings: spontaneous reactions of the body to one’s environment. Spontaneous is the key word. Feelings precede thoughts. Feelings are universal. All of us primates have the exact same feelings. For instance, all baby primates feel love for their mother, and feel negative feelings about not being treated well by their mother.
Emotions: are feelings based on thoughts, and or ways of thinking; worldviews. These are the “feelings” we have after a thought we’ve had, or because of our way of thinking. All primates do not have the same ways of thinking about things.
So here we have a major source of confusion for a lot of people. Not only do most not know there is a difference between emotions and feelings, but they also confuse their emotions for feelings. More often than not they think they are having feelings, but really they are only having emotions. It’s very difficult to set such people aright, because they are so convinced they are feeling their feels. They are nearly completely attached/identified with their emotions. What makes this such an issue is that most people do not learn how to think, so all of their emotions are just as faulty as their thinking. This is a legit issue in this culture.
The issue is, that because of the mind/body gap, most do not know how their own body even works. Our body responds to our thoughts the same as it does our environment. For instance, let’s say I witness a car crash, and someone gets hurt. My body will feel badly for this person. Now let’s say I am sitting here at home, and I vividly imagine a car crash in my mind, and someone gets hurt; my body will respond to that the same as it would the actual thing. The intensity of the feeling will only depend on the vividness of the imagination. The first though, is actually a feeling, the latter is an emotion.
It goes something like this. A person has a feeling because something has happened. They don’t like the feeling, or even worse, they have been told this feeling is bad, and they should avoid it, or some such. This is a judgement; it’s thinking. The body responds to the thinking, same as it would the environment, and this creates an emotion. The issue is, once one thinks about their feelings in a judgemental way, like or dislike, it creates an emotion, and then the actual feeling goes out of consciousness. The body, our unconscious, does not check premises. It does not check to see if thoughts are true or not.
This phenomenon keeps a person from experiencing their feelings. It creates a terrible tension, and inner conflict internally. It makes a monkey sick. It is absolutely essential to not have any preferences or judgements about one’s own feelings. All thinking, rationalizing, reasoning, prevents the experience of feeling. In our evolutionary development thinking came after feeling, so I say, feelings precede thoughts. They happen first.
Feelings are for having. They just simply are. They are not good or bad. One cannot, no matter what, change or alter one’s own feelings. It cannot be done by thinking about it. Doing this is just repression. It’s not authentic. Anyone who changes their feeling state by using thoughts is being fake. They are not being real. Thinking will only ever create emotions.
Emotions are for doing. I do things with my emotions in the same way I do things with my thoughts. With my thoughts I can generate any “feeling” I wish. As I’ve said, the issue here revolves around the fact that our thinking can be wrong. It can be very wrong. We can think incorrectly, but our feelings are never wrong. Feelings are just who we are. We can change how we think, but we can’t ever change how we feel. I’m not saying our feelings can’t change, but that we can’t change them by thinking about them.
This brings us to the maturation of feelings. We can allow our feelings to mature by having them. Like I said, 99% of the world has the mind/body gap. We get separated from our feelings quite young. I often say most everyone are children in grown up bodies. They have not matured their feelings, and so quite unconsciously most are acting like children still. Look around. Look how we are just destroying the planet like little children!
Eventually a day comes when the suffering finally gets so bad, that a feeling can no longer remain suppressed, and it will surface. We’ve all had this experience I’m sure. Guess what nearly everyone will do the first time they have an actual feeling, and that feeling is that of their, say three year old self? I say this, because most people I’ve known have been repressed since toddlerhood. They will think something like, “I shouldn’t feel this way because I’m 30 something”.
Now they are right back to having emotions instead of feelings, and are right back to having the gap. Right back to being a narcissist/caregiver. Right back to identifying with that thinking voice instead of their body.
This is the most important thing about this phenomenon. Do not make any decisions whatsoever about what one feels. Never do this. Simply have them. If one has been repressing their feelings since early childhood those feelings are going to feel absolutely ridiculous!
Feel rage? That’s okay. It’s the most natural thing in the world for a toddler to feel rage because of the helplessness of the situation. A toddler generally is actually completely helpless, and all monkeys feel rage when they are helpless. Rage is one of the most repressed feelings because one can’t express it for fear of losing the love one needs. In this culture of accepted child abuse almost all toddlers are abused for expressing rage. They get punished for being authentic. It’s the most commonly repressed feeling that I have seen. The key here, as an adult, is to not actually take any actions because of the feeling; just simply feel it.
Feel suicidal? That’s okay. Just sit in it. Do not make any decisions, or take any actions. Just sit in it. Simply having the feeling will allow it to mature. It’s the most natural thing for a human, who is not being loved, or receiving love, to feel suicidal. It’s a terrible feeling, no doubt, but it is only a feeling. It’s an appropriate feeling due to not receiving the love one needed as a child. All mammals that I know of get suicidal if they don’t get the love they need from their mothers. We aren’t children anymore though, so we don’t want to make good on this feeling like we would if we were a child. Our goal is finally, actually, to just have our feelings.
Feel murderous? That’s okay. Perfectly monkey thing to feel. All primates have this feeling when they are deeply wronged. Again, do not take any actions. Just feel it. Feeling it fully will allow it to mature. We are taught, via thinking, that murder is wrong. It’s true, murder is not necessarily great, but we aren’t talking about murder; we are talking about feelings. There is a huge difference between the two. We simply want to have our feelings; we do not want to make decisions because of the feelings.
Learn, slowly, to simply have the feelings. In this way, it is a lot like thinking. Can we not think about murdering someone who wronged us, without actually taking action on it? This would be an emotion of course, but the principle of it is the same. As adults, we can’t afford to take actions on our feelings anymore than our toddler self could, but as adults we can afford to actually feel them. It’s the same thing in that way. Both feelings, and thoughts, are something we have; they are not who we are.
The average toddler, quite naturally, will feel murderous at some point, and it’s extremely typical to be punished for it, thus creating the gap. He’s not allowed to have his feelings. Toddlers are immature, and so of course their feelings are equally immature. They have no sense of morality at all. Something like the three year old who is just playing with his favorite toy, and then his newest sibling, whom he already does not like, or hates even, comes over and takes his toy. I’ve seen it countless times; this baby will just hit the other baby.
One I’ve seen many times is when the next monkey comes along and robs him of most of his mothers attention; he gets all kinds of what are considered negative feelings, and he only ever gets punished for it. I’ve seen toddlers try to kill their younger siblings for taking his mothers love. He feels rage, and is murderous for the seeming injustice, and is then punished for it. Instead of getting the love he needs, he gets punished for having his feelings.
It goes around and around exactly like that all of most people’s lives. Once they get older, they become their own toxic parent, and punish themselves for their own feelings. They internalize that voice of “reason” regarding their feelings exactly as they were punished to do. This phenomenon has rendered this culture a shitshow. Look around.
Whatever it was when one was given the gap, it will have been about quite negative experiences.
It really is that simple. It’s actually easy to see when simplified. One typically will feel very foolish after figuring it out because it is so simple. One doesn’t go crazy, or let loose, or become so thoroughly engulfed by feelings that they ever actually do anything negative. Most are already doing all kinds of self harm anyways simply to repress the feelings.
If one is afflicted with the narcissist/caregiver phenomenon though, the mind/body gap, it is practically the most difficult thing to do ever. These feelings that have been repressed are powerful. So powerful that most everyone is afraid to have them, so they don’t. Instead they judge themselves for having them, just like their caregivers did.
This is why most everyone is a child in a grown up body. They refuse to mature their feelings by simply just sitting alone in a room and having them. Fear is another powerful emotion that gets constantly repressed. Most everyone is terrified.
TV, drugs, relationships, work, saving the world, on and on, anything at all to avoid the feels. Grandiosity is a favorite of many people to avoid their feelings. Caregiving is another one.
I’m letting ya know. It’s quite fun being in touch with one’s own feelings. It is most definitely worth the inner work. It’s worth every tear. I’ve spent whole years crying almost every day. I promise; it is worth it.
I hope this helps someone see a little more clearly the predicament of their life.
