Five Facts About Your Feelings
I am, by nature, a feelings person. I like talking about deep feelings with others. I enjoy taking a look at them one at a time, analyzing them from all sides with curiosity. And of course, as a therapist, I love helping others identify and understand their own emotions. I’ve clocked quite a few hours in conversations about feelings and have spent many more contemplating my own. And sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if we are tempted to misunderstand the purpose of our feelings or misuse them in a way that may bring more harm than help. So, to get this conversation started, let’s discuss five facts about our feelings:
Feelings are not facts – Sometimes people get feisty when I talk about this one because it sounds as though I am saying that their feelings are not valid. Feelings are absolutely valid and real. But there is a significant difference between feelings being real and feelings being true. We may have very good reasons for feeling inadequate, alone, or powerless. But these feelings do not tell us the truth about who we are or our situation. Our feelings matter and need to be understood, but the voice of truth also matters. Being able to use the truth about our significance and security to speak to our feelings is one of the most important skills we can practice in our emotional healing.
Feelings are meant to be shared….not given away – Our feelings connect us with others in an important and intimate way. Vulnerability forges connection unlike anything else. However, vulnerability is best served with boundaries – boundaries around when, how, and with whom we share. Often, we are tempted to share our feelings in a way that makes others responsible for regulating them. We offer our heart to someone else in hopes that they will say or do the right thing to solve our pain. Unfortunately, while we can share intimately with one another, other people cannot fix the pain we carry in our own hearts. We are wise instead to maintain responsibility for speaking truth to our feelings as we share them with others.
Feelings are clues – While feelings are not facts, they are clues! Our emotions serve as valuable information into significant parts of our stories and relational dynamics that may need to be looked at in a different way. Identifying our emotions is often the first step to healing. As one of my colleagues always says, “We cannot change what we will not name.”
Feelings are different than reactions – Often, we will notice our reactions, or secondary emotions, before we will detect our primary emotions. Our primary emotions are the messages we have internalized about our identity or sense of safety (i.e., alone, insignificant, helpless, defective…). Secondary emotions are reactions to those primary emotions and it is easy to confuse the two because sometimes these reactions look and feel like emotions. It’s easy to notice our anger or anxiety because these secondary emotions are accompanied by physiological responses. But when we see these reactions rising within us, we are wise to pause and ask ourselves about the lie we believe about our identity and sense of safety. Reactions are always an indication that a primary emotion has been triggered. We just need to figure out which one!
There is no such thing as “negative emotions” – Certainly there are feelings that are unpleasant to feel. But labeling particular feelings as “negative” can imply that there are feelings we should not feel or that we are defective if we feel those emotions. I’ve learned the hard way that even our deepest pain can usher us into a deeper love and there is nothing negative about that!
Feelings matter. And when we use them properly, they can be tremendous vehicles of hope, connection with others, and healing. So let’s take them out one at a time. Let’s be curious about each one, examining them from all sides. Let’s take responsibility for speaking truth to them as we share them with others in meaningful and healthy ways. And let’s be expectant for the ways God uses our courage to draw us closer to others and to Himself.