Feelings - Should We Control, Ignore Or Give in to Them? How About None of the Above?

"The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool."
George Santayana

Feelings play a special role in building a life you love. They serve as a compass that can guide you toward the right goals, but they can also gather up into a heavy burden that might stop you. Behind everything you do - or avoid doing - are your feelings. If you find you're often stopping yourself, or if you just don't know what direction to take or even what you really want, all you have to do is listen to, and understand, your feelings.

They're always talking to you. They know what you want and what you need. Are they always right? Not always. Sometimes they mistake the present for the past. At those times, the fear or anger or hurt you feel doesn't belong to today. Something has triggered them. Now they're making everything more difficult to do, and your attempts to talk yourself out them, trying to believe in yourself aren't working. Your tricks for overcoming procrastination aren't working either. Nothing will work until you deal with resistance and it's based in those feelings that are weighing you down.

As you might already know, there are ways to send feelings about the past back to where they belong so you can see today with fresh vision. The problem is, you can't use reason or logic to do it.

Reason and logic are latecomers to human development. Feelings have been with us longer and remain far more powerful. Happiness and hurt, fear and anger have all been put inside us by nature to protect us and keep our species alive. They're in operation every moment of every day, driving us to act - or to avoid action. The expectation of pleasure or safety draws us towards achievement, love, shelter. The apprehension of pain or danger pushes us away from snarling animals and unfamiliar territory. And sometimes it pushes us away from happiness. And achievement.

For the most part, feelings do an admirable job of keeping us away from danger and sending us toward nourishment and affection. But they become increasingly tangled when we move into more complex areas. Linden sends primitive reactions into more subtle, modern situations so, although our survival is in no real danger, we cringe at the risk of rejection when we present an idea; we wince at telling a subordinate that he's not doing well; we give up our dreams rather than feel the guilt of becoming happy when someone else isn't.

Often, we're completely unaware of the feelings at work in our attempts to go after a life we love and we make the mistake of applying logic to these issues. The result is confusion After all, there's no logical reason to avoid rejection or criticism or happiness. They won't kill you - right?

Tell that to your feelings.

No, you can't ignore your emotions. They're powerful and primitive and must be dealt with. If you already know how, take care of business. If you don't, watch this space.

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Barbara Sher

Author, Live the Life You Love

http://www.geniuspress.com