Understanding and Dealing with Your Feelings

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Written by Jimmie Burroughs – Email to a friend

“We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.” -Jim Morrison

Feelings are the language of our emotions. Feelings can also be fickle; therefore, we should never put complete reliance in them alone. I just read a technical article written on the emotions and by the time I plowed through all the technical jargon and theories my head was spinning. All we really want to know is how to understand and deal with our feelings. We know that we have a mind, will and emotions and that they are closely connected and that they all function from some part of the brain. That, however, does not help much. What we can do to make a difference in how we feel is an important issue and the purpose of this paper.

All of the different feelings that we have whether they are positive or negative are the voices of some emotion or emotional drive. We have the capacity for feelings for a reason. They can protect us from harm or help to solve problems. Rather than ignore feelings, or try to sweep them under the carpet, it is best to bring them out into the bright sunlight, to determine their meaning. There are three important things to consider for understanding and dealing with feelings:

1. Why, are these feelings present?

2. Do these feelings have a valid message?

3. Dealing with negative feelings

Why, are these feelings present?

For example, why am I having this feeling of fear? First, trace it to its origin and see what is behind it. Here is a good illustration for understanding and dealing with the #1 fear, public speaking. Let us suppose that you have are asked to speak before a group of people, and you are terrified. To gain understanding, you need to explore all the reasons why you feel that way, and list them and think about them. One reason could be that you are afraid you cannot remember what to say, and another could be that someone else in the group may know a lot more about the subject. Perhaps just thinking about it creates a lot of stress, or it could be any number of other reasons that the emotion of fear wants you to believe.

How could you deal the three concerns mentioned above? First write down your thoughts and have them right before you so you can look at your notes when needed. Secondly, prepare well and you will probably know more on the subject than anyone will who has not prepared. Thirdly, realize that stress is an inherent part of public speaking. There will always be some stress when you first get up to speak, but if you can control it for the first few seconds, it will dissipate, and then you can move smoothly through your talk. It is good to feel some stress because it keeps you on your toes and helps you to deliver a better speech. Dealing with other feelings follows this same simple format: understanding why; is it is a valid feeling and learning how best to deal with it.

Another type of feeling could be a low feeling, which we all experience at times, that has no apparent reason. Since there is no obvious reason for the feeling, why are we having it? Feelings often come to get our attention; they tell us that we are off course and need to realign ourselves. I have had a feeling like that this past week, and I began to think on it and try to decide why. It occurred to me that I was spending far too much time behind my computer, and needed to go out more and meet with people more. My jeep had been sitting in the same spot for 4 days. With a little effort, we can usually determine why we are having certain feelings and then take the appropriate action to deal with them.

Do these feelings have a valid message?

There are so many types of feelings; some are valid, and others are not and each requires its own method for dealing with it. I remember the first girl I really cared deeply for; it was not love at the time, but I think it would have been in time. I met her when she was very pretty, sixteen year old and still in high school. We dated regularly but were not dating steady. However, I probably would have been ready to date steady. I was still dating other girls occasionally and did not think too much about whether she dated other boys or not until on our last date when she told me that she was going to date an old friend of mine who had returned from California for a few days visit.

I knew what kind of person my friend was and what his intentions were, and I knew he would be leaving in, a few days, to go back to California, and probably would have little concern for this girl. I told her I did not want her to date him. I knew he was not right for her, but she insisted anyway. I told her fine, but that would be the end of our relationship forever. I realize now that I had no right to threaten her because of something she wanted to do. I know she had the right to date whomever she pleased. Anyway, she still said she was going on the date. I will never forget the awful feeling I had the next morning when I awakened and realized I had lost someone that I cared deeply for. I guess I did not realize how much I cared until I had lost her.

My friend left for California in a few days, and I left for New York where I stayed and worked for about a year. I did well and bought a new red Ford convertible. I came back to my hometown for a visit, and my old girlfriend was still there and still single, but she had now graduated high school. At her request, I took her for a ride in my new convertible, and she expressed her desire to date me again, maybe because of the car. Resisting asking her out was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, because I still cared deeply for her, and she was a beautiful girl. I decided not to ask her out because I knew if it had been so easy to lose her the first time, it would surely happen again, and then I would have to go through the pain of it once more. The way I dealt with these feelings was a decision not to go for it the second time around.

As I look back, that is the very best way I could have dealt with it. I was not setting myself up for the second time around. The problem was, and I realized it, she probably did not feel about me as I did about her, so there was no use in going further with it.

I am so glad now that I made that choice because I met the beautiful love of my life a little later, who loved me and continued true to me for 44 years until she passed away in 2005.

I never forgot the first girl completely, although I knew I had made the best decision. My wife and I went to my hometown occasionally to visit relatives, and I was always curious about the office we passed on our way through town that had the first name of that old girlfriend painted on the door, and I knew it was her trade, or had been when I last knew her. After my wife died, my curiosity got the best of me, so one time when I was there for a visit I stopped and went into the office. I didn’t recognize the lady; it had now been around 50 years since I had seen her, but yes it was the girl, or rather older woman now, that I had last seen when she was only 18 years old. That would make her around mid sixties now.

I told her who I was, and it did not seem to impress her that much, but she did invite me into her office for a chat. I learned she had been divorced and had remarried, and had one grown son. I was thinking yeah that could have been me that she divorced. So once again, 50 years later, confirmation again that I had made the right decision not to date her again. The feelings I had at the time of caring were valid but because they were centered in someone who apparently did not care as much in return, and though the decision of how to deal with those feelings was painful, it turned out to be the best.

Another kind of feeling that requires a different method of dealing with is grief, which is also a valid feeling. We may wonder why we must have grief. I lost my best friend for life and my loving companion, my wife, in June of 2005. I cannot begin to tell you the depth of the loss I felt. The feeling was different from all others before it, and since; it cut deeply to the very core of my existence. This was not the kind of feeling to deal with and get past in a day. No, it would take a solid two years to get past the worst and then another three years to get back to a reasonable existence. The truth is I feel I will never completely get over it, but I am now able to live my life with purpose and to carry on.

Grief is a different emotional feeling, because it is like a medicine that heals a broken heart. While it does works slowly, in time it works well. Grieving is important; when it takes its natural course, it will eventually bring you out at the end of a dark tunnel into the bright sunshine of life again.

Yes, there are many different types of emotions and many different ways of dealing with them. Sometimes they are there to bring our life back into alignment with our purpose, or to do their job to protect us from harm or bring us to a solution for a problem. Feelings for the most part have a positive purpose and are in our best interest, but there are times when they do not serve our best interest because they are either unfounded or negative. Probably negative feelings that have no rational purpose are the most common for most people; understand them for what they are. They are invalid and do not serve our best interest. Negative feelings are a prime example of invalid feelings.

Dealing with negative feelings:

Trying to put negative feelings out of mind does not work it only reinforces them. What we must do is to redirect the negative feeling to a positive feeling. A negative person has built up a stronghold of negative feelings that have taken over their personality.

Let us get back to the idea of redirecting a negative feeling into a positive one. Someone used the following illustration on how to use chaining, which is a memory technique, to redirect negative feelings. I use the chaining memory technique, and I know it works. Here is how it works to redirect a negative feeling: Let us say you have a negative feeling “I’m an idiot.” Using the chaining technique in conjunction with vivid images, we would dress ourselves up as a clown in our mind, with a dunce hat of course, and start jumping up and down, hollering’ like a dork, “I’m an idiot”. There are people, all around us, applauding, and someone in the crowd tosses us a light bulb, which we screw right into the top of our head. It begins to glow until it is very bright, and it is blinding to the crowd. We then begin to jump up and down and scream that we are very bright. The idea is that when we entertain the negative feeling that we are an idiot our mind immediately transfers the thought to the adjoining image on how bright we are.

I know what you are thinking; that is so stupid! Yes, it is, but the brain responds to unusual, stupid things better. Our purpose is to get our mind to transfer the negative thought automatically to a positive one, and the brain will respond if so directed. If this sounds too stupid to try, I want to tell you a true story from the Bible. A man with leprosy came to Jesus for healing, and Jesus told him to go dip himself in the Jordon River 7 times and receive healing. The man went away angry refusing to do such a stupid thing. However, one of his servants convinced him to try anyway, so he did and received healing. Had it not been for that servant, he would continue to be leprous, and would have rotted away with the disease.

Therefore, it is with each of us; if we are not willing to try to change our negative feelings, we will have to suffer the result of them, which can limit our success and contentment in life drastically. If a person transfers one reoccurring negative feeling, then he also will be able to do the same with another and another, etc.

Conclusion:

The main objective in dealing with feelings is to determine why they are there, and if they are valid, and the best way to deal with them. Sometimes they must run their course like the feeling of grief; other times we need to make some adjustments in our lifestyle and then sometimes we need to reason out whatever method that best suits the feeling and then deal with it, which in some cases may be just letting it die.

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