Feelings 101 - The Language of the Heart

It is amazing to me how little we are taught about our feelings. As a child, I spent hours figuring out how to add two numbers together and practising the skill repeatedly. But if you ask me what a feeling is, I have to draw on my experience with holistic health and spiritual teachings, most of which I gained as an adult. Feelings are so integral to our everyday life, I think it makes sense to learn as much about them as we can.

I guess we don't learn about feelings because there aren't easily explainable and there are so many different theories about them. Quite frankly, people can't even seem to agree upon a definition for feeling nor how it differs from an emotion. There are different linguistic, neurological, psychological and spiritual definitions. Since, I'm going to talk about feelings, I'm going to have to give a definition, and it's going to be my own. I've seen similar definitions to my own elsewhere but I can give no scientific evidence for my definition - it's just one that works for me.

Physical feelings are your brain and body giving you information about the world around you. Emotional feelings are also information about the world around you, but instead of giving you the perspective of your body, your basic emotional feelings give you the perspective of your heart. In other words, your feelings are the language of your heart. Remember that none of the feelings are bad or good in of themselves. Each type of feeling, when treated respectfully, creates a different type of heart-based reaction. For example, fear keeps us safe, anger creates motivation, and grief allows us to let go. Now before you start telling me that your feelings are not giving you accurate guidance, let me explain one more piece of the puzzle.

I used to be really confused about feelings. How can I trust my feelings when I know that they can get me into trouble? How do I know my fear is reasonable, when I can be afraid of something as simple as picking up the phone and calling someone? How can I make a choice based on my joy and excitement when I have been excited about things that have eventually created such pain for me? It took a lot of introspection for me to come up with an answer. It seems that your feelings can only give you accurate guidance when your mind is focused on the present. So often though, we observe something clouded with our past experiences, or we make up a future story about what something will mean. I'm afraid to make a phone call, not because it is dangerous to me but because past phone calls have been painful to me. And the joy I have felt about a choice was not a reality of the choice itself, but an indication of how I feel about everything I imagined that choice would lead to.

Some teachers give the name emotion to these feelings mixed with thoughts. But whatever you want to call it, most of the feelings the average person has are based on some sort of past or future bias. It's no wonder we don't trust our feelings! I imagine that once a person has the ability to truly live in the present, that person can fully rely on their heart to guide their lives. So what does that mean for the rest of us in the meantime? When you want to know how you feel about something, be aware of how much past or future bias you have about it, and focus on the present reality of the thing. And if all else fails, we fortunately have another indicator that can be helpful. This is where the gut feeling comes in. Your gut can give you a quick yes or no feeling on whether the object of your attention is in service to your heart or not.

It takes time to learn to listen to your heart. Both your feelings and gut instinct have a wonderful role to play in helping you towards that goal, as long as you understand what they are and how to use them.

Image: Iamnee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

© Amelie Rossignol and Heart Answers, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amelie Rossignol and Heart Answers with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.