Evaluate Your Feelings

Evaluate Your Feelings: Discover What Happens in You

by Leonard Jacobson

Feelings and Healthy Response

Feelings are just energies arising within you. They have a message to deliver. They indicate an appropriate response to whatever is occurring in the present moment. They are indicators of what you need or what you want in this very moment.

The simplest example of this is the feeling of thirst. What is the appropriate response to that feeling? Drink! It is so simple. Feeling hungry? Eat. Feeling lonely? Call a friend and meet for lunch. The feelings will arise, and as you respond appropriately, the feeling will subside or dissolve.

But there are more complex feelings. If you feel angry, what is that feeling of anger telling you? Anger has a message – you are either not getting what you want, or you are getting what you don’t want.

What is the appropriate response? Ask for what you want or state clearly what you don’t want. When you respond in this way, anger will dissolve immediately. It will only last a few seconds. After a while, you will recognize that there is no need for anger. Just ask for what you want.

It is the same with the feelings of hurt or sadness. These feelings have the same message as anger – you are not getting what you want, or you are getting what you don’t want. So respond! Express what you want. State what you don’t want.

But most of us have learned to repress our feelings. This begins in early childhood and continues throughout our lives. We finish up with reservoirs of difficult feelings repressed within us, like anger, hurt, sadness, pain, unfulfilled need and fear. Then when a feeling arises in the moment, which invites an appropriate and immediate response, these feelings from the past come flooding in. We are overwhelmed.

The past is projecting onto the present, preventing us from responding to what is actually occurring in this moment. Instead we react, based on what happened to us in the past. This creates so much disharmony and conflict in our lives and relationships.