Monday, September 20, 2010

WHY we have Feelings:

In order to discuss our Feelings we need to agree on the meaning of "Feelings"; at least for this post. Feelings can have many different meanings - "I feel cold", "You hurt my feelings", "Did you feel that?", "How do you feel today?". I have also been told that LOVE is a FEELING. I think the best way  to define what this post is about is to call it our "Emotional Feelings" - "You hurt my feelings." In a earlier post I talked about our Feelings originate from one of two Emotions - Love or Fear (August 26 post). It is these Emotional-Feelings that this post is about.




Our Life does not come with an instruction book or manual on how to deal with these Feelings. Our many feelings can change quickly or can persist for a length of time. Our Feelings can be our biggest challenge to understand and to utilize in a productive manner. Why do we Feel bad? Why do we feel good? What is the purpose of our FEELINGS?


Classical Science:

Science tells us that it is our Brain that produces and releases different chemicals into our body that produces our many different feelings. I believe that these chemicals are a byproduct of our Feelings, it is our Feelings that cause the production and release of these chemicals. The reason why I say this is that science has yet to actually reproduce these Feelings. The chemical industry tries to control our Feelings with what we call "Uppers & Downers" and the best they can do is to mask our Feelings with an artificial Feeling. When the "Upper or Downer" wears off, our original feeling returns, and we try to cover over with more chemicals.

The original Feeling remains! 

The artificial chemicals produces a artificial feeling that is a residue of the FEELING that would normally produce the actual chemical. This is why I think it is the FEELING that produces the chemical and not the chemical producing the FEELING.




Our FEELINGS are how we experience the moment or what some call the NOW!

 It is through our Feelings that we experience LIFE and our own Life. Without our Feelings we would live our Life robotically and we would actually experience little if anything. It is our Feelings that is the unknown factor in this mechanical physical reality. Classical Science has a difficult time incorporating Feelings into the calculations of our world. Science has been working on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for some time trying to create intelligence, they are not working on Artificial Feelings. Even Data in the Star Trek show had trouble with his Emotional Chip.


Our Feelings are the connection between this Physical realm that is our body and the Spiritual realm that is our soul!


Our Feelings do not work in isolation or on their own. We need to consider what drives our feelings. Our  Feelings and our Thoughts are closely connected - a thought will trigger a feeling and a feeling will trigger a thought. This connection between our Feelings and our Thoughts can be a clue as to how our Feelings work. Without getting into what triggers what, we need to look past both Feelings and Thoughts to see what triggers both. Can this be our "STATE OF MIND" that triggers both out Feelings and our Thoughts?





STATE OF MIND:


What do I mean by our "state of mind"? I believe this is where our two emotions come into the picture - Love & Fear. We often interpret these two emotions in their extreme states - Love is often seen as a blissful state of union, Fear is often seen as the classic fight or flight setting. Both of these emotions have many times many different degrees to them. ANY state of caring or discernment is a degree of Love, ANY state of vulnerability or judgment is a degree of Fear. Love is the state that connects us to the state of ONENESS, Fear is the state that connects us to the state of SEPARATION.

Our state of mind is when we are in a mental state of Love (union) or Fear (separation). With these two states being so different it is easy to see how the state can affect our Thoughts and our FEELINGS.

Our FEELINGS are telling us is what STATE OUR MIND IS IN.

This means we can change our FEELINGS by changing the STATE OF OUR MIND. We do not need to be slaves to our FEELINGS.
Before I leave the issue of our two emotions, I want to make it perfectly clear that both Love & Fear are valuable and a critical part of our BEING. We need both Love and Fear to fulfil our potential. We all desire Love and avoid Fear;

 We need to learn how to work with our Fear!




Whatever triggers our FEELINGS we need to recognize them for what they are - "Our experience of the moment." We need to experience our Feelings in order to fully experience the MOMENT. If we deny our Feelings or hold onto to them we are not going to be able to experience the PRESENT MOMENT. When we try to deny our Feelings the Feeling will continue to surface and will affect how we experience the present. This is also the affect we have when we hold onto our Feelings. Our Feelings need to be EXPERIENCED and then let-go of them, so we can experience the next moment. We cannot experience the PRESENT if we are still experience a Feeling of the PAST.


A good example of this letting-go of our Feelings can be seen in young children. A child can be crying and screaming up a storm over something, then given an ice-cream and faster than the speed of light we have all smiles, with the last of the tears still dripping down the cheeks. Whatever caused the tantrum was immediately gone at the sight of the ice-cream. It is almost like a light switch that is switched on and off.


I have been told that it is easy for children because they have no history to complicate things. To me this confirms the issue of our Feelings. It is not our Feelings that are difficult to deal with, it is our ISSUES that we attach to them that complicates things.

It is this process that people often tell others - "Let it go" or "Get over it". These are easy to say, but is difficult to do without understanding what our FEELINGS are AND why we feel what we feel.





Expectations:

I already discussed our "State of Mind" influence on our FEELINGS but there is one other important influence on our FEELINGS that needs to be discussed - EXPECTATIONS.

We put expectations on our self and on others around us. When these expectations are achieved we feel "Happy" and to some extent "Proud". When these expectations are not achieved we feel "Disappointed or Bad". This is a simplification and our expectations can have many different degrees, much like the emotions of Love and Fear.

How we handle our EXPECTATIONS will  affect how we handle our FEELINGS. Expectations are a form of goals that we want to achieve, and on this level we can see the benefit of having expectations. It is a matter of HOW WE HANDLE our Feelings and our expectations.

How we achieve our goals (expectations) is not always a straight line or achieved in one step. When we have fallen short of our expectations we need to appreciate our step closer to our goal, and not to be disappointed for not reaching our goal. There is an old saying - "It is the journey that is more beneficial than the destination.".

When we remember that we do not have complete control how life will unfold, we need to know that LIFE will have some input into the Life that we experience. This means that our expectations are not always in our complete control, we do the best we can. We need to work towards our expectations without getting overly emotional.



Universal Life-Force (Chi):

The page - Wholeness of LIFE  - I commented about how we are affected by the ENERGY around us and about how we contribute our ENERGY to our environment. Our FEELINGS have a energy signature to them and we put this ENERGY to our surroundings.

This is especially true with our emotions (Love & Fear). It is often said that animals can smell 'Fear', it is not a smell or scent but a ENERGY that the animals can sense.

We can also pick-up Feelings and Emotions from those around us. This is how we can change from having a good day to a day that may not be so good. As an example; We can be Feeling good about our day as we enter our favourite Coffee Shop. At the counter some customer is having a disagreement with the cashier. When we leave the shop with our coffee we may not Feel quiet as good as we did when we entered the shop. We can pick-up some of the ENERGY from the two with the disagreement, and it has affected our Feelings.



Our FEELINGS are how we experience our Life and LIFE around us. What we FEEL is affected by both our "State of Mind" and our "Expectations".

The next post will be on - OUR INTENTIONS.

1 comment:

  1. I read another interesting point about our FEELINGS that I think is true and worth remembering.

    Our FEELINGS are a reflection of our PERCEPTION. When we change our PERCEPTION, our FEELINGS change too.

    It is worth thinking about...

    ReplyDelete