How do you feel about feelings?  Take a moment now as you inquire.  Give it some time.  

Was your first reaction to think about feelings?  If so, you’re not alone.  For many of us, trying to make sense of our experience is part of how we make meaning.  But trying to take care of a feeling by thinking about it is like trying to comb your hair with a carrot.  It doesn’t make any sense, but it only becomes apparently strange when we stop long enough to realize what we’re doing.  We really do behave in such bizarre ways when it comes to dealing with feelings, but perhaps we can learn to see the awkwardness of our actions as evidence of HOW we are feeling rather that WHAT needs to be done.    

When we have a feeling, so often our reaction is to think about it.  It’s the chain reaction that is built into our basic human biology and bottom-up processing:  our bodies register sensory input physically, and this input can give rise to common emotions like fear, pleasure, anger, sadness, and disgust.  By the time the conscious brain comes online as registering awareness of the feeling, we may have already enacted a reaction.  Let’s look at a few examples–See friendly face and . . . smile.  Even thinking about a beloved pet or dear friend can evoke this response.  Here’s another one:  hear shrill siren and jump.  Or another:  smell garbage truck and facial expression might read, “yuck.”  No need to feel bad about it, as these biological reactions are imperatives, designed to keep us safe and comfortable.  Our emotions are functional in that they promote curious exploration and dissuade us from putting ourselves at risk.  In these ways, we come to experience pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral conditions through our bodies, our gateway to understanding when we’re in a state of balance and homeostasis.  Thinking aside, we feel at peace when conditions allow and suffering when other causes are at play. 

There’s no problem with thinking, but we often forget that feelings come first, and thoughts come online much later in the chain of events.  So many things are possible in the mind, though our emotions might tell us another story entirely.  I’m reminded of the song by Roger Miller, You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd.  (If you’ve not heard it, the entire raucous and rambling celebration of these truths is linked here.)  As the song continues, he enumerates other oddities of the imagination such as trying to shower in a parakeet cage, fishing in a watermelon patch, and even trying to change film in a camera with a kid on your back.  Impossible.  However, he reminds us that, despite the many absurdities we humans attempt and the nonsense we enact in service to our rational thought, we DO have the ability to take care of our feelings of happiness. It’s simply a matter of using the right tool for the job.

Could we relieve ourselves of the pressure to process, and just start by feeling the feeling?  Letting go of the stress around figuring out while just being in our bodies?  Sensing through our senses?  Might we just start by recognizing, “how am I?”  rather than launching into action?  Our brains are wonderful devices for planning, changing, analyzing, and fixing, but sometimes that’s not what’s called for.  When we see our reactive tendency to cogitate our emotions, just knowing this is good news:  1.  The mind is working, and 2.  The mind’s job is to think.  So, rather than criticizing ourselves for thinking about feelings, we can use this awareness in the brain as a mindfulness bell, waking us up to remembering that we are now aware of our feelings and simply wish to find relief from suffering.  No fixing required.  What a relief!  Now we can put down the carrot we were going to use to solve that tangle.