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shawn time 12.48.44..11.09.04
long lost friends
evidentally, feelings are important.
specifically, my feelings are important.
news to me.
the past two weeks I have been attempting to listen a bit closer to my feelings. i know i have them. i know that i have HAD them. i just never knew that they should matter at all.
i know it sounds a bit unreal for those of you that are aware of your feelings all of the time. i have, over time, learned to not really listen to feelings. like i said, i know that they are there, but i always was told that your feelings were wrong, or that feelings lie, and that they are not to be trusted.
i have been chewing on this helpful advise: (DISCLAIMER: helpful for me. it may not be helpful for you.)
the advise i received is this: feelings are not right and they are not wrong. they just are. feelings are information about yourself. they exist. they exist for a reason. listening to your feelings is helpful in knowing more about who you. letting feelings inform you is a good thing.
so, the past couple of weeks, i have been asking myself that important question.....
"shawn, how do you feel?"
sounds funny to me.
when i ask myself that, it usually is not hard to have a word to attach to how i am feeling. it really is not too hard at all. what is hard is remembering to ask myself the question. i need to ask myself that question more, and remind myself to ask myself, and remind to remind myself to ask myself......
i have gone for so long pushing my feeling away, or down, or out, or somewhere. thinking always ruled. the mind was always right. everything could be figured out, rationalized. feelings were deceivers and not to be heard or trusted.
thoughts and feelings can co-exist together within me. one does not negate the other. one does not override the other. they just both are there. i can be both a thinker and a feeler.
thoughts and feelings are friends.
long lost friends.
Comments
sheena wrote this at 00.27.35..11.12.04
Here's more food for thought on feelings and thoughts...
emotions are based on belief systems, not the other way around as most people think. It's how the lymbic system works. If something evokes strong feelings it is because it touches a belief system.
Every belief system starts with a single thought that seems to be proven to the point that it becomes 'true' to us, weather it is based in truth or not. This is why we must hold our thoughts up to the light of God's word and see what's really there.
The question that follows "how am I feeling?" (which I agree with you, Shawn, is a very !important question) should be "what does this feeling indicate I believe about myself?". It's a scary question.
