Are Your Feelings – Positive or Negative – Always Valid?
Yes, your feelings are always valid. But understanding them is another matter.
You’ve probably been in a situation where you had an emotional response someone deemed inappropriate or disproportional. You were overreacting, taking it too hard, overthinking it, or what-have-you.
It did not help your situation, did it? Chances are it increased it, or made you more stubborn and deepened the feeling.
What’s more, they might have been correct. You were overreacting, taking it too hard, overthinking it, or whatever. You couldn’t reach that conclusion immediately because you were in the throes of feeling what you were feeling.
That’s because your feelings, positive or negative, are always valid.
Why? Because they belong to you and you alone. There is nobody else inside your head, heart, or soul. Ergo, nobody but you can feel for you. Plain and simple.
However, that doesn’t mean you understand what you’re feeling. Or even why you feel it to the depth that you do.
That doesn’t make it any less valid. But recognizing and acknowledging this fact goes a long way toward greater peace of mind, self-awareness, and mindfulness. And that leads to more empowerment and control.
Visceral reactions are hard to understand
When something happens that evokes a visceral reaction, it’s immediate and impactful. Mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, or all the above – visceral means deep feeling. It’s the most base, animal, crude emotional response, utterly lacking in logic, reason, or intellect.
Understanding when it comes to emotions in and of themselves is a challenge. Emotions – feelings – are complex entities. They’re comprised of both a what and a how that can vary from situation to situation.
Take anger, for example. Anger is the what. But how you feel it will differ depending on the cause. It could be red hot or ice cold. It could be a slow burn or an immediate explosion.
A visceral reaction is pure feeling, with zero intellect. It happens in the moment as a result of something. It occurs when you get into a car accident, get dumped, are fired from a job, learn of the death of a loved one, lose a competition, get into a heated argument, trip over nothing and stumble, or any other trigger you can and can’t imagine.
That’s one of the two issues with visceral reactions. What triggers them is frequently unknown. The second is that what they look like and how the feelings take shape is unpredictable.
They’re hard to understand because they defy understanding. There is little to no reason or logic in visceral reactions.
And you are not the only one who has them. Everyone does, from time to time.
They are feelings. They’re your feelings. And thus, they’re perfectly valid, reasonable or not.
Your feelings belong to you
Good, bad, neutral, or otherwise – what and how you feel is what and how you feel. The only person in your head, heart, and soul is you. Ergo, you’re it. Only you think, feel, intend, and act for you. Nobody else can.
Hence, any feelings you have are just as valid as any thoughts, intentions, and actions you take. Whatever you choose to do is valid.
But that doesn’t mean it’s right, good, or healthy. It just means it is, and that it’s yours.
Feelings are complex entities. And they are rooted in subconscious beliefs, values, and habits. Because they’re partially products of the subconscious, they can be utterly lacking in clarity or understanding.
Why? Because you haven’t examined the habits, beliefs, or values connected to the feelings you have. The subconscious is like background noise. You don’t notice it most of the time – until something shifts that draw your attention.
This is why understanding feelings is part of mindfulness. Because only via conscious awareness are you truly aware. Specifically, self-aware.
Mindfulness of yourself
Mindfulness in this context is conscious awareness. It’s being present, in the here and now, and consciously aware of your mindset/headspace/psyche self. Or in other words – your mind, body, and soul.
When you’re practicing mindfulness, you can ask and answer questions of self-awareness. Questions like what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, and the actions you take connected to all that.
When you’re not being mindful and consciously aware, you’re most likely operating subconsciously via habitual rote and routine. When you do that – and in this world of mass distraction that’s super easy to do – you lose sight of your conscious awareness.
That can lead to visceral reactions. Those involve deep feelings that in and of themselves are challenging to understand.
Mindfulness, however, is the key to understanding your feelings. Because they might seem detached from all else – but they’re not. It’s just that the layers of complexity that feelings include defy logic, reason, and understanding.
Like I’ve said for a long time now – the head and heart (thought and feeling) speak different languages. That can lead to conflict and misunderstanding even within yourself.
Mindfulness can be achieved by pausing, asking in-the-moment questions, and being present here and now. You don’t need to meditate to be mindful – even a minute or two of intentional deep breathing leads to mindfulness.
That, in turn, helps awaken logic, reason, and understanding.
Nobody else can validate you
Finally – no matter what it is you feel – positive or negative – nobody can validate it or you.
That runs contradictory to many society’s beliefs. Everyone is evaluated and judged. Look at how celebrities are raked over the coals, scrutinized, and treated. That’s done to normal people, too.
You are the only one who can be you. Nobody else knows what’s best for you, let alone what’s right or wrong for you.
Please respect that that’s not carte blanche for you to be an asshole or maltreat other people. You get what you give to the universe. If you desire kindness, compassion, and empathy, you must give them.
The point is that what and how you’re feeling is always valid. But that doesn’t mean you understand it, especially in the moment of whatever causes it. Understanding it requires mindfulness, here and now.
Feelings are always valid. But they aren’t always right. Mindfulness helps you know if you are, in fact, overreacting, taking it too hard, overthinking it, or what-have-you. Then, if you are – mindfulness gives you the power to change that.
You’re worthy and deserving of being the best you that you can be. Whatever and however that looks to and for you. You alone can feel and validate your feelings. And you alone can control and change them, too.
Recognizing your feelings and the validity of them isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and understand that feelings are complex and can utterly lack logic and reason, you can use mindfulness to examine and understand them. Knowing that mindfulness makes you consciously aware, here and now, gives you the power to explore, alter, and change any feelings you’re experiencing – while also recognizing they’re valid because they’re yours and yours alone.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. That can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.
Choosing for yourself employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Lastly, the better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can also open those around you to their own empowerment.
To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the four hundred-and-sixtieth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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