Thoughts and Feelings

One thing on my mind lately is how do you know when you can trust your thoughts and feelings?  Now, keep in mind I am far from ‘perfect’ with this, but I think I am getting better with it. Here are my thoughts on the topic.

For me, in addition to the wild emotional ride, I also have a strong analytical part to me. So over the last twenty or so years, I have taken to analyzing myself. The last few years, I have come to start analyzing ‘why’ I do things, ‘how’ I think, ‘why’ I feel certain ways at certain times, etc.

So, I have developed a bit of a ‘baseline’ understanding of myself and an acceptance of at least some of my strengths, weaknesses, ‘flaws’, etc. (In some cases it took decades of people ‘hammering it into me’ before I finally did accept certain truths.)

I have started getting to a point where I can mentally ‘Gibbs’ myself when I start going toward a thought or feeling that I know is not true.

For example, recently I had a series of rough meetings at the office. My lead was not there and my customer was NOT happy at all, so I took the brunt of her displeasure. I knew that part of the reason they were NOT happy was because of mistakes, real not imagined in this case, that I had made over the last few weeks.

I started to feel like I was a total failure, screw up, etc. but I was able to ‘Gibbs’ myself. I was able to tell myself “NO” that is not true, it is just a feeling and one that does not reflect the truth. I was able to use the things that friends, family and co-workers have drilled into me over the years and that I had accepted as truth. I was able to look back at where I was and some of the things I had accomplished and compared them with the way I was started to feel. Once I did that, I saw that I could not trust my feelings at that point.

Another thing I have come to believe is that when I have a really intense emotion or feeling, that more often than not it is not completely accurate, because most things in life fall in the middle. So when I have a really intense feeling, I do not trust it. I am firmly agree with the old advice of not making any important decisions when you are experiencing extreme emotions, because more often than not, you will choose wrong.

With more moderate feelings, I rely on past experiences, checks against my values and beliefs and at times just my gut. I try not second guess every feeling or thought. When it comes to more moderate feelings and thoughts, I know I will get some right and I will get some wrong. I also figure, then when things are moderate feelings or thoughts, if I am wrong, it will not be a disaster most times.