Article: Feelings

Try this simple true or false quiz to assess your understanding of feelings (answers at the end of the article¹)

We have feelings. If you doubt it, try donning wet swimming trunks straight from the fridge. Or try a jalapeno nasal spray. Or chew a slug (If you’re vegetarian do this gently).

We have feelings. They are a sign of life. Live things have feelings, dead things don’t.

Feelings tell us about our environment, they tell us what’s going on. Our feelings tell us:

• What’s going on around us – our external environment – and lead to observations such as, “Ooh it’s raining”.
• What’s going on within us – our internal environment – and allow us to draw conclusions such as, “I am angry”. Feelings for the internal may tell us about simple physical goings-on such as indigestion, or they may alert us to those more profound goings-on - emotions.

Just as we detect the unborn flatulence within us so we are able to identify our emotions – those movements of inner energy. Feelings allow us to discern emotions – if we take any notice of them.

Sometimes alive people suffer from a partial death of their feelings. I’ve read that leprosy damages the peripheral nervous system. As a result people living with leprosy don’t get warnings from affected areas, even when they are taumatised. Imagine if the smell of burning was the first warning you got that the pan you’d just picked up was burning your fingers. All sorts of problems arise for the person who cannot feel their periphery and their environment. What sorts of problems are encountered by the person who cannot feel their interior – particularly the emotions surging within them?

Because feelings are best at alerting us to changes in our environment (rather than constant conditions) given determined effort or persistent neglect, after a while even the most insistent feelings can become numbness. This applies to our internal environment as much as our external environment.

Once desensitised to our feelings and unaware of our emotions we are vulnerable.

Consider the following (totally imaginary) scenario: Man is afraid. Man has lots to be afraid of – debt, job insecurity, family demands, hostile neighbours, unhelpful colleagues, increasing age, decreasing sense of achievement, red cabbage… Man is so used to living with these fears he is unaware of them. Man is cut up by another man driving whilst using his mobile phone. Man reacts violently (very). Man wonders why.

Being able to suppress feelings and master emotions can be life saving. Would you like your surgeon to be more aware of his emotions or the lay-out of your GU apparatus? What use the pilot who breaks down mid-flight into incapacitating grief because he learns of the death of his budgerigar?

Our emotions are there whether we are aware of them or not. If we don’t feel them and understand them how can we manage them?

Emotional Intelligence (or EQ) is the subject of at least one interesting book. To really get good at understanding our emotions it may be necessary to employ an expert. Alternatively, there are people who are naturally able to discern the goings on in other people (they’re called women) - you could seek the services of one of these.

We have feelings. Our feelings can be good at keeping us aware of our environment, internal and external. Our feelings, particularly for our emotions can suffer from neglect, suppression and desensitisation. We ought to value our feelings and make use of them.

¹ Answers:         Look, I just couldn’t be bothered to include the answers. Alright?