Introduction
This post is about thinking vs. feeling, and starts with a thought-provoking quote about thinking vs feeling. It then presents the limits of thinking and the value of feeling. Next, it describes four types of feeling and practices for each type. This post concludes with a summary of the differences between thinking and feeling, and a call to action that encourages you to reach out to me if you would like to develop your ability to feel and experience its benefits.
Thinking vs. Feeling
A Quote About Thinking and Feeling
Let’s start with a quote about thinking vs. feeling from Walk in Balance: The Path to Healthy, Happy, Harmonious Living by Sun Bear:
The problem with people’s ability to think and not feel is the crux of much of the dilemma upon our Earth Mother today. If people would learn to feel the life force and energies of our planet, they would be better able to understand why we must take better care of the earth and our environment…
Learning how to feel is hard, mainly because of the whole conditioning that society has put on you to make you think instead of feel. People are taught to accept nature as something you walk over and just take from. To native people, all parts of creation are living intelligent beings with feelings of their own.
The Limits of Thinking and Value of Feeling
There are limits to thinking and value in feeling. First, let’s look at the limits of thinking. Thinking is something we choose to do. It tends to be a private, solitary activity instead of a social exchange at first. It happens only in our minds, not in any other part of our bodies. At its best, it’s rational. It uses logic. Logic is about using our language to express mostly abstract ideas. Often, our abstract ideas have little, if anything, to do with reality. Simply put, thinking is narrowly limited to words.
Most important of all, thinking, especially rational thinking, lacks any degree of empathy. Logical thinking leaves no room for empathy. That said, this blog post is made possible by the act of thinking and expressing my thoughts in words. Now that we’ve considered the limits of thinking, let’s consider the value of feeling.
The Value of Feeling
Feeling is inherently social. We don’t choose them. They happen immediately in response to stimuli that usually come from outside our bodies. The stimuli can be from other humans talking to us, touching us, or giving us something. The stimuli can come from pets and other animals. Plants, such as flowers, can stir up feelings. Thunder, lightning, high winds, and heavy rain can stir up feelings. Music and countless other experiences can stimulate our feelings. They can also be responses to what we think about in our minds.
Our feelings are concrete, not abstract. What stimulates them is concrete. How we feel them in our bodies is concrete. We feel them before we think about them and express them in words. Some of our feelings are painful, others are pleasurable. Feeling our own feelings makes it possible to empathize with other humans and all living beings. Being able to empathize with others enables us to be kind toward them, especially when they are in need.
Understanding the value of feeling opens the door to learning about four types of feeling and practices for developing our ability to feel.
Four Types of Feeling and Practices for Each Type
The four types of feeling are emotional, physical, energetic, and intuitive. Let’s look at each type and practices for developing our ability to feel them.
Emotional Feelings
Emotional feelings are responses to upstirrings of our human spirit. There are ten basic emotions: anger, guilt, fear, contentment, disgust, desire, disappointment, gratitude, sadness, and gladness. We tend to feel these in our heart, not our physical heart, but our emotional heart beneath our breastbone. They can radiate up into our throat and face as well as down into our stomach, genitalia, and sphincter. Both external and internal stimuli stir up our emotions. An example of an external stimulus that stirs up anger is being falsely accused. An example of an internal stimulus that stirs up fear is imagining the worst possible outcome in the future.
The best way to practice feeling our emotions is to notice where we feel them in our bodies, allow ourselves to feel them instead of suppress them, mentally recognize which one or mix of the ten emotions we’re feeling, and verbally express them. For information about emotional distress, click here.
Physical Feelings
Physical feelings are responses of our human spirits and physical bodies to internal or external stimuli that are either pleasurable or painful. Examples of internal physical feelings include feeling hungry, thirsty, tense, antsy, or horny. Examples of external stimuli include being touched or hit, hearing a sound, smelling something repulsive, or tasting something that puts a smile on our face.
Most of us feel our physical feelings automatically. We don’t need to practice and learn how to feel them, except in certain situations like sports activities, weight training and other exercises, military training to increase our tolerance of pain, and any kind of physical health problem that interferes with our ability to feel pleasure or pain.
Energetic Feelings
Energetic feelings are about feeling energy. The energy is external and subtle. Examples of energetic feelings include feeling someone staring at you, sensing someone getting inside your personal space, sensing someone following you before you see them, feeling drawn toward a person or place, picking up on the vibe of a place or crowd, and feeling the mood or emotions of another person without them telling you about how they feel.
Practices for feeling energy include recalling times when you had any of the experiences described in the paragraph above. You might also try this to heighten your awareness of energy:
Clap and rub your hands together briskly for one minute. Stop. Relax your hands and slowly move your palms about six inches apart. Allow your fingertips to bend toward each other.
Attend to what you feel as you slowly draw your hands a little further apart. You might feel a slight tingling in your fingers and a subtle pull between your hands. Slowly move your hands closer together and attend to what you feel. You might feel a ball of subtle energy between your hands. Continue to play with the energy between your hands by slowly drawing your hands further apart and then bringing them closer together again. Learn more about feeling energy here.
Intuitive Feelings
Intuitive feelings are wordless knowings we usually feel in our emotional heart, like our emotions. Examples of intuitive feelings include–
* Feeling that you’re forgetting something but we don’t know what it is until it pops into our mind.
* Having a felt sense of who’s calling or texting before we check.
* Sensing that something is wrong with someone we’re emotionally close with and having it confirmed when we talk with them.
* While we’re shopping, we sense that we should get something that wasn’t on our list, dismiss it, and later regret that we didn’t get it.
Practices for honing your intuitive feeling ability begin with recalling times when you had experiences like those listed above. Did you trust or dismiss them? Then practice being aware of new intuitive feelings as they arise. When they arise, trust them and take appropriate action. Learn more about intuition here.
Summary
Note that these four types of feelings usually happen prior to our thoughts. Our feelings come first, before our thoughts. One exception to this is when our feelings are stirred up by our thoughts; for example, when we imagine the worst possible outcome about a future event.
Note as well that we don’t choose or control our feelings. They just happen. They happen automatically before we think about them.
Notice as well that our thoughts often dismiss, downplay, and view our feelings negatively, even though our feelings play a huge role in keeping us safe. Our feelings keep us safe by informing us about what’s happening and fueling our response to keep ourselves and others safe. In other words, our feelings are more valuable than we often think.
If you want to work on improving your ability to feel all four types of your feelings, schedule an Initial 30-Minute Consult with me and let’s get started!