Thinking and Feeling: different sides of the same coin?

This is my first post on Steemit! I hope it resonates with some. Time will tell, or at least it would if it actually existed!

I wanted to share with you the idea that we live in the feeling of your thinking. The reason why I want to share this with you is I find it to be of immense value, not only in my own life but in the lives of people I work with or otherwise come into contact with.

It is easy to assume that life is something which happens to you. How often have you thought your life would be OK if only you were able to get that promotion you've been hoping for, if your partner understood you better, if you didn't have that debt ... Most of us are going through life under a misconception. That is: we think we live in the feeling of our circumstances. Circumstances don't create feelings, thinking does that. So, it's only when you think about your circumstances do you get feelings. So feelings only allow you to know about the lens you are viewing life through.

Does that mean perception is an inside job?

Very much so. The vast majority of us continually get caught up in the outside-in misunderstanding. We believe we see the world as it is. We aren't set up to see the world that way, we don't have the ability or the apparatus to do that. Although it seems for all the world to be the case. What we project onto the world is what we see.

"Thought creates our world and then says: 'I didn't do it.'" - David Bohm, physicist

What does that mean?

Well, it means once you begin to realise that you live in the feeling of your thinking, you can always have a different experience of life. All you need to do is to wait, allow yourself to be quiet knowing that a fresh thought will arrive soon enough. I believe that all you have to do is look in the direction of how experience is created and by default your experiences will be different. Which means there is nothing for you to do. There is nothing for you to do because you are designed for life. You are programmed to have the best life possible and everything you need to be able to do that, you already have. More of that in a future post.

My invitation ...

... is this, humour me. For the remainder of today; just allow yourself to look in the direction of how experience is created, through thoughts. But don't try to do anything. There is nothing for you to do. Just see if you can get the sense that your feelings are coming from the way you are thinking in the moment.

Anxiety and the truth

Ever since I could remember, having to approach management, have them approach me or if I had a challenging situation to deal with, I would get this awful feeling in my stomach. A feeling of being intensely frightened, like being kicked by a horse in the stomach. My heart would thump in my chest, make the time feel like it was going very fast, increase the speed and amount of thoughts going around in my head. Thoughts trying to convince me that what I was doing was wrong and that I was stupid; which in turn would elicit defensiveness if the other party attempted to express a view which was not in alignment with my own narrowed view.

I tried all kinds of things to alter this. I tried to be friendly with those people before hand and build rapport, I'd try smiling, talking more quietly, be careful not to come across as being brash or too assertive. None of these strategies worked. Strategies seldom do and in my case made matter far worse. My biggest breakthrough came when I started to look in the direction of how reality and perception are created. I can't begin to tell you how my experience has changed and the best part is, the less I do to create the best situation, the better the situation flows.

Once I had seen that my experience was only coming from one place. From the thinking I was having and not from what was happening around me or to me. My thinking which allowed me to believe that the other person would hate me for expressing concern/making a complaint/highlighting an issue/asking for a refund. My thinking which kept telling me the story of how I was being unreasonable. My thinking about how people wouldn't understand what I was saying and that I'd have to drive my point home until they saw it.

Letting go of strategies

When I started to let go of the strategies I had devised and collected since I was a child, I was able to see the merits of each situation. I was able to be myself beyond the thoughts of who I thought I was (which is all ego is, food for another post there). We all employ strategies. Some are better than others. But the more I align myself with the truth of how reality is created, the more I can see. The more I see, the more I am the me beyond thoughts and thinking and the more authentic I can be. And the less I need to rely on strategies.

I hope you have enjoyed what I've written. But most of all, I hope you get something from it.

"Remember – and this is very important – you’re only one thought away from happiness, you’re only one thought away from sadness. The secret lies in Thought. It’s the missing link that everybody in this world is looking for… " - Syd Banks

With love and best wishes, Kevin