Human mind is curious. It has a desire to know, to analyze; to control; to form opinions, beliefs and judgements. Our mind is an amazingly powerful tool, but it needs constant feeding. And to satisfy its hunger it’s in constant analytical mode. Relating everything around with what has been learnt or perceived.
Feelings on the contrary, are ingenuous. They arrive naturally without warning. They are bothersome, inconvenient and hardly make sense. And that’s why we often choose to think over feel. Because it’s rational, socially acceptable and right thing to do.
Though complicated and confusing, feelings are essential part of being alive. They drives us, they make us human.
Feelings – makes you more human
Thinking is productive, thinking is logical, thinking makes sense. Feelings many a times is neither of these. They are often jumbled up together. One feeling contains many thoughts. That’s why they frighten us and we try to avoid them. But in actual, no matter how discomforting these feelings might be, they are what make us human. They connect us to the world around us. Unlike thoughts, feelings are neither right or wrong. They are just feelings, our natural response to the experiences we have been through.
It’s our feelings that makes us notice the tiny glimmers of joy that we see around us every day. For example, to our rational mind, rain is just a natural cycle of weather. Which happens around the same time every year. But our feelings connects us to the earthy smell of the soil that every downpour brings in. They bring all the joyous memories of our childhood with every splash of rain. While thoughts favours reasoning, feelings however, are a gateway to the soul. Because they bring smile to our face and tears in our eyes.
Feelings – an encounter with our true self
Feelings connects us more deeply with ourselves. When we let ourselves feel every emotion without judging them, we become totally aware of ourselves. So don’t think about emotions, just feel them. Thoughts often criticise emotions, they label them right or wrong; good or bad; positive or negative. Further our thoughts associates us with our feeling, so you become what you feel. And no one wants to be a sad or angry person. We all want to be just happy. So any emotion other than happiness in unwelcomed.
Over analysing every emotion disconnects you from your true self. On the other hand when you take a pause and look inside, you see all jumbled emotions will detangle one by one. When you lean to accept every emotion without labeling them, you start to open yourself, layer by layer.
Feelings – looking around with a fresh perspective
Thoughts are perception, feelings are experience. It’s the feelings that make our routine commute a new experience everyday. Feelings engage our senses and open multiple ways to experience the world around us. Our learnt brain is conditioned to see thing around as a collection of “set things”. That’s why to our schooled mind there is a monotony in patterns. But if you pay close attention to your emotions, then everyday and everything changes based on how you feel on a particular day or at a particular place. Feelings gives you a sense of place, they make you feel connected, they make you feel home.
Every emotion that we experience is a perfect part of this imperfect life. Life revolved around thoughts and feelings. Some situations demand awakening your thoughts and some moments awaits your feelings to respond.
"A mind can be empty of thoughts but a heart can not be void of feelings." - Raheel Farooq