An emotion or a feeling – I will use these terms interchangeably – is simply a vibration that you experience in your body.

It is pretty amazing how many feelings you can experience. The more dialled in to your feelings you are, the better you can describe them with just one word. Here is a list of some emotions that you may feel.

Positive feelings: amused, excited, blissful, confident, serene, courageous

Negative feelings: bored, dreading, agitated, insecure, hostile, scared

Most of us believe that our feelings are involuntary and are a direct result of our circumstance or what is happening in the world around us.

So far, nothing you don’t already know. Here is the most important take away from today’s blog:

Our feelings always come from our thoughts. We don’t have a feeling about a circumstance until we have a thought about that circumstance.

WHAT?

When something happens (a circumstance) it all goes so quickly in our minds that we don’t even realize that it is the thought about that circumstance that creates the intense feeling we get in our body.

STILL DON’T BELIEVE ME?

Let’s look at one particular circumstance and examine a 4 different thoughts or perceptions that one might have about the same circumstance. Each thought will elicit a different emotion.

Circumstance: Your child comes home from weekend with their Dad and tells you that Dad is moving in to his girlfriend’s home.
Thought: He ruined our family by cheating with her.
Feeling: bitterness

Circumstance: your child comes home from weekend with their Dad and tells you that Dad is moving in to his girlfriend’s home
Thought: at least she is nice to my kids
Feeling:calm

Circumstance: your child comes home from weekend with their Dad and tells you that Dad is moving in to his girlfriend’s home
Thought: my kids will want to spend every weekend with them because of her dog and pool
Feeling: worried

Circumstance: your child comes home from weekend with their Dad and tells you that Dad is moving in to his girlfriend’s home
Thought: he is rushing into another marriage..what an ass
Feeling: disgusted

Learning the concept that your feelings are a result of your thoughts is a game changer. It is the best possible news because it can start to give you some authority over your emotional life.

How you think about any neutral circumstance or fact in your life will determine how you feel. So ask yourself…how do I want to feel about it? The answer won’t always be that you want to feel good about it. Do you want to feel happy when someone you love dies? Don’t try to make yourself happy about something you don’t want to feel happy about. The goal is not to feel happy 100% of the time – in fact, I wrote an entire blog post all about this! The goal is to know you can handle any emotion – it is just a vibration in the body.

With time you can develop more awareness of your feelings and the thought that elicited that emotion. With practice, you can decide what you want to deliberately think about anything in your life and how you want to feel.