Feelings are the driving force of life

It is not only thumbs and the physical abilities that man has, such as being able to run long distances without getting heatstroke, that give him a special position. These do mean that man can dominate every environment on the planet. However, more than anything it’s his intellect which has lifted him out of the “evolutionary marshland” and given him a unique place amongst the other animals.

Intellectual intelligence and the ability to reason logically have proved to be a great advantage in creating living conditions wherever man has settled down. With his intellect, man has developed knowledge and skills far beyond the ability of other primates.

Today, science and its achievements have a big impact on our lives. Intellect has achieved big things in many areas, so it may be no wonder we have always praised the intellect much more than any other part of our being. It is with the intellect that we solve problems and navigate our modern lives. Indeed isn’t it with the intellect that we decide on the choices we make? Yes, in a way, but maybe not exactly how we think.

I think of the intellect as part of a trinity which together with subconscious processes and physiology make up man. In order for these three parts to communicate with each other, there needs to be some kind of interface, protocol or language. This language is our feelings.

When the physiology wants the attention of the intellect, let’s say you need water, a sense of thirst is created which works as a messenger to the intellect and gets us to act. Conversely our thoughts may change our emotions and thus affect the activity in the physiological system. For example, when you tell yourself that the play of shadows in the woods is just the trees and not an axe-murderer.

If you investigate, you will see that your emotions are involved in every decision you make.

It is always your feelings that determine whether an action is taken or not. Your reasoning can be as logically persuasive as you like but the last part in the decision-making process before you act, is a feeling. In this way, it can be said that feelings are the driving force of life, not logical reasoning.

Making Decisions

I was having lunch with a good friend. Both she and her husband work in the legal system. When I told her how feelings always have the last word in the decision process, she objected and told me that they decided to get married for logical reasons. They were expecting a baby and realised that there were advantages in being a married couple in this situation. Then she was quiet for a while before she said – “But now when I think about it, there was an emotion. The fear that our child would not get the best start in life”

If feelings are the driving force of life, this also means that the only thing you have to do to change your behaviour is to change your feelings. This is perhaps easier said than done, but this is the way you need to go for a sustainable change. Discipline – using willpower – doesn’t work in the long run, as we will see a little later on.

Changing the “soil” of your feelings

If it is the feelings that control behaviour and you need to change your feelings to change your behaviour, how do you do that? A good way to think of it is, as changing the “soil” for your feelings. If things don’t grow well in your garden, it may be because the soil is not suitable for the crops you want to grow. If you enrich the earth with minerals and manure, ensure that the soil is getting enough water, as well as getting rid of the weeds that are competing, your plants will soon begin to flourish. It’s the same with your emotional life. Start with bringing good things into your life. Things that bring positive effects, both immediately and in the long run. In this first step, don’t bother about trying to get rid of the weeds. Begin with “adding nutrients to your plants”. Let the good things push out the bad things. In the next step, you can think about replacing bad habits with better habits. Can you go for a walk with a good friend instead of watching television? Can you replace cake with fresh fruit?

As a last step, or if absolutely necessary, use discipline to get rid of things which are bad for you. Deciding on an intellectual plan, even with the will to make changes, is harder than changing your feelings first. Sometimes it is necessary but try to use this third method as little as possible.

Steps for change

1 Add good choices

2 Replace bad choices with better alternatives

3 Remove bad choices

Two basic feelings

Different cultures have many different words for different types of feelings. However no matter how many words you have for your feelings or how many different feelings you experience over time, these feelings can be divided into two main categories, satisfaction or dissatisfaction. These two types of feelings appear on two levels in your emotional life, partly as a direct response to an individual action and partly as a status report on your emotional life. I see the latter, a bit like a “stock index” and I call it The Satisfaction Index or TSI. The Satisfaction Index is a unique and individual appreciation of your experience of satisfaction here and now. Thoughts, feelings, and actions that make you feel unhappy lower your TSI, others raise your TSI. A TSI of 1.0 could correspond to the deep satisfaction and trust that everything will be alright that we are looking for in this book.

In time, an action in thought, body or speech has two consequences. Primary satisfaction and secondary satisfaction. The immediate (primary) effect of the action and the subsequent (secondary) effect. This distinction is very important for how you act in the future and consequently for how your Satisfaction Index develops over time.

Primary and secondary effect

Imagine that you are faced with two choices: to stick at it and train for an hour or to lie on the sofa and eat sweets. How would these activities feel the minute you start and how would they feel afterwards?

You can also divide up the two basic feelings in more depth. The deep feeling of satisfaction that this book wants to help you achieve is of a completely different character to the short-lived kick you get out of eating chocolate or drinking a glass of wine. They are both an experience of satisfaction but with completely different depths.

Stress

A lot of people talk about stress and the importance of stress management. How does stress fit into this reasoning. Simple! The physiological representation of dissatisfaction is stress. The emotional representation of dissatisfaction is stress. They are the two sides of the same coin. The one cannot exist without the other. At least as long as you have a body!

Replacing your feelings

One popular way of changing your emotional life is just “replacing it with someone else’s”. People have been doing this for a very long time and it is what so-called cultural activities are all about. Looking at an art exhibition, going to the theatre, reading a book, watching a film or listening to music are, for that moment, all ways of replacing our feelings with those of the artist, author, actor or musician. The older parts of the brain which deal with feelings cannot differentiate between imagination, dreams and reality. The fact that you can immerse yourself in a movie, for example, is completely dependent on this “peculiarity” in the system. The “old brain” has absolutely no idea that it is not you having the adventure on the white screen. Just for a moment, your emotions and feelings are replaced with those of the characters. Your Satisfaction Index goes up and down in line with what’s going on in the film or book.

This is also why it is a good idea to avoid eating while you are watching an exciting film. Your body and your mind find themselves in a “struggle for your life” and you start thinking to yourself “it would be nice to have something to eat now”. Digestion is not the most important thing when you are being chased by a sabre-toothed tiger or a serial killer. Digesting food is the last priority in such a situation.

No matter what you do to replace your feelings even for a moment, it means your primary satisfaction is probably going up. You boost your TSI. A sort of emotional doping you could say. Just as the film ends or just as you have read the last page in a great novel, you may feel a bit like you are floating on a cloud for a brief moment. Then your TSI begins to sink back to its actual level again. When your satisfaction level returns to its normal state, you will always experience dissatisfaction. The bottom line is that, ironically, you might feel worse after the pleasant experience than you did beforehand.

The two tendencies of the mind

Earlier in the book, I described a human being as made up of three parts:

1. intellectual or conscious mental processes
2. subconscious processes
3. physiology.

The latter is the body, everything physical about you. The first two are what we call the mind. The mind is the part of you which is not the body. The body and the mind live in symbiosis. If one changes, the other also changes.

The mind has two tendencies:

1. Towards motion
2. Towards silence or stillness

Sometimes it may feel like the mind has only one tendency, towards motion, always looking for activity and stimulation. Perhaps it isn’t so strange since being curious and outgoing is a necessity for survival.

Experiencing silence gives a deeper sense of satisfaction and inner peace that everything will be alright. A feeling that is stronger than a feeling to meet needs (like needing to eat when you are hungry). If you give the mind a small taste of silence, you reinforce this tendency.

There is big reward for silence, both for the body and the mind. A well-known way of inviting silence into the mind is by some kind of meditation. Meditation does not need to be anything mysterious or to have a religious undertone. The word meditating means “to be brought towards the middle” or “to contemplate” but I like to think that the word means “getting acquainted with”. To familiarise yourself with something. To get to know yourself and your thoughts. To get acquainted with what life is about when the mind is still.

One positive effect of meditation and the mood that follows is that it makes it easier to interpret needs and feelings. Meditating doesn’t have to be anything remarkable. It doesn’t have to be anything stranger than sitting down and considering the thoughts that pass by. Focusing on an object is a popular meditation technique. It can be more or less anything. Breathing is a good choice. Listen to your breath. Follow your breath from your nose to the “turning point” in your body and out again. Focus on the breath. When you notice that you have started thinking about something else, go back to your breath again. And again. And again. Meditation can be pleasant but it does not have to be pleasant for it to work. It’s okay if it feels like “a storm at sea”. It is the secondary effects of meditation that we want. Sit for 10 to 40 minutes. Or a little less. But sit.

When talking about meditation, it is important to remember that meditation alone is not enough to create a lasting feeling of deep satisfaction and trust that everything will be alright. You also need to understand how your ability to meet your needs plays its part.

The next chapter is about how your days are all about experiencing and meeting needs of different kinds.

The yogi and the rat

It is told that an Indian yogi sat in complete serenity. United beyond our understanding. He sat so long in the bliss of meditation that his hair grew right down to the floor. There was not an ounce of unhappiness or dissatisfaction in his mind. His happiness was complete. When he finally came back to his body and life outside, to his dismay he discovered that a rat sat gnawing on his beautiful long hair. He instantly became furious and, without even thinking, chased the rat away across the floor.