Feelings are facts
In this episode, we explore a common misunderstanding about the nature of our feelings, and the choices we have about them…
Emotions are facts.
Feelings are facts.
(Subjective facts, it’s true, yet facts nonetheless.)
Assertions about emotions and feelings – in particular, about what Self or Other ‘should’ or ‘should not’ feel – are not facts.
(They’re just opinions – nothing more than that.)
It’s scary how many people get this one the wrong way round…
We hear it so often: “You can’t feel that! You don’t feel that! You shouldn’t feel that! You have no right to feel that!” All of which stridently ignores the fact that we do indeed feel that…
Let’s be clear about this: feelings are facts. We each feel what we feel: and nothing in itself is going to change that fact – or that each feeling is itself a fact in its own right. The feelings themselves may be highly transitory, here one moment, gone the next: but whilst they’re present, they are fact. Yes, feelings are different from so-called ‘objective’ facts – feelings are personal-fact, subjective-fact, not ‘objective’-fact. Yet they are fact nonetheless, with all that that implies.
We have no control over those feelings as such: our feelings simply are, whether we like that fact or not.
We do have some choice about how we respond to those feelings – hence ‘responsibility’, as ‘response-ability’. Yet still no choice over the existence of the feelings themselves: that distinction may seem subtle, but crucially important.
We might choose to ignore a feeling, or pretend that we don’t have a particular feeling: many do just that, of course, often for much of their lives.
We might choose to over-react to a feeling: many do that too.
We might also pretend to have a specific feeling when we actually don’t: probably just about everyone does that from time to time, particularly for others’ benefit.
And we might assert that the presence of a feeling provides us with an excuse for action or inaction, that “I had no choice” or suchlike – which yes, may feel that way, though in reality isn’t actually true.
To a very real extent, our feelings define who we are. And pretending that we don’t have them – or being forced to pretend to ourselves and others that we don’t have them – can cause very real damage to our sense of self, and thence to our relations with self and others in a social context.
Hence why a phrase such as “You can’t feel that!” is often worse than meaningless: feelings are facts, what we feel is what we feel, regardless of what we or others might say about it.
Hence why a phrase such as “You don’t feel that!” is often worse than meaningless: it’s true that we might not sense something – because of deafness, or inattention, or damage to nerve-endings or whatever – but what we feel is what we feel.
Hence why a phrase such as “You shouldn’t feel that!” is not only often worse than meaningless, it’s often highly abusive too: a demand that we ‘must’ do something that we inherently cannot do – and usually only for the complainer’s benefit, too, so that they don’t have to face feelings that they do not wish to face.
And hence also why a phrase such as “You have no right to feel that!” is not only often worse than meaningless, but likewise often highly abusive too. (And especially so when the real meaning of “You have no right to feel that!’ is that the complainer merely wants the ‘right’ to not have to deal with the fact that we do indeed feel that way.…) It’s also in direct breach of one of the most fundamental requirements upon which any future big-picture change must be built: that there are no rights in the first place, that the entire concept of ‘rights’ is in itself inherently misleading and mistaken. Responsibilities, yes – or, more specifically, interlocking mutual responsibilities within a social context – but ‘rights’, no. Not A Good Idea…
Some practical implications of this, in terms of big-picture change.
First, those misplaced assumptions and misunderstandings about feelings and beliefs are so rampant even in mainstream cultures that it’s often hard to know where to begin. What makes it worse – or harder to deal with, rather – is that such untested, unquestioned assumptions are so deeply embedded that it’s often difficult to even recognise them as assumptions.
The blunt reality is that many of the things we see as ‘facts’, or ‘the way things are’ or suchlike, are merely our own interpretations that we’re arbitrarily attempting to impose on others – and often blame them when they don’t match up to our expectations. Not A Good Idea…
And yes, we’d probably take some pride in ensuring that our plans for change are properly grounded in objective-fact. Yet it’s essential that we also take enough account of subjective-fact as well. For example, to what extent does the plan assume that others will understand the terms we use in the same way that we do? To what extent does the plan assume that others will hold the same beliefs as we do, or will have the same feelings as we expect? To what extent does the plan depend on others holding specific feelings or beliefs – whether overt or not? To what extent does the plan depend on others being willing to accept that our beliefs should have inherent priority over theirs? If you’re like most change-activists that I know, that list of questions just above might well be something of a scary wake-up call…
Feelings are facts. Opinions about feelings are not facts. We forget that fact at our peril.
(This episode was adapted from my posts ‘Feelings are facts’ and ‘RBPEA: Feelings are facts’, first published on the Tetradian weblog in 2012 and 2015 respectively.)