Just food for thought:
The Neocortex of the mammalian brain is several hundred million years younger than the limbic system.
So in terms of our biology, FEELINGS, while not necessarily more important, are at least PRIMARY to thoughts. THOUGHTS are secondary.
In essence we feel everything before we think whatever we think about it. Our thoughts and judgements about how we feel are at best, revisionist histories for our feelings. They are ways to understand and contextualize our sensations and feelings.
So what?
Remember to validate your feelings in every situation. You really can’t argue with any emotion. No emotion is wrong. It’s the judgment and decisions ABOUT our emotions that can and should be questioned and reviewed.
So much dysfunction I believe is due directly to things we have been taught are true about our wants, feelings, and emotions. Consider calling into question EVERY judgment you have about the ways you feel, especially judgments that include guilt, self-criticism, self-doubt. These are not feelings. They are layers of thought on top of feelings. The feelings may be simply anxiousness, or excitement, but we tend to default to the same judgements about what those feelings are telling us, and thus repeat the same cycles of self-judgment that keep us in quasi-addictive behaviors (such as with unhealthy eating).
Consider, if you are doing any behavior that doesn’t really any longer serve you, that to change it, maybe you don’t need more information or more reasons (thoughts) to stop, but rather, you need instead to more deeply understand the FEELING that the behavior supplies, or helps with. In doing so you may find there are suddenly many more options to dealing with the feeling than you ever knew, and that can lead to EFFORTLESS change of those same behaviors, which is always beautiful.
JM Andry MD