Feelings Are Not Facts
The Second Commandment of Self-Brain Surgery
Feelings feel so real.
Feelings come with such a powerful physiologic and mental force that sometimes we find ourselves well into a reaction to them without ever stopping to question whether what we feel has anything to do with something that is actually happening or that we need to address.
One way I can prove this to you is a simple question: How many times in your life have you reacted to a feeling and later realized that your reaction was incorrect, since what you felt turned out to be inaccurate? If the answer is anything other than zero, then I have news for you:
Not everything you feel is true.
From a neuroscience standpoint,“Emotions are mental and bodily responses that are deployed automatically when an organism recognizes that a situation warrants such a reaction. Due to humans’ intellectual capacities, human emotional reactions are not necessarily triggered by immediate (real) physical or social circumstances, but can also be precipitated by inferences, memories, beliefs or imaginings. (The Brainstem in Emotion: A Review, Anand Venkatraman et al, Front Neuroanat. 2017; 11: 15.)
To simplify that complex statement, our brains are wired so that we can feel the same set of things when there is a real threat, a real problem, someone is harming or wronging us in some way, or we are simply worrying, remembering, or imagining something.
That’s why our second commandment is this:
I must believe that feelings are not facts, they are chemical events in my brain.
(The Second Commandment of Self-Brain Surgery)
Read it out loud.
I must believe that feelings are not facts, they are chemical events in my brain.
Feelings are chemical signals that tie physiological events to cognitive thought, infused with memories related to other times we’ve felt similar signals.
This means that when we feel something, we attach meaning to it based on our mood, memory, and what it meant was happening (or we thought it meant) other times we felt it.
Knowing this, we should then learn to use feelings to provoke us to biopsy our thoughts related to what we feel, decide whether the meaning we’re first tempted to attach to the feeling is trustworthy or not, and THEN respond from a rational and informed position.
How much would this simple self-brain surgery operation change your life?
Reply to this post and or leave a voicemail and tell us.
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We’re going all in on believing that we have the tools to change our minds and change our lives. Living from a mind-down perspective changes everything, and it helps us harness the transforming changes to our lives that the Bible promises in Romans 12.
The neuroscience is on your side, my friend.
And the good news is, you can start today.
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Lisa and I are praying for you.
Dum spiro spero (While I breathe, I hope),
Lee
Psalm 71:14 ("As for me, I will always have hope.")
From the banks of the North Platte river on Moon River Ranch in Nebraska, USA
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This is so good!
This afternoon a person in my closest circle neglected to include me on decision that was important to me. The decision was broadcast into a text thread that caught me completely off guard. Because it occurred on the heals of some other related experiences, I felt sad and left out which rapidly snowballed into a thought (which I believed) of “now this person is against me”.
After a whole month of being “All In”. I lost it! I began to cry and felt overwhelmed. I was believing my feelings.
Fortunately, because I participated in All In August, I fell back on a “tiny level of preparedness” and I responded to the individual with some small measure of grace which resulted in the person calling me.
It took about an hour to unwind the situation and come to a place where our relationship is restored.
It turns out, my snowball of cascading thoughts of sadness and aloneness are not completely true. The situation “felt” like some other things I have experienced historically and so my brain was using an old neural pathway to “explain the details to me”….which in this case where neither true, or helpful to getting to the truth.
Thank you Dr. Warren for highlighting The Second Commandment of Self-Brain Surgery today. It was the grace and guidance I needed and led to reconciliation over isolation. What could have lead to difficult dynamics for a whole group of people is resolved.
I know that All Is August is a heavy lift for yourself, Lisa, Tata and rest of the DLW Crew. I want to personally thank you and encourage to you to know that You Are Making A Difference.