Someone told me today that “feelings always come first” even if you’ve convinced yourself otherwise. This struck me as a very painful truth as I’ve come to rely on the very adult concept of rationalizing the capacity of intellect. Mind over matter might be possible but mind over feelings is folly. Of course it’s just ego to suppose your great mind is capable of overcoming your feelings.
Even if you don’t realize what you are feeling, your feelings indeed do come first. That’s in some sense even worse. Your life careering from one action to the next while you’ve numbed yourself to why you take the actions that you do. That’s a waking nightmare. Whether you like it or not, your feelings dictate everything even if you are convinced of your own rationality. Better to let your feelings emerge and understand them.
I get the temptation to rely on intellect and reason. Feelings are messy. But humans are feeling machines with the capacity for reasons not rational machines with the capacity for feelings (that would be Data from Star Trek and he sadly isn’t real). It’s a nice bonus that we can reason but our feelings come first.
The caveat to this is that feelings are not facts. Just because you feel a certain way doesn’t make it objective reality. That’s why forcing your feelings onto someone else isn’t helpful. It might not be true in consensus reality. But if you can share why you are having the feeling you might be able to come to a common understanding.