Thinking, Feeling and The Law of Attraction

Some­where along the line, our cul­ture got “think­ing” and “feel­ing” all scram­bled up.  We’re reg­u­larly encour­aged to “share how we feel” about some­thing, when really, it’s our THOUGHT or OPINION that is being solicited.  Sadly, we are rarely asked about our true feel­ings and we miss those sacred oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect with our­self or oth­ers at the emo­tional level.

Are we really being asked if we’re angry, happy or dis­ap­pointed when our co-worker asks us how we “feel” about the new client pro­posal?  Nope, we’re being asked if we like the col­ors, lay­out or point of view that was used. 

When we’re at a PTA meet­ing and there’s a debate going on about a spaghetti feed vs. a crab feed, it wouldn’t be uncom­mon to hear a mom pipe up with “I just feel that crab will sell more tick­ets.”  Nope, that’s an opin­ion, not a feeling.

I think (not feel!) that this is such an inter­est­ing reflec­tion of our culture’s avoid­ance of feel­ings.  We don’t have cul­tural norms for truly shar­ing our feel­ings about things in pub­lic set­tings.  Many cou­ples or fam­i­lies don’t have norms for shar­ing their feel­ings in pri­vate either.  So sad! 

When we label our thoughts as feel­ings, it min­i­mizes the power of our opin­ion.  “I think that we should…” is so much more direct and pow­er­ful than “I feel like it would be best to…”  (On a side note, I won­der if women use “feel” more than men in this con­text?  I’m going to start pay­ing atten­tion to this now!)  “I think” is stat­ing a strong, no-nonsense opin­ion.  “I feel” almost has an apolo­getic energy to it, like “Well, this is just what lit­tle ol’ me thinks, but I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes with my opinion.”

And mean­while our actual feel­ings are locked in the closet, so excited that some­one is actu­ally ask­ing them to come out and share them­selves, then crushed when they real­ize that their very-distant cousin, the opin­ion, is once again the one being asked to come out and play instead of them.

I began my heal­ing work in high school when I was in a hor­ri­ble rela­tion­ship.  I was finally real­iz­ing that I had feel­ings and was doing my brave best to acknowl­edge and honor them.  I was naive/hopeful/committed enough to believe that my boyfriend and I could work out our dif­fer­ences if we could have a dis­cus­sion about our feel­ings.  I still have a vivid mem­ory of beg­ging him to share how he was FEELING, hop­ing that if we shared our inner states we could get move the con­ver­sa­tion some­where pro­duc­tive.  Instead, he responded by say­ing “I feel that you need to…”  Yowza.  Not only was that def­i­nitely not shar­ing his feel­ings, he man­aged to twist it into a crit­i­cism of how he believed I needed to act differently.

When we share how we are feel­ing, or cre­ate that Spirit-filled place for another to share how they are feel­ing, we auto­mat­i­cally cre­ate inti­macy.  Inti­macy isn’t about shar­ing sex or secrets or space, rather it’s the energy that is cre­ated between peo­ple when we are shar­ing heart-to-heart.   That may very well be in the con­text of shar­ing sex or secrets or space, but it’s the shar­ing of our feel­ings that cre­ates the magic.

It’s this same magic that helps us tap into our cre­ative poten­tial.   Abraham-Hicks is always teach­ing us to move to a higher feel­ing.  Not a higher thought, not a higher opin­ion, a higher feel­ing.  Here’s the tricky part though — our emo­tions are largely based on our thoughts.  If we have a pos­i­tive thought about some­thing, it trig­gers a pos­i­tive feel­ing.  Same gig with the neg­a­tive.  Where we trip our­selves up is when we do a “happy slap” — we pre­tend that we think & feel pos­i­tively about some­thing when really it’s just a happy band-aid that we’ve slapped over a pit of hurt (or anger, resent­ment, dis­ap­point­ment…)  That’s where our seri­ous per­sonal work comes in — doing the work to shift our inner beliefs (& there­fore our feel­ings), for­give our self-judgments and cre­ate new, self-supportive beliefs.  Hal­lelu­jah — then we get to gen­uinely be filled with those exalted feel­ings that we were long­ing for all along!

So here’s my chal­lenge to you (& myself): Be aware of how you are using “think” and “feel” when you share your own expe­ri­ences, when you ask your kids ques­tions, in the work­place, with your spouse.  Start to notice your pat­terns and if they are serv­ing or hin­der­ing your desired con­nec­tions to your­self, oth­ers and Cre­ative Law.  Start to delight in the magic and inti­macy that is cre­ated when you and a beloved share your feel­ings, and cel­e­brate that clar­ity that comes for­ward as you accu­rately name what you think, believe and feel.

Namaste,

Heather

Tags: abraham-hicks, body mind spirit, conscious parenting, conscious teaching, creating intimacy, law of attraction, loa, manifestation, manifesting, metaphysical teaching, mind body spirit, talking about feelings, thinking vs feeling

Category: Abraham-Hicks, Law of Attraction, Parenting, Relationships, Uncategorized