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Basic InformationLatest NewsEven a Little Light in Your Bedroom Could Harm HealthWant Respect at Work? Ditch the EmojisAs Clocks Spring Forward, Keep Sleep on TrackSleep Experts Call for End to Twice-a-Year Time ChangesHigh Anxiety: Poll Finds Americans Stressed by Inflation, WarAHA News: Ready to 'Spring Forward'? Ease Into the Time Change With These 9 Health TipsSome Americans Gained Better Habits During Pandemic, Poll FindsStressed Out by Ukraine News? 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Here's What You're Doing Right - and WrongPandemic Worsening Americans' Already Terrible Sleep, Poll Finds​AHA News: Fine-Tune Your Health With These 5 Music IdeasAHA News: Healthy Living Could Offset Genetics and Add Years Free of Heart DiseaseCould Everyday Plastics Help Make You Fat?Take These Winter Workout Tips to HeartStay Safe When Winter Storms Cut Your PowerAHA News: Sound the Fiber Alarm! Most of Us Need More of It in Our DietExtra 10 Minutes of Daily Activity Could Save 110,000 U.S. Lives AnnuallyWinter Blues? It Could Be SADOrdering Groceries Online? Good Luck Finding Nutrition InfoBinge-Watching Could Raise Your Blood Clot RiskDon't Snow Shovel Your Way to a Heart AttackCelebrities' Social Media Promotes Junk Food, Often for FreeZoom Meeting Anxiety Doesn't Strike EveryoneDid Adding Calorie Counts to Restaurant Menus Make Meals Healthier?AHA News: Here's to a Fresh Start With Whatever You Do in '22Do You Have 'COVID-somnia'? 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Guillotiners Ahead! - Identifying and Protecting Yourself From Expediency-Driven Guillotiners4 Steps to ForgivenessForgiveEnjoy the Little ThingsAn Interview with Margaret Moore, B.S., M.B.A., on Organize Your Mind, Organize Your LifeCultivating Everyday Spiritual ExperiencesMinimize Painful ExperiencesConscientiousness and a Happier, Longer LifeTraining the Self-Care HabitFriends And MarriageRelax, You've ArrivedHow to Be Emotionally Aware - No Cat Ears RequiredHappiness, Sandwiches and George CarlinPeeling the Onion—Uncovering Our Wounds in TherapyHugging is Good MedicineHold Wants LightlySelf-Advocacy vs. Hypochondria: Where Do We Draw the Line?Trust Yourself and Take Some Baby StepsA Unified Theory of Happiness: Interview with Andrea Polard Psy.D.Why Support is Important for Dealing with Food, Weight + Body Image Issues Let It GoRule-Bound Adjustment is Deadening - Rule-Flexible Adaptiveness is EnliveningRest Your Weary HeadInclining Your Mind to Happiness: Just 5 ThingsThe Importance of Family Pets, Grieving the Loss of my Best Friend, Bonnie Exercise: Building the "Can Do" MuscleOur Obsession with "More"When Does Vicarious Trauma (VT) Become a Sign of Codependency? - Part IIGenerativity as a Path to WellnessWhy You Just Can't Stop Texting and DrivingGift YourselfWhen Does Vicarious Trauma (VT) Become a Sign of Codependency? - Part ICultivating Resilience before Mental Health Problems BeginA Mindful and Compassionate Approach to Anger in RelationshipsThe Essence of Healing, Governing, Service, Judgment and ContributionCreate Peace in YourselfThe Protective Effect of Having a Purpose in LifeEnjoy NowAre Mental Health Apps the New Generation of Self-Help Books?The Downside of ExpectationsIs Hating Someone Because They are Different a Mental Illness?Find What's SacredThich Nhat Hanh Shares Some Good NewsComplacency, Apathy and Resignation Be Banished and TransformedSuccessfully Negotiating the Crisis-Trauma, Grief-Transition Passage: Six Emo-Existential Questions The Benefits of Self-Questioning Part OneClean Air = Clear Thinking (Or How Pollution Undermines Cognitive Health)Having Trouble Exercising? 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The Seven Options Available For You In Any SituationBe Grateful for the Good and Graceful During the BadIn Challenging Times, No More “Inner Child”: Boldly Bring Your Inner ChutzpahPay AttentionThree Components of a Commitment: A Universal ToolWhen Calmness is a Trigger for Fear and How to Change itRetraining Your Brain Toward Greater FreedomThe Grammar of Committed Action: Speaking That Brings Forth BeingThe Strength and Stamina of Your Willpower Make a Valentine's ResolutionAn Interview with Gerti Schoen on The Gentle SelfThe Secret Ingredient to Making Change StickBe BenevolentWhen is Compassion Idiotic?Inspiring Power and Partnership: An Interactive and Interdependent PerspectiveCatch A "Wild Pitch?" You Must Be Kidding!Breaking Bad Habits Using The Now EffectDon't Beat Yourself UpAre Reasons Complete Nonsense? A Three-Minute Course Admit Fault and Move OnPositivity in Relationships is ContagiousA Simple Life Lesson for Us All: The Late Shirley LevineAn Interview with Brenda Knight on The Gratitude Power WorkbookPut Yourself on Your Priority ListCan You Live Without the Internet?It's Shocking How Little People Settle For, How Much They Put Up With and How Much Better They Deserve5 Tips on How to Keep New Years' ResolutionsElisha Goldstein’s Top 10 2011 Mental Help PostsBe the BodyA Tip for Happiness: Turn Routine into WonderHoliday Blues and Depression Single and Alone for the Holidays? 6 Strategies for Surviving and Even Thriving the Holidays AloneWithdraw Attention, Interest and Feeding Unhappy Thoughts,and Natural Happiness Arises and BlossomsBack to BasicsKnowledge is an Obstacle to KnowledgeEnjoy Every Last SandwichThe Impact of Exercise on Your Mental HealthSee the Good in OthersThis Thanksgiving Try the Mindful Gratitude PracticeWant a Healthier Life? 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The Answer is YesThe Architecture of All Change ProcessesSee Beings, Not BodiesDrop Tart ToneThe Top Seven Sources of Stress and Their RemediesLower the PressureReceive GenerosityBasics of Living: Breathing, Standing, Walking and Sitting: Safeguards of Well Being and Listening WithinAn Acronym that Guides us to Mental HealthBalancing Joining and Separation Keeping It Real — Do You Get It?You Can Feel Safer: Is There Really a Tiger in Those Bushes?Your Primary Spiritual Relationship - Love for YourselfAn Interview with Lama Tsering Everest21 Ways To Turn Ill Will to Good WillGROKKED: Being Seen, Heard and Known For Who You AreA Phrase to Save Your DayHow Did Humans Become Empathetic?Am I Normal?Dreams: More Than Fantasies and WishesThe Wolf of Hate7 Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Posts You Might Find InterestingSelf-Responsibility/Self-Accountability Qualifies You as an AdultTaking in The GoodAcknowledgment Transcends Pride and HumilityAltruism: The Power of Social MediaHealthy FriendshipCan you Improve Life Satisfaction by Changing Your Focus?Video Blog: Confidence3 Steps to Say Goodbye to Old Beliefs that Keep You StuckThe Brain in a Bucket Developing An Inner Meter on Manipulation — A Critical Life SkillFacebook: A Cold Hard LookLife: Bringing Back the Missing Puzzle PiecesWhy Do Smart and Successful People Do Dumb and Self-Sabotaging Things?What's Your 500 Year Plan for Humanity's Mental Health?My Beef with the "Secret"Beliefs, Roles and Stories Can Be Useful At Times or Create Suffering: Recognition, Disillusionment, Disidentification & Surrender is Freedom Itself Want to Make Change? 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Feelings Are Authentic and Valid — Perceptions and Beliefs Are SuspectWill Joel Friedman, Ph.D. Updated: Jun 10th 2013 Feelings Are Also True To Life and Accurate as a Direct Function of Underlying Perceptions, Thoughts & Beliefs Matching Reality and "What Is"
Our thoughts create the context which determines our feelings. —Ellen J. Langer, Mindfulness
Anyone's feelings are a priori ("before the fact") authentic and valid, whether or not the perceptions, thoughts and beliefs one has of the situation are true to life and accurate. Being direct feedback from your body, feelings are simply somatic reports on what is occurring both within oneself and the immediate environment. Whatever you feel is undoubtedly what you feel. We do not know what another living thing feels, and any presumption or assumption about what another human being feels is speculative, problematic and often wildly off. A Zen koan portrays this clearly:
One day Chuang-tzu and a friend were walking along a riverbank. "How delightfully the fishes are enjoying themselves in the water!", Chuang-tzu exclaimed.
"You are not a fish," his friend said. "How do you know whether or not the fishes are enjoying themselves?"
"You are not me," Chuang-tzu said. "How do you know that I do not know that the fishes are enjoying themselves?"
Of course, neither Chuang-tzu nor his friend actually know whether the fish were enjoying themselves in the water or not. In point of fact, it is a pure speculation on the part of both of them! Just because what you feel is authentically and validly what you feel, this does not mean the feeling is true to life and accurate, since it can be powerfully influenced by what you think and what you do. In a way, when you are present and observing your mind with all it's perceptions, thoughts and beliefs, all of these begin as "suspects" since none of these are true in reality, only conceptualizations. Once seen through, and if recognized as not unduly influencing and distorting feelings, then they are "prospects" and benign in terms of distorting the message inside the feeling as it is felt all the way through your body to decode its message. Otherwise, look again at what is real. Here is an example to see the influence of beliefs and the sanity of seeing through them:
You are working in your office after hours and think you hear something. You start to imagine all sorts of cruel, violent and ugly scenarios, and begin to get very jumpy. As you continue in this vein, you start experiencing a panic attack.
You cajole the one other employee who is also working after hours in the same workspace to go investigate the sound you heard because you are too discombobulated to do so. Reluctantly the other employee slowly opens the door and pokes a nose out. When nothing happens, the fellow employee gets bolder and starts to walk around a bit. Pretty soon, this co-worker is casually walking about and says, "All's clear! Nothing to be afraid of!"
Slowly going outside yourself, you too find nothing amiss and in short order you say to the fellow employee upon returning, "Gee, it must be my imagination. Thanks a lot."
This illustration shows how your feeling of discomfort, jumpiness and panic were all what you were feeling, and therefore authentic and valid feelings. At the same time, spurred on by false and unrealistic thoughts, these feelings were not an accurate reflection of the reality, that is, what matches or fits "what is" in the moment. What's to be done when feelings tell us one thing and direct "reality-testing" tells us something else? Which is to be trusted as real—Presence or perceptions and beliefs? Here is a two-step approach:
First and foremost you can know that all feelings are authentically and validly what they are. If anyone aims to tell, cajole or convince you that you feel differently than you do, then in this moment you can be certain that this other person doesn't know what they are talking about since it concerns how you feel, not him or her. Such behavior, designed to influence and convince you that what you are feeling is not so and it is supposedly some other feeling and that the other person knows better for you know than you know for yourself how you feel, "crazy-making" since it totally contradicts your direct reality, thus setting you up to think you are "going crazy." While the other person's intention may seem, perhaps in your and/or their mind, to be caring and out of love, the reality is that each person is the only one who truly can know what he or she is feeling in any situation and at any time, and not anyone else, without any doubt or exception.
Second, pause in presence and objectively witness from outside the mind what the mind is up to in this moment, specifically what perception, thought or belief is occurring, as well as what you are doing. By inhabiting the spacious timeless now and bringing awareness without judgment to what is right in front of you, you can see what your ego-mind is making of your direct experience and feelings, and in this moment all is revealed, dissolved and surrendered to the only truth that remains—what is now, here, This!
Engaging in this movement of awareness is not as difficult as it may seem since all feelings occur in one place and only one place—the body. When you find anything that is not located in the body proper while witnessing the mind, with the exception of an intuition or inspiration, there is a very high likelihood that it is a perception, thought, belief, conceptualizations all. When you uncover one of these, see just how accurate it is in the reality of this moment. Usually this is called "reality-testing" since you are literally testing the perception, thought or belief with what is real (e.g., in reality) here-and-now and matches "what is". Even more concretely, you can notice what you are doing in actions and ask if this doing or action is "setting up" or influencing the feeling itself. To sit inside and contemplate these distinctions powerfully supports clarity of Awareness.
When you find the perception, thought or belief as well as the doing or actions to be matching the objective reality you find in this moment, this provides verification that the authentic valid feeling is also true to life and accurate, which provides you a secure footing in trusting the feeling to be in reality or "what is", and the decision-making that comes out of this. This singular act enhances your experiencing a confident solid ground upon which you can take any and all appropriate and necessary actions. At the same time, when you find the perception, thought or belief in addition to the doing and actions to not be in alignment with the authentic feeling you are experiencing, then it's time to consciously look and challenge the reality and accuracy of all that underlies this feeling feedback since it is now highly suspect for being misguided, distorted, erroneous, or all.
Quite often the feeling is simply following the lead of the underlying perception, thought or belief plus the doing or actions. When feelings are led by what is not true to life and inaccurate as dreamed up by our minds or egos, it is most practical and helpful, constructive and effective, to come back to the present in a calm, centered way and methodically deconstruct the inaccurate or mistaken perception, thought or belief. Similarly, it is equally useful to observe the impact certain behaviors and actions have in experiencing your feelings. Deconstructing what underlies feelings, such as perceptions, thoughts and beliefs, can be addressed in several inquiry approaches with psychological professionals. Author and workshop leader Byron Katie has championed what she calls "the work", putting the careful deconstruction of beliefs as the central therapeutic focus.
In summary, not all feelings are created equal, you might say. While all feelings are authentically and validly relaying what is occurring in your body as feedback from your inner and outer environments, anyone contradicting what you are feeling as not what you are feeling is speaking of what he or she does not know, and further can place you in some serious jeopardy of being "played", manipulated and misused if you go along for this unhealthy, "crazy-making" ride. The power of your "No" largely determines the quality of your lived experience. Forewarned is forearmed, and practice makes perfect.
Moreover, it is proposed that the true to life accuracy of feelings are a direct function of the underlying perceptions, thoughts and beliefs being realistic and matching of reality or "what is." The more direct the association, the more you can be confident, secure and assured that you are standing on solid realistic ground; the less direct the association in what is real right in front of you in this moment, the less confidence, security and reassurance you have that anything real is occurring.
Honing the suggested two steps is purely attention and Awareness itself. In honoring the authenticity and validity of feelings, coupled with witnessing or awareness without any judgment the impact of underlying perceptions, thoughts and beliefs along with behaviors or actions upon feelings, enormously helps to determine the true to life accuracy of the feelings. These simple practical tools are forwarded as remarkably useful structures for claiming the inherent freedom that is everyone's birthright in navigating life moment by moment. It is precisely at this crossroads that you can make the best, most informed apparent choices you can, since it is these very decisions that serve as the hub of an awakened, well-lived and satisfied life.
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