# What feelings are At our core, beyond [reasoning or sensibility](logic.md), we experience the world around us through emotions. These feelings are the same base feelings as any other mammal, though they express differently. ## Basis Biochemically, a feeling is a hormone reaction triggered by a response to environmental stimuli based on a particular [belief](values.md) synthesized through [experience](imagination.md). This stimulus can come from our [perceptions](image.md), or simply from our physical state. These feelings provoke impulses that drive our [decisions](people-decisions.md) and [purposes](purpose.md). APPLICATION: If you want to change your feelings, change your physical state. Furrowing your brow will make you think harder, standing up straight will make you more confident, walking faster will make you more productive. In one sense, feelings are a status indicator of what we generally [understand](understanding.md) is happening. But, in another sense, feelings are low-level forms of [logic](logic.md), framed on reactionary premises (which we [trust](trust.md)) instead of well-formed ones (which may be harder to quickly [identify](image.md)). APPLICATION: Below everything else that we perceive, we feel. Those feelings define the components we can [logically](logic.md) assemble into our [perceptions](image.md). They're the raw information we must synthesize, but also must never forget where we got them. Our impulses also form into thoughts of their own, which can also trigger our beliefs as we think them, meaning we can feel things from while noticing our feelings. All of it becomes even messier because our [beliefs](understanding-certainty.md) only have a loose relationship to [reasoning](logic.md) or [reality](reality.md). Even analytical, [logical](logic.md) people are bound by their feelings, though they're often [afraid](mind-feelings-fear.md) of their feelings guiding them. Feelings are the product of a [perceived](image.md) change. The feeling happens upon perception of the information. APPLICATION: We can only feel things if we believe we're a participant in that thing, or it's new to us. If we see ourselves as simply an outside observer of *everything* and constantly [educate](education.md) ourselves, we'd have very few feelings about anything. All feelings are driven from either a core belief that's either a [love](people-love.md) or [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) of something, and they represent in relationship to fulfilling one of six basic needs in an approximate progressive order: 1. [Certainty](understanding-certainty.md) - assurance you can avoid pain or gain pleasure 2. [Uncertainty or Variety](unknown.md) - the need for new experiences 3. [Significance](meaning.md) - the need to feel important, special, or needed 4. [Connection or Love](people-love.md) - feeling closeness or united with something 5. [Growth](people-changes.md) - extending [ability](results.md) or [understanding](understanding.md) 6. Contribution - [helping others](church-serve.md) in some capacity The need fulfillment (and its associated feelings) work through our needs in pairs: - We first look for certainty (to feel [safe](safety.md)), then uncertainty (to feel a sense of adventure). - Then, we look for significance to feel we matter (what we do), but at the same time see love and acceptance (who we are). - Finally, we look to grow (inward development) and contribute (outward development). Feelings are inherently social, and our [connections with others](people-friends.md), starting with our [parenting](people-family.md), define how much we feel others' feelings. ## Bias Feelings create [bias](mind-bias.md), and we tend to call things that are heavy with feelings "personal experiences". Our so-called "personal experience" makes us very prone to [deceiving](image-distortion.md) ourselves in many directions. When we experience [trauma](hardship-ptsd.md), we have feelings we're [unaware](awareness.md) of that profoundly affect our lives long after the events have passed. We can discipline ourselves to focus on [reality](reality.md) more, but have no direct [control](people-decisions.md) over the feelings that flavor our thought. We must experience our feelings to find what beliefs drive them (which is frequently painful) and there's no shortcut to [understanding](understanding.md) them. Most people never break their [bias](trust.md) from the feelings they first sensed. This can be trained, but it requires tons of [meditation](awareness-meditation.md) and [analysis](logic.md). When they're sincere, feelings are our [soul's](humanity.md) lifeline to [reality](reality.md). Without feelings, we don't really identify ourselves *within* reality, and it can create an existential disconnect if we persist in a prolonged state of non-feeling. ## Classifications All feelings are based on two key primitives: - [Joy/happiness](mind-feelings-happiness.md) comes from perceiving things that add [value](values-quality.md) to our lives. - [Sadness](mind-feelings-sadness.md) comes from perceiving a [loss](safety.md). If we add [certainty](understanding-certainty.md) to related elements, we will then derive tow more feelings: - [Disgust](mind-feelings-disgust.md) is when we dislike something. - [Anger](mind-feelings-anger.md) is a secondary feeling that can come from multiple motivations tied to our [purposes](purpose.md). By combining [imagination](imagination.md), the above primitives develop several more *vastly* pervasive key feelings that create the foundations of our [personality](personality.md): - [Boldness/confidence](understanding-certainty.md) is the feeling of joy, but about the future. - [Fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) is the feeling of sadness - [Surprise](mind-feelings-surprise.md) is when events don't follow our [expectations](imagination.md). While [love](people-love.md) can refer to affection, it sits more as a [habit](habits.md) of giving [inherent value](values-quality.md) to something. Far more than any other mammal, we will also mix-and-match *far* more feelings: - Anticipation and exhilaration is when we [expect](imagination.md) something fortunate to happen, and disappointment is when it didn't. - Confusion is when we [desire](purpose.md) to [know](understanding.md) something but don't. - We feel closure when we don't know something, but *don't* desire to know it. - If we lose our ability to [trust](understanding-certainty.md) our [decisions](people-decisions.md), anger will become despair or depression. - Boredom is the combination of curiosity and anger. - Regret is when we wish we had done something different, which becomes [shame](mind-feelings-shame.md) in the long-term. If we don't have any feeling over anything, we simply feel apathy. There are hundreds of [words](mind-feelings-list.md) to capture every feeling, especially as the object of our situation changes (and provides further associated feelings), and they're *still* not precise enough to accurately capture most of the sensations. ## Focus We can only feel what we're focused on, which often connects with trying to "[fix](https://adequate.life/fix/)" the world around us. If we're simply running through a [habit](habits.md) or distracted by doing two things at once, we won't feel anything about something. Most of our feelings come from [purposes](purpose.md) we've subconsciously built and from an experience's novelty. If we learn something becomes impossible to control (e.g., [death](hardship-death.md)) and have gained extreme [understanding](understanding.md) of it, we can slowly release that control in our own way. We tend to be *very* unaware of our feelings until we experience [results](results.md) from them, which is why we need [emotional outlets](results.md) through [conversations](people-conversation.md) with others about topics we feel strongly about. Generally, feelings hold [power](power.md) over our [decisions](people-decisions.md) proportionally to how unaware we are of them. All feelings have an object in mind, at least when we first [perceive](image.md) that object. However, we can often forget the source later, which will leave a neurological haze of generalized thought that triggers that feeling again without much explanation. When a person isn't [self-aware](awareness.md) of a feeling, they usually staple a quick [decision](people-decisions.md) to it. People frequently redirect feelings to another source, which psychology calls transference or projection. APPLICATION: We can differentiate between our [bias](mind-bias.md) and [reality](reality.md) by distinguishing what we're feeling and when. By imagining how we'd perceive if we felt differently, we gain further perspectives and heighten our [understanding](understanding.md) without needing others' input. Our feelings are the basis for intuition. Intuition is an instinctual [reaction](habits.md) that streamlines how we respond to things, built around the [stories](stories.md) from our subconscious [understanding](understanding.md) of [reality](reality.md). APPLICATION: Most of our feelings *would* be precisely accurate if they were based on all available information, without imagined information included. Therefore, the best way to perceive [fairly](morality-justice.md) is to note when we're being irrational, then [scientifically](science.md) process *all* information that's contrary to what we feel: - Jumping to the worst possible conclusion (catastrophizing) - Thinking in extreme all-or-nothing [values](values.md) (black-and-white thinking) - Using general words like "always" or "never" to describe a specific event (overgeneralizing) - [Predicting the future](imagination.md) instead of waiting to see what happens (fortune-telling) - Focusing on the negative/positive aspects while ignoring the others (mental filtering) - Discrediting a positive/negative thing or adapting it into the inverse (disqualifying) - Globally self-declaring oneself as a failure/success, worthless/perfect, or useless/important (labeling) - Listening more to gut feelings than observable reality (emotional reasoning) - Taking an event or person's behavior personally (personalizing) - Making rigid [rules](people-rules.md) about self/people/reality with words like "should"/"must"/"have to" (demanding) - Declaring something as unbearable when it's attainable and worth tolerating (no frustration tolerance) ## Intensified If an [experience](image.md) was particularly [influential](influence.md) towards our [understanding](understanding.md) or [desire](purpose.md) (especially if it was [traumatic](hardship-ptsd.md)), our feelings can persist to frame further beliefs, which can create secondary feelings with *much* more power over our actions. APPLICATION: Sensational things hit our feelings more, and we should be [distrustful](trust.md) proportionally to the [sensationalism](image.md). This isn't easy because anger gives us the [impression](image.md) that we have [power](power.md), so we're easy to [influence](power-influence.md) toward things that make us angry. If a feeling persists and is reinforced enough, it becomes a [conviction](understanding-certainty.md). If any adverse feeling lingers long enough, it becomes a [mental illness](hardship-worthlessness.md). And, enough mental illness, especially from an [early enough age](maturity.md), creates most [neurodivergence](mind-neurodivergence.md). APPLICATION: Living by feelings, even anger, is an inherent risk. It means we don't [understand](understanding.md) things clearly enough to be [rational](logic.md), and it's possible we may be wrong about something and not know it. ## Patterns and intuition Even while the object of the feelings changes, our feelings are [the same as anyone else's](humanity-universals.md), so we can easily understand our feelings by observing others' feelings ("surrogation"). The only alternative is self-reflection, which is difficult to perform because our minds aren't entirely [tethered to reality](imagination.md). And, when we feel something, continuing to feel it without any restraint will intensify our feelings about it even further. When our feelings are configured to experienced [patterns](symbols.md), we have what's called an "intuition" for something. Intuitive thinking is *extremely* useful, in its place. It's the basis for how we form [habits](habits.md), and experts in [most fields](jobs-specialization.md) develop intuitive [skills and understanding](understanding.md) that make their job easier and faster. At the same time, intuition has severe risks. It's only reliable when proven patterns have come before it. Otherwise, we're acting on memories that aren't accurate. If we persist on those past thoughts, it's likely we're imposing our [past trauma](hardship-ptsd.md) into present [decisions](people-decisions.md) as well (i.e., [dysregulation](awareness-dysregulation.md)). APPLICATION: [Decisions](people-decisions.md) while dysregulated are a type of "temporary insanity" that are about 20-40 IQ points lower than our rational thoughts, but simple awareness of them is critical for [wellness](goodlife.md). In fact, the secret to most [awareness](awareness.md) involves simply acknowledging and identifying our feelings through [language](language.md) without taking action. Further, intuition is *really* difficult to [analyze](logic.md). If our self-reflection ever becomes a judgment of what we feel (instead of merely acceptance), we'll redefine our intuition to new [beliefs](understanding-certainty.md) about what's "right", even [when it's not](personality.md). Over time, that distorted state of [imagination](imagination.md) will become our new "normal" (i.e., "[dysregulation](awareness-dysregulation.md)"). ## Repositioning The beauty of our mind's neuroplasticity is that we are always capable to rewire how we [habituate](habits.md) our feelings. While we don't typically need to reconfigure our baser feelings (e.g., fear, anger), protracted mental feeling-beliefs can *always* be rebuilt into more useful mental structures: - [Bitterness](mind-feelings-anger.md) - [Release](mind-feelings-happiness-stress.md) whatever you feel compelled to [control](purpose.md). - Anxiety - Find [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) in *much* worse things, which is typically through death. - [Grief](mind-feelings-sadness.md) - Add [understanding](understanding.md) that your suffering isn't permanent, and that your loss isn't as bad as you feel. - [Shame](mind-feelings-shame.md) - Form [an identity](identity.md) around something that's *not* the actions you've performed. - [Depression](mind-feelings-sadness.md) - Start and focus on maintaining [habits](habits.md) that create constructive, healthy routines. APPLICATION: Restraining feelings can serve to suppress our feelings, at least to a degree, but comes with the risk of stifling [action](results.md) in the process. On the other hand, changing [beliefs](understanding-certainty.md) over time will *dramatically* change how we directly feel about something while maintaining our means to keep persevering. Mental illness, however, makes this ordeal *much* more challenging, since each of the fixes creates adverse ripple effects on all the other emotions: - Releasing what you have control of (to fight bitterness) may spiral you further into depression. - Learning to relax (to fight anxiety) may lead to discovering bitterness that drives hidden [purposes](purpose.md). - Recognizing the impermanence of the situation (to fight grief) may create [an existential crisis](hardship-worthlessness.md). - Making a new identity (to fight shame) may give you more grief (from the loss of what had happened). - Starting new habits (to fight depression) may increase your anxiety if you're unfamiliar with those tasks. If we've suffered [trauma](hardship-ptsd.md), we must work through all the feelings we've experienced to attain [the good life](goodlife.md), at least until we've linked them with what our [soul](humanity.md) is experiencing. APPLICATION: The long-term adverse feelings of depression, shame, and anxiety aren't *bad* to have, but they represent a long-term viewpoint that needs changing. This requires us to constrain our adverse emotional states to a minimum possible range to make room for other emotional experiences. In fact, the only way to reliably work through mental illness is through [devotion to God](god.md), and most effectively within the humility [mandated by Christianity](jesus-gospel.md).