My emotions mobilize me to meet my needs. My feelings are dependent in whether my needs were met or not. Others cannot make me feel anything.

 

When I identify MY feelings, there is NO REFERENCE TO THE OTHER PERSON.

Do I want to be right or to experience the joy of life? I need to choose. I cannot have both.

If I want to be right I use moralistic judgments: who is right? Who is wrong? Who deserves punishment or reward, and if so, how much?   

If I would like to connect with the joy of life, I use life serving judgments: judging from the heart, clarifying and verbalizing my feelings and qualities I value in life that are common for each of us (needs). 

With moralistic judgment I express what I think about the other person. With life serving judgments I express how I am in the situation and what needs of mine are allive.   

Unfortunately, with most of us, our vocabulary is much more sophisticated when deciding what is wrong with someone than it is in verbalizing our feelings. This can be changed!

Acknowledging my feelings doesn’t mean I identify with them or let them dominate me. 

All feelings are a form of energy. If I acknowledge, say out loud, or write down whenever I experience a strong feeling, it helps me to accept it and the feeling starts to melt away. Then I am unblocked and able to go with the flow of life. By acknowledging, accepting, even loving my fear or happiness I am able to find the love and peace that always lies underneath any strong emotions. Even strong positive feelings such as happiness can possess me, and when they do I lose my connection to myself, and I lose my overall awareness.

People are never responding only to my words but to the intentions and feelings behind them as well. If I have a fear, guilt, shame or anger about saying something, the reaction I get is often strongly related to my feelings and only slightly to my words. 

Unexpressed fear is likely to sound as criticism. 

Why are words important at all? They are one way of connecting, and in some situations words are incredibly important, especially when we can find the key word that expresses our deepest intentions and feelings.

If I am not able to express verbally what is going on inside me, I just feel the pressure of something wanting to come out, but it is not able to do so.

Fear is the soil for all Violence. Whenever there is fear, especially when it is connected with life alienated thinking such us he is bad, he wants to hurt me violence can grow. Fear can be seen as a destructive energy—not life serving. At the same time, it is a valuable sign that I am in an important situation, that something is not ok and that one or more of my needs is not met. Therefore I need to deal with my fear.

I never make a decision when I have strong feelings, whether negative or positive. I wait, find inner peace and listen to my inner voice. 

 

 It is absolutely crucial to distinguish feelings from thoughts.