Colt (00:00)
All right, feelings, feelings, feelings. Talking about the prison of feelings today and self-differentiation. So welcome to my podcast, my show here, talking about Bowen family systems, ways that you can become a more well-defined self in the context of thinking systems, thinking from the emotional unit that you come from, the family system that you grew up in, or the family system that you’ve married into.
and how to continue to become a more effective, well-defined self. So the goal is to help you shift from being ruled by your feelings today, thinking in systems, knowing your guiding principles, and taking action in alignment with them. So, gonna go over three points today. Number one is the Western world’s obsession with feelings. Two, thinking in systems where feelings come in from.
where they actually come from and how to work with them, and three, guiding principles over feelings.
So that first point, the Western world’s obsession with feelings. Feelings are treated as the ultimate truth in Western society. If you feel it, it must be true. If you feel it, it must be reality. It must be true. It must be the most important aspect of what’s happening. But feelings are not facts. They are data points. So at no point I want you to take away from this episode that I’m saying that feelings don’t matter.
They’re not facts. They’re data points. They could be alluding to a fact like, oh my gosh, there’s a bear and you feel anxious. That’s an appropriate feeling, right? Oh my gosh, I punched someone in face. I feel guilty. So feelings are data, but not necessarily facts. You might feel guilty for standing up for yourself when you’re not used to. And it’s important that you didn’t stand up for yourself in the family system you’re from, i.e. an alcoholic family.
because alcohol and feeling differently was most important, so you need to be not getting in the way. So again, feelings are not facts, they are data points, and they’re shaped by family unit and the society expectations. So here’s a real barrier to people’s transformation into their growth. People chase feelings instead of living by their principles.
values, their visions, their goals, and I’ll talk more about your guiding principles and why they’re so important to articulate and get clear about, especially if you grew up in the Western world. So anxiety makes you, and here’s an example, anxiety makes you want to avoid something, but avoiding doesn’t solve the problem, it reinforces it.
So when people are chasing their feelings, set them by their principles, they may be chased by their feelings too. So the feelings are in the driver’s seat of their life and how they’re working through the world, moving through the world. And if you’re feeling anxious, you might want to avoid something as a result or feed into something so the situation’s better, but then you avoid solving the problem and it just reinforces the problem. It reinforces the problem.
Last thing about the Western world, especially with pop psychology and psychology and therapy in general, there’s this weird obsession of you gotta feel it to heal it. As if one day when we get to the bottom of all our feelings and work through all our parts that we’ll just hit the feeling jackpot nirvana and everything’s gonna be hunky dory wonderful.
the surface is nothing wrong with that per se, but again it ignores guiding principles, it ignores becoming a more well-defined self, it just becomes a sport of feeling your feelings in order to be okay. Okay, so let’s jump over to the next point, thinking in systems. Where feelings come from? Feelings don’t exist in a vacuum.
they’re inherited and shaped by the family system. One thing that’s really hard to get inside of your Western mind is to think in a system-like way. Instead of thinking of yourself as the unit, which you are, you are an entity, you are a self, it helps to really think as the unit, as the family system.
the system you come from as the unit or the new system you’re in as the unit of marriage you’re in as the unit and when you can start to think about that you can start to self differentiate from it staying connected but also having some separateness which is healthy as an individual to be in a system
However, a lot of times because of systems, people will enmesh themselves to individuals within the system. So the anxiety of the system stays low, but really it doesn’t and no problems are solved when you do that. Or they totally cut themselves off, which in the short term helps, but long term you stay stuck.
So feelings don’t exist in a vacuum. They are inherited and shaped by the family system. In Bowen theory, anxiety spreads through families. They like electricity or like a flock of birds. One bird gets scared by something. The rest of the birds follow that bird. One person gets anxious and it spreads. So again, thinking in systems.
Right? You absorb your husband’s anxiety and once you absorb it and take it on, he feels less anxious and then you pass it on to your child, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So ask yourself, is this feeling really mine?
When you start to think in systems, you start to notice feelings, you recognize guiding principles are more important or more helpful to focus on than your feelings. They should be in the driver’s seat, not your feelings. When you start to think about that way, you can ask yourself, is this feeling really mine? Or is it part of the family system’s emotional patterns? Again, if you’re feeling anxious and just avoiding dealing with anything because those anxiety feelings are so high,
You may in the moment dispel some of that, but long term you solve nothing. So self differentiation is about slowing down and asking, what do I actually believe? What am I believing about myself? What do I believe about this situation that is causing me to keep this cycle going? So what do I actually believe instead of just reacting? Reacting to people, places, and things and all those feelings associated with those people, places, and things.
So three, guiding principles. Guiding principles over feelings. Instead of chasing feelings, live by principles. You can work on that. Instead of running from your feelings or chasing those feelings, right? And by the way, you might start to pick up on how drug addiction happens. You’re doing anything and everything but putting feelings in their proper place.
And therefore heroin sounds like a great idea. I’m not recommending heroin. Let’s be clear. So instead of chasing feelings, live by principles. Easier said than done. But you can work on that. And starting to believe that you can work on that gives you so much more power to live in. Instead of reacting to people placing the things in your feelings associated, you can start to work with co-creation, co-creator consciousness. Instead of being a victim to life, instead of collapsing to life, you get to work with life.
So example if a lot of people might say, people might say, wait a second, before I go to the beach and start swimming, I need to have a swimmer’s body, I need to have a beach body before I go to the beach, before I go and swim. Swimming is probably better example here.
So, but really you get a swimmer’s body by swimming. You don’t get the body of a swimmer by not swimming and then go swim. So same here. You’re, learning how to be with, right? Be with our feelings instead of waiting for the feelings to be exactly, perfectly right until we start to work with them and put them in their proper place. Right? I need to feel perfect here. I need to feel no anxiety before I push myself to grow. None of
You need to learn to regulate your own emotions, your own anxiety, and not wait for people, places, and things in your own anxiety to feel a certain way in order for you to move forward.
Right? So you got to swim to get a swimmer’s body. You got to start to practice this and actually believe that you can live by your principles instead of waiting for your feelings to feel a certain way before you start to manage them or put them in their proper place. Put them in the passenger seat and you get the driver’s seat with your guiding principles. Feelings may follow action, but action is key. It’s where the rubber meets the road. It’s the practice of this.
discipleship of this, discipline of slowing down and working with life instead of life working you. So identify your personal guiding principles. What are you committed to no matter how you feel at the moment? And that is a decision you can make. You have that power. You can get into that power. You can realize things. It takes a lot of work because Western society says feelings are the most important thing.
If you feel it must be true, okay? I’m here to say feelings are important, but they’re not the most important thing. And I’m here to repeat myself. If safety is the most important thing in order for you to grow, you’re not going to grow. Safety is important, but the most, more importantly, fulfillment is and growth is important. So don’t be stuck in the prison of feelings. Put them in their proper place. Don’t dismiss them. Don’t fight them. Work with life. Work with your feelings. Let your guiding principles
be in charge, let your values be in charge. If you need a list of guiding principles, a list of values, please reach out to me. I’d be happy to provide you some. I recommend having a top three to six, right? Marine Corps, honor, courage, and commitment.
Mind right now, courage, efficiency, and competence. And I change my values season to season. I don’t keep the same values for the rest of my life. You don’t have to be married to your values. These are tools. These are helpful concepts, right? And making sure that you’re clear on what are my values for this season of my growth, what’s important for this season for me and moving forward in my life to the next level. All right, take care.
