“You can take action regardless of how you feel”
The first time I heard this I thought this meant what it always meant for me: “push through and force yourself to do what you know you should! Nothing can stop you, ughh (mean face)”.
That’s all I knew at the time about taking action - If I’m not doing what I know is better for me, that’s because I am lazy and I can counteract laziness with strong discipline!
Uuf…that was exhausting. When I wasn’t kicking myself on the ass to do something I was beating myself up for not doing it. Not a fun way to roll.
Then at some point I started to hear that phrase differently…
“You can take action regardless of how you feel”
Got it! I just have to numb all my feelings and emotions, so that action feels effortless
The logic is that if I was a robot I would take action at all times without hesitation.
Needless to say that didn’t really work, for the simple fact that we can’t stop being human and when I avoid feeling the lowest lows I’m also cutting myself off from feeling the highest of highs.
Then something clicked for me…
What if the world of action and the world of feelings were two distinct realities?
The world of feelings are simply letting me know the state of mind I am having in each moment.
If I am angry, that’s a reflection of my heated up state of mind, if I am doubtful, that’s simply a confused state, if I’m happy, I am having positive thoughts. It’s simply a feedback mechanism about which internal weather I am having.
The world of action is something completely different. It’s a binary world. I am either taking action or not, I had this result or that one. That’s it. Here there’s no story about why I should take action or feeling regret for not taking it. There’re no stories here.
Seeing feelings and actions like this helped me have a space between one another.
I can be in a feeling of judgement and stress while staking action or while not taking any.
I can be in a feeling of joy while doing what I said I would or not doing anything.
I can be scared and move towards what I want to create or feel the fear and stay put.
I can feel lazy and go to the gym or feel lazy or not go.
My feelings are not an indicator of which actions I should take. They are solely an indicator of which state of mind I am in.
There’s no judgment of whether you do something or not. It doesn’t really matter.
What matters is to recognise that there’s a space beyond thoughts and feelings, a deeper awareness of what you are, a place in which lies your freedom to choose whatever you want to do.
…And still, all sorts of feelings will come - and that’s ok. You can let them be while you take action…or not.
What I now see is that this is about embracing the full range of our human experience WHILST knowing that I still have a choice on what to do next.
We all have blind spots in our lives where we don’t see this clearly and as a result procrastinate, hold back or beat ourselves up. If you’d like some help with this, just send me a PM.
Love,
Felipe