No such thing as bad feelings

Recently, I was on a call with a potential client. At one point, he shared that he was feeling bad about the possibility of not buying from me.

While I assured him that there was no expectation to buy — this was simply a call to research my new target audience — what struck me most was something else entirely.

The idea that there could even be such a thing as a bad feeling.

Feelings are just feelings.

Yet modern culture teaches us to divide them into good and bad. Joy is good. Anger is bad. Happiness is desirable. Sadness is something to get rid of.

But what if this entire map is fundamentally flawed?

Feelings are a neutral source of intelligence and information.

And the more we allow them to be just that, the more access we have to our limitless Being — rather than living from a very limited version of ourselves.

Take anger, for example.

Imagine believing anger is a bad feeling, and therefore never truly allowing yourself to feel it.

As a result, you might never fully go for what you really want. Never truly start something — or stop something — simply because you don't have access to the fuel that is your anger.

Instead, you bottle it up. Numb it. Suppress it as hard as possible.

Until you can't hold it anymore.

And a volcano of emotional vomit erupts onto the people you love.

But what if anger isn't the problem? What if your relationship to anger is?

Instead, I propose seeing anger as the neutral source of intelligence it is — informing us when boundaries are being crossed, when something needs to change, or when action is being asked of us.

Feeling anger doesn't mean you have to act it out. It means you have access to information you can consciously choose what to do with.

And the same goes for every other feeling.

Labelling feelings as good or bad seriously limits your Being — and the intelligence, choices, and possibilities you have access to.

Instead of trying to control which feelings you experience, what if you learned to access the intelligence of all of them?

I invite you to consider a different map of feelings.

The Old Map (Old Culture) vs. The New Map of Feelings.

What would become possible in your life, work, and relationships if you stopped treating certain feelings as enemies?