Our feelings have more power than we realise

Why do our feelings cause us to act in certain ways?

​You know the type of behaviour: you've been meaning to ring someone back for a week now and it's not that you're busy, not really.

Every day you think about it, and every day something else takes over, and by the time you remember again it's too late to ring, and you tell yourself you'll do it tomorrow.

A week goes by. Maybe two.

It's easy to call that laziness, or that you’re bad with organising yourself, or just ‘one of those things’. But have a closer look and there's usually a feeling sitting underneath it, probably a small dread about the call itself.

Maybe it's awkward news you have to give. Maybe you're not sure what to say. Maybe there's tension there you haven't sorted out. Whatever it is, the feeling isn't just sitting there quietly.

It's actually driving what you do, or in this case, what you keep not doing.

That's the part that's easy to miss.

We tend to think of feelings as just something that passively ‘happen’ to us, on the inside, while our actions are a separate thing we choose.

But feelings and actions are much more joined up than that. For example, anxiety makes us avoid. Guilt makes us say ‘yes’ when every part of us wants to say no. Sadness makes us go quiet and pull back from people, even the ones we'd actually benefit from being around.

Think about the last time you said ‘yes’ to something you didn't want to do, whether that be covering a shift, taking on the school run, or going to something you'd no interest in. Chances are it wasn't a clear decision you weighed up but it was a feeling, a feeling of guilt, or fear of letting someone down.

This feeling had you nodding along before your head caught up.

None of that makes you weak, or a pushover, or bad at managing yourself.

It just means your feelings are doing exactly what feelings are built to do: pushing you towards some things and away from others, usually faster than you can think it through.

The useful bit is that once you can see the link, you can start to catch it. Not to ignore the feeling, and not to force yourself to do the opposite of what it's telling you, but just to notice it before it makes the decision for you.

So here's something worth trying this week. Next time you find yourself avoiding something, agreeing to something, or pulling away from someone, just pause and ask yourself: what am I about to do here, and what feeling is actually behind it?

Sometimes just naming it is enough to give you a bit of choice back.

You can't always stop a feeling from showing up. But you can decide whether it gets to drive, or whether you get to drive.

Deirdre Ryan is a psychotherapist and Clinical Director of Tipperary Counselling Service.