I might be crazy for this one, but let’s pretend like there are things in life we should do no matter what we think or how we feel. Let’s suppose that relationships, a big part of life, require certain behaviors to be successful regardless of our emotional state. Every day I wake up for work, and irrespective of how I feel, I go and do my job. Nothing worthwhile will ever get done if we only put in the work when we feel like it. So why are we so eager to accept the fruits of a relationship, but less excited about the work it takes to produce them? Furthermore, why do we complain and get frustrated about our relationships when we know darn well we haven’t put in that work?
Part of the problem is that we get caught up in the idea that love is a feeling. When the feeling is not there, we wonder where the love went. Although we use the word freely in the English language to denote the felt sense of satisfaction we gain from everything from food to people, in practice and reality, it is an action at heart. Furthermore, to be pure, love has to go beyond an exchange of services, it can’t be contractually based, which also means it has to be unconditional.
“Most important thing about love is that we choose to give it, and we choose to receive it. Making it the least random act in the entire universe. It transcends blood; it transcends betrayal and all the dirt that makes us human.” –Ryan Reynolds, Chaos Theory
I can hear some cynics argue that nothing is unconditional, but they aren’t people I go to for relationship advice. A good relationship requires two independent operators engaging in meeting each other’s needs. My partner’s needs, in turn, challenge me to grow. When I participate in growth, I will be required to act in ways that demonstrate love to my partner, or said in reverse, when I show love to my partner I will be engaging in growth. The relationship between my partner’s needs and my need to grow is not always self-evident, but if you look close enough, you will see the interrelatedness of your personal growth needs and your partner’s needs for love.
So why do we continue to insist that “Love” is a feeling based emotion? How silly it is to hold feelings in such high esteem as we chase them around, hoping that somehow we will luckily stumble on the ones we want while avoiding those we do no like. Consequently, because we have this idea that love is feeling, we miss out on the responsibility and privilege to act it out in our relationships unconditionally, therefore missing out on the opportunity to experience the affective result we were looking for in the first place, that feeling we mistakenly equate with love.
Feelings were never meant to be the supreme guiding force in your life. Quite frankly, following your personal feelings through life is akin to being a narcissist and is not a conducive method for winning at relating to anyone, let alone an intimate partner. A wise saying I once heard goes something like, “Feelings are supposed to be a thermometer, not a thermostat.” They should be part of a calibrated system that works with our executive functions to help guide our lives. However, they are not perfectly calibrated for any of us. They are all questionable and interdependent on other factors. One of the worst things we can do is take them for granted as being true to our present reality without being questioning them.
Thoughts, Feelings, Behaviors
Individually, we might agree that our overall experience in life is a result of some interplay between our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Most of the time spent in autopilot, we fail to distinguish between the three. We often justify our actions based on how we feel, or our thoughts and feelings become enmeshed when we say things like, “I felt you were being…” It is also true that our thoughts can be based on wrong information, which in turn drives our emotions and produces consequential decisions. As Cris Beasley eloquently puts it, “We disguise our thoughts as feelings to shield ourselves from actually feeling them.” This is why it is so hard to make relationships work.
One way to understand the relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is to consider what we can actively control. We can choose our thoughts, and we can choose our behaviors. Those two components can be directly acted on by our will if we want to be mindful. However, we can not instantly decide to feel a certain way. It requires help from our thoughts and behaviors to change the way we feel.
For instance, I may need to lose 100 pounds, so I plan to go to the gym every day. However, I do not feel like going to the gym each day, but I push past my feelings and make it happen. After a few weeks of consistency, I begin to lose weight. I look better, and I feel better. Suddenly, I know why I am going to the gym, and now I may feel like it. Contrastingly, you might even consider the feeling, thinking, and behavior relationship regarding how you gained the 100 pounds in the first place. Hmmm?
Or perhaps you have been told, “You shouldn’t feel that way.” You might think, “Oh, really? Well, how should I feel?” It is impossible to simply turn feelings off and on. But when we do feel specific ways, we must consider the impact our thoughts and actions are having on that emotional state, rather than simply trust that my feelings are giving me an accurate representation of reality.
But I Don’t Feel Like It
The fact is that thoughts, feelings, and actions are entirely distinct parts from each other, and they work together in a relationship that we may want to consider when we evaluate how we act in our relationships. It tends to be the case that feelings rule the roost. After all, they are powerfully and intrinsically linked to our body’s security system. When we feel something strongly, we find it hard to simply talk ourselves out of the emotional state we are in. It is also difficult to act in a way that we may know to be better if our emotions are taking control.
Such is often the case in conflict with our partner. There is a logical part of the conversation that involves the facts of the situation, what was said and done, as well as the reasoning we have for our opinion. However, our feelings are not part of this factual or rational set of truths, yet somehow they make their way into our expressions towards our partner.
Feelings: Valid But Misplaced
Our feelings indeed could be seen as valid, but that does not make them universally true the present shared state of reality. What they are true to is the environment and experiences that they were wired in, namely our upbringing. It is from this perspective alone that they can be understood; however, in the mash-up of our thoughts and feelings, we tend to try to understand them as unique to the present moment. What we are presenting as a seemingly logical argument is really a justification for how we feel.
In essence, these feelings might be ones we do not want to feel, and are being projected onto our current situations where they do not belong. They are emotional memories of sorts that have been triggered by the present, but only make sense as they relate to our past. If we do not want to go there, then we are essentially taking a blow torch to our current relationships whenever conflict ensues. It is a sad reality when we do not figure this out.
All feelings are linked to our thinking and behaviors. Even if we do want to consider love to be a feeling, we must consider it in relation to our thoughts and actions. Our feelings are responses that can both reinforce our thoughts and behaviors and be manufactured by them. Relationally it is time to take the bull by the horns instead of putting our thinking and actions in subservient roles to our feelings. We can stop wondering why we are not feeling the love, and put our mind’s eyes on our thoughts and behaviors. In doing so, we might find out what we can do to manufacture that feeling we call love instead of settling for a knock-off version.
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If you have read this far, thank you! I would love to hear your feedback, have a discussion, or debate these concepts. Let’s connect at, PsychologyToday, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or shoot me an email at [email protected].
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Pixabay