Feelings

[toni]

Hi Michael,

Today's tip was so appropriate to me!  I'm going through a marriage split after 23 years and I get completely confused about what I want and which feelings as 'true' compared to others.  I realise now that conflicting feelings are just they way it is for me now.  I do find it hard to have different sensations going on all at the same time, and I realised as I followed your tip that there seemed to be one stronger sensation than the others.  Perhaps just by noticing more and not judging, the still small voice of me will finally be noticed (by me)! 

Thanks for just 'feeling' you should write it, your intuition worked for me.

Toni

[Ian Walton]

Dear Michael

After I read your tip today a couple of things fell into place for me:

Firstly the heirarchy of ideas for mood, emotion, and feelings.  I now see that a mood is the highest meta-judgement, and is a qualitative assessment of our totality of feelings - good/bad mood; irritable/relaxed for example.  The next chunk down is emotion, which. as you say, is a generalised term for a collection of the feelings which comprise that emotion.  Thanks for putting the last two into an 'order'.

Secondly, when I recognise that I am in a mood I'd rather not be in, I chunk down on this through the emotions to the feelings and then down to the thing that is triggering the feeling.  The first avenue of this chunking exercise is my excuse, usually.  Then I start to chunk sideways to find out what else is going on, change it, and use this as the basis for changing my attitude.

I'm sure this approach would work in coaching.

Ian

[Michael Neill]

Secondly, when I recognise that I am in a mood I'd rather not be in, I chunk down on this through the emotions to the feelings and then down to the thing that is triggering the feeling.  The first avenue of this chunking exercise is my excuse, usually.  Then I start to chunk sideways to find out what else is going on, change it, and use this as the basis for changing my attitude.

I'm sure this approach would work in coaching.

It really does - and in my experience can work even without finding the trigger!

Happy exploring - please post your experiences of playing with that in your coaching!

love,
michael

[Michael Neill]

I do find it hard to have different sensations going on all at the same time, and I realised as I followed your tip that there seemed to be one stronger sensation than the others.  Perhaps just by noticing more and not judging, the still small voice of me will finally be noticed (by me)! 

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(If that's not me being too detailed in my reply...  )

love,
michael