You Should Choose How You React to Your Feelings

One of the things I love about parenting is being frequently reminded how many things are not the default for most people. While I see this most clearly in my 11-year-olds, I also see it in other adults as well as in myself. One of these human defaults that I think is worth improving upon is the instinct to “trust” your feelings, i.e. act on them without much consideration of:Is the surface level source of the feeling accurate?Is my gut reaction based on this feeling helpful?What is the Source of My Feeling?We are often wrong about the source of our feelings, whether because we’re hangry, sleep-deprived, stressed, or in any other altered state that changes our typical reactions. When you’re very hungry, someone doing something relatively innocuous can result in you getting angry at them. The biggest contributor to your anger is not actually the actions you’re responding to (since under normal circumstances you wouldn’t react with anger) - it’s the fact that you’re hungry.Other times we might be right about the general source, but getting specific is necessary to productively act on the feeling:You’re afraid of attempting some physical feat - is it truly dangerous, or are you just afraid for no good reason, or for a reason that was true in the past but no longer applies?You’re anxious about an upcoming test - have you prepared as well as you can, are you anxious despite having prepared well, are the things you’re worried about outside of your control and thus not worth worrying about?How Should I React to My Feeling?Even when you correctly understand the source of your feeling, your gut reactions are often not actually helpful in addressing the issue at hand or accomplishing your goals! Similar to the maxim in design and creative disciplines of “Listen to the problem, not the solution”, with feelings it seems you should acknowledge your feelings, but don’t blindly do what they seem to tell you to do. Consider the following situations:One of your kids hits the other,