"Always Trust Your Feeling." Really?

"Always Trust Your Feeling?" 

This dictum sounds familiar and appealing. It is often used by my colleagues to address the students who consumes without any thought analysis. It sounds wise, thus the popularity. However, the reality is nuanced and misleading. This article discusses why the dictum is appealing and explores to interrupt the assumptions that frame the popularity of the dictum.

Why does this dictum sounds fascinating? 

The combination of "trust," "your," and "feeling" powerfully blends to tap into appealing aspect of human psychology and experiences. It can be safe to assert that it is powerful enough to hijack our rational self. "Trust your feeling" offers us utterly unique reason that equivocally sound reasonable to justify our feeling and actions. This phrase also helps us shield from societal judgement which is either dichotomies or are not of our liking. Simply put, it helps in what I may call "social-self preservation instinct." 

Further, any sappy reading materials or pop social influencers using the phase give valor and vigor to the phase as if it is a primordial and timeless wisdom. Such fabrication often resonate innate wisdom satisfying and validating our subjective experiences, proving us with sense of deeper knowledge. 

Our emotion and wishful thought need constant feeding. Trusting our feeling exactly does that. Trusting our feeling authenticate the image and persona of genuine self fulfilling our desire of authenticity and being true to oneself. It romanticizes our trust on inutition and idea of following of heart and instinct as pathway to success. 

Why our feeling cannot be trusted always?

The dictum is a typical example of "Emotional Reasoning." Emotional reasoning is a cognitive distortion where people assume that their feeling are objective indicator of reality and evidence of truth. Often described as 'gut feeling', belief in such dictums justifies the decisions we make and conclusions we draw based on our immediate visceral reaction and feeling of right rather than logical thought and deliberate analysis of evidence. 

It is generally converged that feelings are always compelling, but not always reliable as it often distort the reality and deprive us of gaining sensible insight. The use of dictum is customarily a self-preservation tactic and irrational validation of feelings at are not necessarily objective but self-centered. 

Feelings are influenced by cognitive bias. Cognitive biases are inconsistent and temporal usually shaped by unresolved past experiences and trauma. Blind trust in our feeling that stem from such systemic error and distorted mental experiences can override and impair our principles, inherent qualities and values. 

Striking the Balance

While it is important to acknowledge and understand our feelings, it is crucial to balance the feeling with logical reasoning and objectivity by considering our long term values, principles, and consequences. We should neither allow ourself to be solely driven by feeling nor suppress them. We should rather observe, acknowledge, understand and  respond to it with mindfulness, care and consideration. The ultimate wisdom is neither cast aside nor pursue the feeling, at the natural state of awareness flourish yourself in wisdom.