Hi Reader,

Here's one thing I've learned: your feelings aren't telling you the truth.

A simple example. If you're afraid of roller coasters, it's not because roller coasters are actually scary and dangerous. There are lots of people who enjoy them safely.

If you believe your feelings are telling you the truth, you'd never get on a roller coaster.

That's one way to live life, and it's fine. Just don't deceive yourself that it's based on truth.

The nuance here is that with some practice, you can extract truth from your feelings. It's just that it's only ever truth about you. Feeling scared of roller coasters is easy to misinterpret as "roller coasters are scary." But the actual truth is more personal, and maybe harder to admit: you're just scared of roller coasters.

Beneath that fear you might discover a deeper truth: how deeply you value your life, or something like that. There's enormous value in inquiring into exactly what you're feelings are telling you about yourself.

So I will continue to practice listening to my feelings, and I invite you to do the same. I think it's the first step in coming home.

But as a part of that practice I'm trying to unlearn the idea that my feelings tell me anything true about anything other than myself: what I want and who I care about.