“Feelings live on the front row of our lives like unruly children clamoring for attention.  They presume on their justification in being whatever they are – unlike a thought, which by nature is open to challenge and invites the question ‘Why?’  The term ‘feeling’ indicates a kind of ‘contact’, a ‘touch’, that is at once blind and powerful – in allure as well as in revulsion.”  – Dallas Willard

Like many things, something is a great thing to have, a nice thing to have, a fine thing to have – until we over-indulge in it. 

Food, even high-quality, nutritious food, can become a bad thing if we consume too much.  A health coach once said to me, “3000 calories is still 3000 calories, even if it’s 3000 calories of spinach.”  And after eating 3000 calories of spinach, not a one of us would be feeling well. 

Consider money.  Most people believe more money equals higher levels of happiness, and yet hordes of research show the opposite.  In an article released by ABC news, 160 households with over 25 million dollars listed gross amounts of reasons why their wealth makes them miserable.  And studies of the rich and famous prove the same.  Those at the top are consistently the most unhappy. 

Free time.  Most of us would say if we didn’t have to work, we could do whatever we want and we would be happier.  But really think about that.  If you had so much free time that all you had was free time, most of us would be scratching at the walls to get out and find something productive to do. 

What about things like confidence, trust, commitments?  All of these things are good, but too much of any of them will hold their own set of consequences.  Gavin de Becker points out that even fear, in amounts, can be the very thing we need to be safe, alert, or cause us to act, but in too high amounts fear will paralyze us, or send us into fight or flight. 

All these things are necessary, natural parts of life but become tedious time bombs of uncertainty and consequences when we over-indulge in them. 

And that brings us to feelings. 

Feelings are a part of our natural existences.  They are normal and valuable and helpful for processing and informing, but they too, in egregious amounts, turn on us.  Worst of all, feelings are fickle. 

They turn with the wind, or with the slightest brush of a thumb.  They change at a joke, or an insult, at a TV show or a social post.  They morph with how full our stomachs are, how much we slept last night, what are hormones are doing, or if our favorite team won the game.  Feelings can be manipulated by the tone of a voice; the micro expression of a spouse, friend, or stranger; the temperature of the air, or the precipitation of the sky.  How easily our feelings are man-handled and manipulated through media, commercials, and advertisements.  How swiftly and frequently they change throughout the course of a day. 

Feelings are fickle.  And our overindulgence in them has become so great, that they are informing major, and in some cases irreversible, decisions for us. 

We are so concerned about kids’ feelings that every one of them gets an award or trophy – even if they did nothing remarkable and lost every game in the season. 

We’re so feeling-centric that we let them determine who we date, marry, and whether or not we stay married.  The moment we think we’ve ‘lost that loving feeling’, we’re out. 

We exploit the beauty sex because of feelings.  We have affairs because of feelings.  We sacrifice our family units because of feelings.  (Note here this is not all-inclusive – some relationships need to end.  This refers to those relationships in which ‘losing that loving feeling’ seems to be reason enough to end it.)

We withhold forgiveness from people who have hurt us because our feelings are more important to us than our freedom.  

We worship our feelings so much we use it as a reason not to believe in a loving God.  If He’s loving, how could He allow me to feel pain, discomfort, loss, or discouragement?  But what loving father do you know who has, for his child’s perceived benefit, protected him or her from everything that could possibly inflict pain?  Not allowing us to feel pain or discomfort or loss would be to severely inhibit our growth.  It would wound us.  But it makes us feel ways we don’t want to feel, so we use it as a reason to deny Him. 

We don’t do things we should because of the way we feel. 

We do things we really shouldn’t because of the way we feel.   

We quit when we should persevere. 

We keep going when we should stop. 

We bow, moment by moment, to whatever feeling dominates us at any given moment.  We are, without a doubt, slaves to the god of our feelings.  And he is the ficklest master we will ever serve. 

The challenge with worshiping a god as fickle as this is that what works for today may not work for tomorrow – both in the short-term, and in the long-term.  Short-term and long-term consequences from worshiping feelings can be seen in nearly all of our cultural practices and it is worthwhile to spend time considering how this impacts each of us personally, but for now I want to zoom in on how worshiping feelings impacts our daily lifestyle choices. 

MOVEMENT

Does anyone relate to this sentiment: “I don’t feel like working out.”    

Good grief, I cannot tell you how many times this thought has run across my mind – and I’m someone who genuinely loves to move my body.  Having worked with people on their food and movement choices for as long as I have, this idea of “I don’t feel like it,” is the master informer when it comes to getting daily movement. 

The book (now movie) Dune provides us a fictional example of this very real concept. 

Paul, who is in training to become a great leader is met by Gurney who has been charged with continuing to teach Paul how to fight. 

After failing a training exercise, Paul says to his trainer, “I guess I’m not in the mood for it today.” 

Gurney replies, “Mood?!  What is mood to do with it?  You fight when the necessity arises, no matter the mood.” 

How many times can you recall changing the intentions you had to move your body because of your mood?  Because you didn’t feel like it. 

Fam, for me, there are quite a few. 

An oft-used phrase in the fitness world speaks to this: “When’s the last time you regretted a workout?”

I have to admit, this phrase gets me every time, because even if it’s not a great workout, it still feels better than doing nothing.  Ironic isn’t it, that we don’t move our bodies because we don’t feel like it, and then when we do it, we feel great? 

Feelings are fickle. 

It’s important to remember that moving your body doesn’t have to happen inside a health club.  Lifting heavy things and putting them back down again may not be your idea of a good time.  Or you may be in season in which you’re rehabbing a knee, or recovering from treatment, or going through a hard time in your relationship – all of these things can impact your desire to move your body. 

But time and time again movement will prove to enhance your mood, decrease pain, heal injuries faster (when done appropriately), drive confidence, and shoot happy hormones through your brain and bloodstream.  For digestible facts about the benefits of moving your body, the CDC has unending resources, one of which, you can find here.  

Ami McConnell hosts the WriterFest podcast in which she interviews writers of book, song, and film.  If you’re a writer of any kind, you will not regret tapping into this resource.  In Ami’s interview with prolific songwriter Tom Douglas, he says something that we may find useful in this context. 

He says he doesn’t wait to feel like writing. 

He doesn’t wait for the right inspiration or the right weather or the right mood or the right temperature.  He does it every morning, at the same time, in the same place, whether he feels like it or not.  Somedays it works, somedays it doesn’t.  But every day, there are more words on a page then there were the day before. 

I wonder how our days, lives, and existences would change if we didn’t wait to feel a certain way to do the things that matter to us. 

This application certainly works outside of getting daily movement, but for this moment, consider how your habits would change if you didn’t wait to feel like exercising, or walking, or moving.  Are you willing to commit to a time of day or a modality for moving your body?  And if so, can you identify a way to challenge yourself past your own feelings when the moment of choice arises? 

FOOD

The Idol of Feelings is perhaps at its most imposing when it comes to choosing our food. 

This conversation happens every night, doesn’t it? 

“What do you want for dinner?” 

“I don’t know what you do feel like?” 

“I don’t know what sounds good to you?” 

All of these questions point not toward the stewardship of our bodies, but toward our feelings, our desires, and our wants. 

The first chapter discussed our culture’s use of food for everything but its primary purpose of fuel.  When we are worshiping the Idol of Feelings, we choose our food based only on what we want, desire, crave, or feel – not for its ability to fuel our bodies. 

The YMCA offers a class called “Healthy Weight and Your Child”.  Parent and child take the class together, and it’s offered to families with children who qualify as overweight or obese at a very early age.  In the content of the class, the kids are taught a very important skill which we adults may also benefit from learning.  It’s the skill of identifying and responding to ‘hunger’ versus ‘craving’. 

Hunger is a need.  Craving is a feeling. 

The content of the class encourages participants to consider the food he/she wants in the moment.  For your purposes, use whatever food you tend to crave and fill in the blank. 

The facilitator asks the participant to consider these questions: 

“What am I craving?”  (Fill in the blank.).

“Is there a more healthful option?”  (Yes or no.).

If yes: “What is a more healthful replacement?” (Fill in the blank.).  

“Does the more healthful replacement sound good?”  (Yes or no.).

If yes, you’re hungry. 

If no, you’re craving. 

If the participant identifies that it is a craving, he/she is coached to wait twenty minutes and then re-evaluate.  The objective is to not only identify the craving, but then to avoid the unhealthy choice by simply waiting to actually be hungry.  Because when we’re actually hungry, we’re willing to make healthful choices. 

Because it’s a physical need; not a feeling. 

Feelings are fickle. 

Wait twenty minutes next time you want something and see if your desires change.  This might be just the tool we need to start making food choices (or any choice, for that matter) tomorrow that we couldn’t make today. 

TECHNOLOGY

In Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard writes this: 

“Here lies the secret to understanding contemporary Western life and its peculiar proneness to gross immoralities and addictions.  People are overwhelmed with decisions and can only make those decisions on the basis of feelings…

(In the past) individuals in their roles knew without thinking about it what to do with their minutes, hours, and days, and only rarely were faced with having to do what they ‘felt like doing’.  The overall order in which they lived usually gave them great strength and inner freedom derived from their sense of place and direction even in the midst of substantial suffering and frustration. 

In a situation such as today, by contrast, where people constantly have – or think they have – to decide what to do, they will almost invariably be governed by feelings.  Often, they cannot distinguish between their feelings and their will, and in their confusion, they also quite commonly take feelings to be reasons.  And they will in general lack any significant degree of self-control.  This will turn their life into a mere drift through the days and years, which addictive behavior promises to allow them to endure.” 

The truth herein is almost devastating to consider. 

Though this too could be applied to many areas of life, in 2023, it’s hard not to apply it to our cultural use of technology – specifically TV, film, video games, and social media. 

Willard speaks of gross immoralities and addictions; of people overwhelmed with decisions; of the constant requirement to consider what we ‘feel like doing’; of a lack of a sense of place; of us not knowing our feelings from our wills; or knowing our feelings from reasons; and of a lack of self-control. 

Do any of these sound like our screen choices?  Whether scrolling the feeds, wasting hours on YouTube, letting Netflix roll episodes, consuming media we know is filled with darkness, or spending hours posing for our social media fan clubs – all of these behaviors indicate that Dallas Willard was right on the money.  Our addictive behaviors indicate that we are governed by our feelings.  And this may be no more evident, then in our technology choices. 

Here are a few questions to ponder around our technology choices and the reality that they are now, without a doubt, nothing less than addictive behaviors.  

How many hours a day do I spend with TV, film, video games, or social media? 

How many of these hours are edifying (i.e. do they help me get better, improve, or grow)? 

How do these hours support my priorities? 

How do hours behind the screen impact the people closest to me? 

How do hours behind the screen benefit me, my family, friends, or community? 

How do hours behind the screen steward the gift of my body, soul, mind, or spirit? 

Are these questions as humbling to you as they are to me? 

It really begins to challenge what we say we value when so many of our hours are passed in front of the screen.  When we eat a meal with our favorite people across the table but with our phones in front of our faces.  When we spend a beautiful Saturday binge-watching a trashy show.  When we go three sleepless nights playing a video game and are worthless the following days because we can’t keep our eyes open or engage at our jobs.  When we spend four hours watching movies beside visiting, out-of-state family members instead of conversing with them in any kind of meaningful way. 

The unpleasant fact is that we choose technology over the things we say matter to us because we feel like it.  Our addictive behaviors are owning us because we’re governed by our feelings.  And right now, more than anything, we’re addicted to the Almighty Screen.  We worship the Idol of Feelings when we choose passive entertainment through the blue over everything else. 

I wonder how our lives would change if instead of immediately moving for the screen, we would stop to consider how else we might spend our time.  I wonder if we may avoid the ‘mere drift through the days and years’ if we chose to address our addictions to the screen. 

I know one thing’s for sure: the screen’s not going anywhere.  Just like tempting food choices will always be around and the choice not to exercise will always be there.  These options are not going to evaporate into thin air, so we must determine how to live through them.  It’s like the bear hunt book:  we can’t go over them and we can’t go under them – we have to run right through the brick wall of our addictions and choose otherwise. 

Mere willpower is not going to do the trick, but uncovering this idol may be enough to test your intentions.  

In your life, how are you worshiping the Idol of Feelings?  What can change in order for you to better steward the gift of your mind, body, spirit, and soul?  And when the moment of choice comes, what can you do to avoid bowing to the god of your feelings?

Here’s to digging with you.  

Nic Ford