How to Get Your Feelings Right
Puppies, C.S. Lewis, and myths
Late spring 2024: we were getting a puppy. A Bernese Mountain Dog, objectively the cutest of any puppy that exists. Our original breeder choice in Colorado Springs wasn’t able to give us a puppy from her litter; she recommended a breeder in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. The price was right, so we drove the four hours from Colorado Springs to Scottsbluff on Friday, stayed the night in a hotel, and went to pick out our puppy on Saturday morning.
I should note, on Saturday morning, I took a run on the hotel’s treadmill and listened to a podcast. The podcast was about the enneagram, and specifically mentioned listening to your gut and getting in touch with that feeling as a way of knowing beyond what your thinking had yet reached.
We had thirty minutes at the breeder’s, and four female Berner puppies in a pen, all with different colors on their collars. We talked about how we liked yellow, or purple, or red, or orange. What were we looking for? A dog that was confident but not bossy, not too shy, middle of the road.
At the end of the time, we had to choose: and a week later, we could come pick her up. Brooke and I liked Yellow, the girls liked Red, but we all had Red in our first or second spots. And yet, Brooke told me that I would have the final say: I’d been the one pushing for this dog, the one who found the breeder, the one most invested.
The actual puppy
We live in an era of feelings. We use “I feel that’s not right,” when we often mean “I think that’s not right,” for our next sentence gives reasons why it’s not right, not a list of emotions. We talk about living your truth, which generally connotes doing what feels right, rather than living according to some determined set of rules that you’ve worked out. Your truth, in this instance, is what feels right or good. And your lived experience is similar: an interpretation of what’s happened based, largely, on what you felt. When we made decisions, it may feel right or you may find yourself saying, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
We all know the adage: our feelings are not good or bad, but simply are. Yet, when we realize our feelings are driving a lot of what’s happening, including our interpretations of events, what we think is true, and our decisions, it raises the question: do I trust these feelings?
Feelings, after all, are often a precursor. They help us interpret information, so we’re able to say how someone made us feel like they’re slimy even if their words and actions don’t point to this. Or, on a dark night, if you hear rapidly approaching footsteps, you don’t reason out what they might be. You let your feelings interpret. They’re faster and better at this, and if you run from someone who happens to be trying to get your wallet back to you—well, it’s just a good laugh. Worth it if the person was actually trying to take your wallet from you.
Yet, we still need right-feeling. Just as we need to learn how to think, or how to act, perhaps we need to learn how to feel. Or, just as we learn to control our attention and thoughts, and control what we do (starting to exercise, not hitting someone when you’re at the airport and your flight’s canceled), perhaps we need to learn at least how to direct our feelings.
C.S. Lewis writes about this in The Abolition of Man, when he refers to “men without chests.” We have gut instincts and head knowledge, but no training of the heart, of feeling, of passion. As an example, he’d rather (and I think he’s right) play cards against someone who was trained to be a gentleman and never cheat to win than someone who was trained in moral philosophy but grew up among card sharks. The revulsion against cheating—trained in the gentleman, but only head knowledge for the philosopher—is vitally important.
The question becomes: how do we get our feelings right? How do we develop revulsion for cheating or treating others poorly? How do we develop elation at the success of others? How do we train such things? Since feelings move at a pace faster than thought, we need something beyond thought.
We have two primary disciplines to train our feelings. Our imaginative frameworks—that which is formed out of how we see the world, the stories we hear and tell—and our habits.
For the former, the myths of society, the philosophies we hold, the stories we tell: these shape our feelings.
Imagine a society whose myths are about self-made individuals: it might hold up those that are most financially successful as models to follow. (Rather than those who exhibit uncommon grace or religious commitment). Such a society might have myths and philosophies, embedded in the stories it decides to tell, that individuals must have unlimited freedom in order to be self-made. And such self-making requires an authenticity, a chance to express ourselves in whatever means necessary. Alongside this self-making might be a progressive belief, in that tomorrow will always be better, through technological and scientific advancements.
Such a society would inculcate feelings of revulsion against any kind of limits to a person’s freedom. It would encourage wonder at those titans who have achieved greatly. Longing to be able to say whatever is on a person’s mind at a given moment (and anger at anyone who might try to refrain their expression). Disgust at traditional morality—especially that which threatens “progress” toward “making” ourselves.
The myths of a more traditional culture would engender feelings of awe at those who serve and sacrifice; they would venerate those who have gone before and create suspicion around rapid technological change; these stories would create feelings that fear unlimited freedom and find security and trust in belonging to the collective.
Each of these myths are deep structures, but expressed in specific stories. You might, in the individualistic culture, have a story of a mermaid who gives up her voice and her society in exchange for an individual expression of her love. In a more traditional culture, this would not go so well (as it doesn’t in the original telling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid). They are subtle changes, but significant.
And each would be told by stories, backed by philosophy, and meant to create feelings that precede thought. If our feelings are formed by such myths and philosophies, we must 1) recognize that these shape our immediate feelings, and 2) begin to choose which stories we immerse ourselves in, so that we continue to shape our feelings in ways that are beneficial.
The four of us—me, my wife, and our two daughters—stood in the dog breeder’s living room. We had to choose; our time was up and the breeder was ready for her appointment with the next buyer. The red collared dog was the compromise, but I wanted Yellow. My gut said yellow. This was perhaps the most out-of-character decision I had made in years: going against consensus to do what I thought would be best. The Yellow dog was the most confident from the start, the cutest; she was the one for us.
She was the one we brought home.
And even now, even though we love having Millie, I wonder if I did the right thing. We would love another dog. Were my feelings right? Was my gut right? This is the work: training my feelings. If I had it to do over again, I would clarify how we would make the decision beforehand. But many things we don’t have to do over again. Many, many of our decisions are due to our guts or to our habits, or both.
For the stories we tell ourselves help form our habits. My habits around decisions with others are based on consensus: that’s still my habit. But for one morning a year ago, after listening to a particular podcast, I went a different way.
And the first trick isn’t simply to name whether we feel good or bad, or the myriad feelings for which we have names, but to ask where this feeling is coming from, and what story or habit is supporting it. This begins to get at orthopathy, or right feelings, and the word itself assumes we can have right or wrong feelings. My argument is that yes, we can. When someone laughs at an animal being hurt, that’s a wrong feeling. This is not to should all over your feelings, but to recognize them for what they are: an information processing device faster than—and often deeper than—thought.
This is an argument to be widely read. It’s an argument to work out your feelings; something like the Psalms is a classic example—to experience anger, lament, sorrow, hope—but to do so in a particular storied way. C.S. Lewis refers to this as the Tao, meaning an ancient way or path of behavior and feeling that guides us (expanding the definition away from one philosophy or religion). Don’t murder or steal, including another’s wife. Do unto others as they would do to you. Embrace simplicity. Let go of selfishness. Show mercy. Care for your community. Care for the earth. Be grateful.
Ultimately, this way is to guide feelings and rely on them without giving them the steering wheel. Of course, there will always be times we do hand over the wheel, whether intentionally or accidentally, whether in anger or just trying to listen to our gut. And the takeaway is always the takeaway: pay attention. Sit with your feelings. Inquire of them. Find their motivation. Avoid the two extremes of living by them so they control everything, or living without them—for that would make life hardly worth living.