If you can feel it, it's true.

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash

A lot of people ask me how they can know what their truth is. We live in a world where we are practically inundated by everyone else's truth from dawn until dusk, and often, we struggle to know what is true for ourselves.

I work specifically with urban-residing high-performers who usually are working through some form of the freeze defense mechanism. 

Most people who are operating in the freeze defense mechanism have no idea that they are.

The symptoms of freeze in action are traits that high-performers are often celebrated for: intellectualization, righteousness, superiority, justification (see more in my post about the 13 defense mechanisms for the sophisticated high-achiever)...

When any of these things are happening, we're explicitly NOT feeling. Reactions are not feelings.

So much of my early work with my clients is to teach them to FEEL both physically and emotionally, and to recognize the "symptoms" of not feeling (reactivity to a stimulus). 

This usually involves moving a lot slower than most high-performers would ever be willing to on their own. It means discovering the value in their capacity to feel rather than their capacity to react to a stimulus. It involves an entire rewiring of the way our brains process stimuli in their environment.

Once feeling has been restored, it's important to understand one singular thing: if you can feel it, it's true. 

The result of learning this essential human skill? Massive amounts of innovation gets unlocked. Innovation is a by-product of feeling, not thinking.