Feelings

Feelings are how your body and mind tell you something matters. In our model they come in two layers, and knowing which layer you're looking at can change what you do next.

The surface feeling is the one you notice first. It's often anger, irritation, resentment or numbness. Underneath sits something more tender: fear, hurt, shame or loneliness. The surface feeling often protects the one below. Anger can be easier to show than hurt. Numbness is quieter than fear.

Neither layer is bad. Both make sense. The surface feeling has been doing a job, sometimes for years.

Feelings are also one link in each Emotional Template, the chain that fires when an old pattern is triggered. Learning to name both layers is one way to widen the space between what happens and what you do. A feeling never excuses what you do with it. It always tells you something.

Each page below covers one feeling: which layer it usually belongs to, what it protects or is protected by, where it shows up in the body and one thing to notice. Start with the one you feel most often.