Let’s talk about the difference between the two.
We sometimes get confused with what is a fact and what is a feeling when it comes to people and relationships and how we ASSESS things.
Fact = a thing that is known or proved to be true. Something that actually exists. Can be proven in a court of law.
The weather, your job, your family, the house you live in, etc.
Feeling = an emotional state or reaction. A belief, especially a vague or irrational one AND a vibration in your body.
Now, when we use our feelings about someone in place of the facts about them, that is when turmoil and confusion and problems arise.
Let’s take an example, there is someone in your life that is unhappy all the time. They appear to be unhappy whenever you see them. But when you see their posts on Facebook, they seem great.
You find yourself saying “well the fact of the matter with her is that she must only be happy when she is hiding behind Facebook”. Or “well what I think is she just doesn’t like us and it is probably because…."
Now in relationships, it gets even trickier….. if you are “thinking” you know what someone is doing or feeling or thinking, this can get you into trouble. You can never know these things unless a person has told you…..that is your fact.
Hearsay, Third party info, Heard it from a friend who heard it from her cousin who heard it from a coworker,….. that cannot be your truth to base anything on or base your outcomes on.
This process sometimes goes on for years and is a downward spiral. Many people will hold grudges over a “feeling” rather than a fact or they will label people, distrust people or accuse someone of something based on a feeling rather than a fact.
If you have had a stressful time in your life, say with family and you assumed some behaviors based on your feelings, those feelings will perpetuate until you find out the facts. You may not like certain people because you thought something about them. You never knew for sure, but you thought something was true based on YOUR FEELINGS and then talked about it all the time and convinced yourself it was true.
You know how I always say, PEOPLE WILL SEEK OUT AND FIND EVIDENCE TO PROVE THIER NEGATIVE BELIEFS or just their beliefs in general ? Well that is how things perpetuate and go unresolved or go on for years.
Let’s say you have a feeling that someone doesn’t like you and you have what you think is evidence to prove that they don’t like you, and you’re calling that a fact… your truth or “the fact of the matter.”
In your mind you may think it’s a fact but it’s still just your feeling. Then when you are in the presence of those people you will seek out and try to find evidence to prove your feeling or "your fact” about it.
The people that you are with might be perfectly nice and doing everything appropriately but you’re looking for, hence seeking out, some thing that they’re going to do that’s going to support your feeling that they don’t like you. They could be 95% awesome and1% negative, but you will focus on the 1%. It is just what we do.
Sometimes things seem real and factual to you but without knowing the facts, you may be losing friends or people in your life for no reason.
Having hard conversations is really what it will take to clear the air. Finally saying to someone, “I’d love to talk and discuss something with you that has been bothering me” or something to that effect.
Over time, during emotional traumas in our life, we rarely know what is real and what we feel. We are brainwashed in some cases, gaslighted or just lied to while in an abusive relationship, so there is a fair amount of healing that needs to happen.
If you were not in an abusive relationship and you just developed feelings or thoughts around the behavior of others, then based your relationship with them on those feelings, then that is when you can really pick apart the facts from the feelings and then decide if you want to have a hard conversation with those people…. depending on how much they matter to you.
In some cases you can get a group of people, say co-workers, to all agree with you that “Jane Doe is definitely mean, and short and angry all the time”. It is a fact Karen, everyone agrees.
Now, have you looked at or asked this person, “what is going on in your life? How are you feeling…..” Dig deeper before judging or assuming.
As the saying goes, “be kind to everyone because you have no idea what struggles they may be dealing with”
AND be certain of the facts v feelings, as you may be very surprised at what you uncover when you have hard conversations, separate your thoughts from feelings or from facts.
Even if you uncover the fact that a person told you, one on one, to your face, that they do not like you and gave you the reasons why they don’t like you….. that is your information to deal with, except it and move on from it.
As I also always say, you can be the juiciest peach on the tree but there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like peaches.
And I also always say “other peoples opinions are none of your business to worry about”
If you want to learn more, please reach out to me to set up your free mini session.