As you go through life, there is one guidepost you can come back to again and again: how you feel. Your truth (your best life, your right journey) feels good. If you don’t feel good, you’ve turned away from your truth.

There is a concept that all emotions can be boiled down to two root feelings of love and fear. The idea is that we are born in love (our truth) and learn fear.

Fear and true danger are not the same thing. Danger can be summed up into lack and attack. The first occurs when we lack essential things to live: food, water, air or any other necessity to fill our most basic, immediate need. The second is when we are physically threatened and about to be attacked.

Think back to primitive times. We were fighting for basic resources and against threats from animals or rival groups. Many of us no longer have true dangers in our modern lives with modern conveniences.

An example given to support this theory is the nature of babies, which is thought to be representative of our true nature. Babies are loving beings that have infectious smiles, laughter and joy. They cry to signal needs such as hunger and exhaustion (lack) but return to an inherent state of love. When they get scared, it’s a primal fear because they think they are in danger (attack). Babies don’t know mental fear until they are socialized by adults to feel it.

Why is this important to know?

If you’re feeling a negative emotion, you’ve lost connection with your truth. If your feeling state isn’t coming from a root of love, it’s coming from fear.

When you find yourself in the grips of a negative emotion, pause for a moment. Breathe and try to find the fearful thought. It’s usually not that deep below the surface nor is it complicated.

If I set out to write this blog convinced I won’t be able to convey a complicated theory succinctly, I’m bound to fail. If I work while thinking, “I’m a clear thinker, and I express myself with ease,” all of the sudden I do just that. When I think the former, it feels bad. That’s not my truth. When I think the latter, I feel motivated and good. That’s my truth.

If a loved one is annoying you, it’s not really the person but your thought that’s causing annoyance. Emotions are a result of thoughts. Your thoughts tell you so and so should act this and that way. When they don’t, you don’t feel good. That expectation isn’t your truth. It feels bad.

If you can think this person is doing the best they can and really believe that, you’ll feel relief and peace. That’s coming from your foundation of love. That’s your truth.

All thoughts of blame, resentment, unforgiveness, hate, criticism and judgment are not your truth. They are learned behaviors that cause a host of negative feelings rooted in fear.

Thoughts of forgiveness and love are your truth.

You’ll know you’re moving away from your truth when you feel bad and you’ll know you’re moving closer to your truth when you feel good.

There are times when we want something, a substance we’re addicted to like food, alcohol, money, praise, shoes 🙂 you name it. The act of wanting these things can seemingly feel good and be misleading. This isn’t really your truth though.

Your truth causes bliss, joy and exuberance from within. None of these (sometimes addictive) things can cause that. They cause happiness at the surface level of life. Happiness, at this level, has been studied. It is said that material objects, even those of great worth, lose luster after about 9 months. That’s not truth. Truth doesn’t expire in 9 months.

One of the most beautiful images and analogies for life is that of a still pond. If a rock is thrown into it, the water at the surface ripples. The water at the foundation of the pond doesn’t; the rock is accepted peacefully and gently as it floats to the bottom.

Know that your truth, your true nature, is within you. Like the bottom of the pond, there is stillness and joy, a peace so profound that it can’t be disturbed, a truth so real all you have to do is feel your way there. When you get a little lost in life’s ups and downs, remember your foundation.

Your truth feels good and that’s how you know the way back to it.

This blog post was inspired by a conversation with my friend and fellow coach, Kasia Pytowska.