Today, I want to share a mental health principle with you from Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) LuWanna Airheart – an excerpt of her teaching on the importance of training ourselves to be led by the facts, not our feelings.

Airheart explains that,

“Our feelings LOVE to take the lead in our lives when they really shouldn’t. We can be so quick to believe that whatever we feel is true must be what is really true… although it very often is not.”

Feelings like fear, worry, anxiety, insecurity – these feelings and more all make very poor leaders in our lives because they don’t always consider the facts. Mental health (and relational health) requires us to practice checking our feelings against the facts.

Our unchecked feelings will lead us to think and believe and say and do things that do not always line up with reality. They will cause us to interpret our circumstances poorly and to assume the worst in others.

Airheart uses the analogy of a train:

“If our life is like a train, then our feelings were made to be the caboose of the train of our lives – but they always want to be the engine, driving the train of our lives from the front. This doesn’t work. Letting our feelings lead our thoughts and beliefs and responses to others is not compatible with mental and relational health.”

Emotional maturity requires us to train ourselves to let the facts take the lead in our lives and to be the driving force leading our thoughts and decisions and responses to others – and then to practice keeping our feelings in their proper place as the caboose in our lives, following along in line behind the facts.

Feelings are important. They have value and are an important part of our human nature. But they make very poor leaders for our lives. Our feelings serve us best when they follow in line with the facts. This takes intentional practice, but can be learned over time. Our mental and relational health will improve the more we practice letting the facts lead, and training our feelings follow.