Emotions are signals

Emotions are signals. Do not ignore them.

Think of emotions as an early warning system run by the subconscious mind, tied closely with our body and physical senses.

Before our conscious mind can see a rational pattern and locate a reason for danger or an opportunity, our “gut” gives us a feeling that sends us in the right direction to notice or solve the problem.

The response time for this emotional warning system is orders of magnitude faster than our logical mind can function.

The key is modulating the responses and practicing regular emotional hygiene so that we are not constantly dealing with a backlog of unprocessed emotions that clog up the system with false positives.

Example: About 3 years ago, I was in the hospital waiting to see the pediatrician about the twins for a normal checkup. There are lots of other parents, mostly mothers; it’s a full house. People are coming and going.

Suddenly I get a “bad feeling”. I can see another father sitting in front of me; the only other masculine man in the room has also got it.

Watch the masculine men. Being a man comes with the responsibility to be vigilant for yourself and others. We may look chill, but we are always paying attention.

We both look back and see two obvious pedos dressed like clowns come in to “play” with the children who were waiting. They sat down in the back row and started trying to interact with the children.

I looked at the other father; we were both thinking the same thing. We got up, and I told them to get out. They said they had permission to be there, and I said “I know what you are; leave or get hurt”. The other father backed me up by standing there with his arms crossed and nodding.

They left.

Some parents said thanks, and a few, all women, said “they were harmless”. Some people’s gut instincts, their emotional feedback system, are broken because they are not maintaining them with regular emotional hygiene, have been suppressing them for so long that the signal is weak, or have been trained to ignore them.

The other man and I felt before we even saw it that there was danger. Something was wrong, but we lacked the knowledge to make a decision, so we looked for it. The feeling led to us taking action (looking back) and confirming our concerns.

How did we know what they were and why they were a danger to the children? We felt it. Pure paternal protective instinct. And we were willing to take action that could have had a high cost based on our instincts because we trusted what we felt.

We shouldn’t dismiss or suppress our feelings but rather train and use them as indicators of where to look for threats and opportunities.