Feeling is knowledge

By nature, human beings are first and foremost emotional creatures. We are motivated and activated by emotions. Emotions are the drivers of our behaviours as they automatically tell us what is important or unimportant. 

Emotions are built-in instinctual responses and feelings are a mental interpretation to life events from the past. Feelings and emotions are highly intertwined and this is why they are difficult to distinguish.

We sometimes interchange these two and lump them both into the same category. But they are very different and learning about them helps us to learn about ourselves.

Feelings are subjective and unique to the individual based upon what has happened in their life. Feelings are based upon our senses. Feelings can come and go based upon the acquisition of new information which can alter our opinions and perceptions.

As much as we may try, we cannot escape our emotions. 

As a Muslim, I’m taught to seek for the truth, through out the process of life. The most amazing connection for me is when I truly discovered The Quran and how much it prepares me to manage life. I love the fact that the Quran introduces all the feelings in the whole wide world for us to understand the complexity and the simplicity of life.

The Quran could be perceive as overwhelming because it never fails to make us confront our weaknesses and constantly remind us to keep improving the necessary.

Speaking about emotions, feelings and discoveries, it took me years of hard work to fully connect the dots and arrive to this phase. Alhamdulillah I’ve discovered my potential in confronting my challenges (fears, traumas and difficulties). I found comfort in the arts and discovered methods on how to manage and navigate, my mind body and soul healing through the arts. From my personal healing journey, I’ve developed the art of “feeling is knowledge”.

I believe one can never heal and find their true potential without confronting their challenges and this is why I do what I do, I help others through my art workshops to introduce and identify their true potential. Not only to potentially grow creatively, but I also believe Art sharpens our senses and it heals.

Art has the ability to nurture our senses and it opens up and free ourselves to experiment and play. Art learning environment encourages us to cherish intuition, certainties, uncertainties, develops creativity and to constantly open our minds for new ideas and solutions.

Of course it is not easy as it sounds. It takes a full time commitment in managing our emotions, feelings and minds. Some people have harder challenges and major traumas that impacted their life with many episodes of triggers which would interupt their well being.

The impact of trauma can be subtle, insidious, or destructive. How an event affects an individual depends on many factors, including characteristics of the individual, the type and characteristics of the event(s), developmental processes, the meaning of the trauma, and sociocultural factors.

This means that every individual will not have the same behaviours and characteristics in dealing with their traumas or challenges. For some cases it requires longer and deeper process.

I believe most of us have felt some kind of anxiety in our lives prior to a test, overwhelming challenges and there is no shame in these feelings. We need to face our negative feelings and not surpressing it so that we can overcome them. 

Having an anxiety disorder is not your fault and it is not something that is easily controlled, but there are ways to manage it. I believe our feeling is knowledge. We need to identify the feeling to understand and handle the state of our mind, heart, and soul.

If you would like to go deeper you could seek further according to your own pace and your own state of mind and knowledge. Take it one step at a time and always refer every feeling as an information to you rather than allowing yourself to get too deep into the unhealthy negative feelings and can’t get out of it. 

When facing a negative feeling, each individual must be ready to identify what are the healthy negative emotions and the unhealthy negative emotions. But of course, focus fairly in both healthy and unhealthy negative emotions to identify the in between. No pain no gain and this is exactly how managing your negative feeling would be like.

Transform the feeling into knowledge for you to overcome. Just as how I love to call it, into the journey of “feeling is knowledge”.

To learn more about the art of feeling is knowledge, come join me for a signature self healing workshop “Art For Soulful Journey and Self Discovery”. I will facilitate you through meaningful steps towards self discovery.

Written in March 11th 2019, Mekkolupo : Into The journey of feeling is knowledge (First Edition) Copyright © 2019 Nik Haslinda Husain

Feeling Is Knowledge Book Cover