by Melissa Kitto

Recently, I was interviewed for Awaken Radio. We talked about many things, including how to receive messages from your angels, and how you work with the four spiritual gifts of Intuition, Vision, Prophecy and Feeling. But, when I mentioned in passing about Feel – Think – Act; the host stopped in her tracks. “That is so important; you need to repeat that, Melissa,” she said.

The Feel – Think – Act process is still something that is greatly misunderstood today, so this inspired me to share more about it with all of you today.

Let’s start from the beginning. You have two parts to your nature. You have your Intellectual nature. This is the thinking mind, what science would call the conscious mind and religion would call the head.

Your intellect is the analyzing, dissecting, thinking, organizing, logical part of you. It is the thinking mind.

Your feeling nature is your feelings, experiences, hunches, ideas and inspirations. It is your desires. This is what science would call the sub-conscious mind and religion would call the heart.

Babies are just pure feeling. It is a joy to see my 3 month old niece Cecilia learn to smile and roll over – she’s pure sensitivity! Our natural state is to move by feelings first.

About the age that you start going to school, you begin to be taught by teachers and society that you should not act by pure feeling. After all, if you have the pure feeling to run outside and play in the playground in the middle of your math lesson, you are going to get a stern talking to! Slowly but surely, we are taught to look outside of ourselves for approval and guidance on what to do, instead of trusting the pure inspiration inside.

A few years ago, I did substitute teaching for 8th graders (12-13 years old). I was shocked that when I would ask the class a question, no one would raise their hand. They seemed very lethargic in class, knowing they had to be there, but not wanting to get involved. Contrast that with a toddler running around the house getting into everything he is not supposed to because of the joy of discovery. What happened between the ages of 2 and 12?

Those 8th graders are so afraid of giving the wrong answer, and looking foolish in front of the rest of the class, that they would rather not raise their hands at all. They would rather stay non-involved. They are reluctant to tap in to their creative ideas and feelings and share them with the teacher and the class. They don’t want to risk being wrong. But that is someone else’s standard of right and wrong.

As we get older, we usually get a little more self-confident. But how many of you are still carrying that habit of doing what everyone else wants you to, or what you’ve been told is the right thing to do? Are you still afraid to do what you heart really wants and desires, just like those 8th graders?

Most of us are out-of-balance in our thinking and feeling natures. When you make a decision, do you think first or feel? If you are in balance, you will first tune in to your inner feelings. You will ask yourself, “What does my heart really desire?” and “What do I really want?” Then, once you have a feeling for what you want, you will use your intellectual nature to help you get organized and directed.

If you are out-of-balance, you may talk yourself out of your feelings, and come up with all the reasons why it won’t work. You will tell yourself to do what is safe and logical and “fit in.” You may experience fear and doubt, which are emotions created by the intellect; not true feelings.

You couldn’t get much done without your intellectual nature organizing, strategizing, planning and communicating. However, if you are out-of-balance, you will make decisions from your intellect first. Your intellect only has a limited understanding of what is possible for you, based on what you’ve done before.

So when making a decision, you will come from a logical point of view. You will think about what is practical, what experiences you have had before, what everyone else has told you that you should do, etc. You are limiting your own potential.

Let’s take the example of finding a new job. Perhaps you have been laid off from your job in a technology company through no fault of your own. So, you set about to decide what to do next to earn your living.

If you are in your intellect, you will look around at what society tells you to do. The media tells you that unemployment is at an all time high, so you believe that there aren’t many jobs available to you. Your family are scared about the loss of income, and tell you to go the easy route and go for a job in the same field you were in before; the experience on your resume means you’ll secure a new job more easily. You examine what is logical for you, which is to find another job similar to the one you had before in the tech field. So that’s what you set about doing, and land a job that pays you well, but leaves you unsatisfied and dreading getting up to go to work in the morning.

On the other hand, if you were to approach this situation from your feeling nature, the outcome would be very different. Your first step would not be to look outside of yourself to tell you what to do, but to spend some time looking within. You would ask yourself, “What do I really want to do?” and “How can I make the most of this opportunity to make a change in my life, and go for a career that really fulfills me inside?”

You would be honest with yourself and say, “Although the money I got paid in my tech job gave me security, I also felt miserable there. I really want to do something now that fulfills my life purpose and brings me joy.”

(Note, if you start thinking here about how on earth will you make enough money if you do something you love… you’re going back to your intellect again! Shoo that intellect away and just feel in to what you really want!)

You might discover that you have always wanted to do something artistic. Graphic design grabs your attention, so you decide that you are going to take a graphic design course. You ultimately search for work in this field that excites you and uses your unique gifts and talents. You enjoy your work and still get well paid for it!

Here’s the key.

Your intellect is there to get you organized and directed, not to talk you out of your inner feelings and desires. If you are plagued by limiting thoughts, fears and doubts, then you are out of balance with your intellect. Your intellect is used to being in control, running the show and telling you all the reasons why your creative ideas will not work.

It’s time for intellect to take the back seat, not to be in the driver’s seat. Your feelings need to grab the steering wheel and guide you forward. When you make decisions based on what you truly desire and from your intuitive hunches, you can create a magical life. Don’t worry about the “how” until you have established a clear feeling of what you want.

Then decide to set it as a goal, put it on your vision board, and stay open to the creative ways that it can happen. Be patient. Notice in the example above that it probably took a lot longer to get the graphic design job than it did to get another job in the technology field just like you were doing before. But the time it took to get the graphic design job was well, well worth it in the end.

That time period of waiting is where many of you fall down. You lose the faith. You are overcome with doubt and fear about whether you will ever get what you want, or whether it’s even possible. In those moments of doubt and fear (we all have them!) you must train yourself to come back to what you really want.

Feel, then think, then act! When you’ve organized yourself to follow through on your feeling, then take action! And take action persistently until you reach your goal. It WILL happen. You would not have the desire to do it in the first place, unless the means existed for you to reach your goal.

Please share your thoughts and insights. Make a comment and let us know!