One of the reasons we as people tend to put things first, as I have been calling it, is that things are knowable. Feelings, on the other hand, are less knowable, especially new feelings that lead to new ways of being and thinking and doing.

Take the alcoholic, for example. What the alcoholic knows is alcohol. And what he does not know is life without it. What is like to be sober, not to drink? This is a question that every alcoholic must face when they choose to stay sober. Indeed, one of the reasons AA is so effective is that it helps people deal with the anxiety of “not knowing,” by supporting them, guiding them, and assuring them that eventually life will make more and more sense, if they stay away from the booze, they will start to know more; and more importantly they will start to know in new ways - that is learn new ways of being and doing.

The definition if insanity in AA is, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” It follows, then, that the definition of sanity must be: doing things differently and getting different, better results. But how can we do things differently when all we know is how to be self-destructive with and to ourselves? We can’t. And the only way that we can is to learn new ways of being and doing – new ways of going about things. And the only way to learn new ways of going about things is to know what it is we know and resist it. Instead, what newly sober people are counseled to do is to stay with the uncertainty of not knowing until new things, new ways of being and doing, start to emerge and grow. This will eventually happen if we stay with not knowing long enough: new things will occur to us, new ways of being and doing that we have not known in the past will spread out before us, because life is always wanting to elaborate itself in healthy life-giving, life-continuing ways.

Having worked with addicts for over two decades now, I know well how early sobriety is fraught with the anxiety of not knowing; from not knowing what to do, to not knowing who one is. This is the main reason why, in my opinion, the relapse rate among alcoholics and addicts is so high: the anxiety of not knowing becomes simply unbearable.

One of the themes of this book, and of what it means to live the feeing life, is that we are all dealing with not knowing a great deal of the time. Recently, for example, a patient of mine was trying to end an affair with a man she had been seeing for over six years. Breaking up with him was sheer hell for this person, mainly because she did not know, period. She did not know what to do with the question of how he was, for example. And this made her want to call him. And when she called him, she inevitably fell back into the soup. Conversely, when she chose not to call him she found herself faced with the stark anxiety of not knowing. Is he going to kill himself? Is he going to seek revenge? Is he going to make it through the break up okay? All questions without answers, with no way of knowing. In the end, the only way this patient eventually accomplished the task of terminating his illicit relationship was to learn how to deal with not knowing, and with what it takes to manage the anxiety of not knowing.

Sometimes, all we can do when we do not know is nothing. And yet we are so often compelled to do something. It is at those moments we can remember that “doing nothing” is not the equivalent of being passive, it is a choice to take no action, to make nothing known or concrete before it becomes known. This is where the moment to moment awareness that Stephen Levine talks about is so helpful: just breathing and staying with the body on a moment to moment basis can sometimes be the best way to manage the anxiety of not knowing.

We are human beings, and yet we frequently put doing up so high on our list we become human-doings. The goal, of course, is to be a human being, doing. But in that order! And that is the reason for feeling first, for it is only by feeling first that we learn how to be, how to be human beings. And here is the point: we are always learning how to be human beings, because being a person means being a process not a thing. And so there is always the need to put feelings first and get clear about ourselves at a being level before we proceed to the doing level. Accordingly, it is only by feeling first that we stay in tune with the rhythm of Life, of our own lives, and that we ever remember to be before we consider what to do.

Feeling first sounds like a slogan, but is meant as a mandate; a mandate for living the feeling life, which is the only life we really ever live or care about living. Learning the various ways in which we can put feelings first, and tolerate not knowing; to let ourselves be until the right next steps become clear is a challenge we face every day of our lives. If we choose to take on that challenge seriously we will find that our priorities begin to change. We will slow ourselves down and give up the time, whatever time is necessary, in order to put feelings first.

The question I want to end with is this: What might it be like if all persons on this big beautiful planet were to put feelings first in their lives? What kind of world would it be? I believe deeply and strongly that it would be a better world, a more caring world in which qualities like kindness, imagination and tenderness took precedence over qualities like greed, fear and violence. So I ask you to live with this question, and more, I invite you to start putting feelings first in your life and see what kind of difference it makes. I can promise you one thing in fact: it will make a difference.

Read more from: “The Feeling Life: Reclaiming Your Emotional Vitality and Purpose”

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