Your Feelings Are Real. Your Interpretation Might Be Bullshit.

Written by

Janis Todd-Randall, BA, MA, EMBA

StupidBubble® Founder

 

Your feelings are real.

That does not mean your conclusion is.

You can feel ignored and still not be ignored.

You can feel rejected and still not be rejected.

You can feel disrespected and still have misunderstood what happened.

You can feel like everybody is against you while everybody is actually just minding their damn business.

That is the part people do not like hearing.

We have gotten very good at validating feelings.

Good.

We needed that.

But somewhere along the way, some people started acting like every emotion automatically came with a certified explanation.

It does not.

Burst the Damn bubble: Your feelings deserve attention. Your interpretation still needs evidence.

The Emotion Is Real. The Story Might Be Homemade.

Something happens.

A friend does not call back.

Your partner gets quiet.

Your boss sends a short email.

Someone does not invite you somewhere.

A person walks past you without speaking.

Immediately, the mind starts writing.

“They are mad at me.”

“They do not respect me.”

“They are talking about me.”

“They do not care.”

“I knew I could not trust them.”

Maybe.

Or maybe your friend got busy.

Maybe your partner is tired.

Maybe your boss writes like a robot.

Maybe the invitation list was limited.

Maybe that person walking past you was thinking about their own damn life.

Your emotion may have been triggered by the event.

Your explanation of the event is still just a theory.

Feelings Are Messengers, Not Detectives

Feelings tell you something is happening inside you.

They do not always tell you exactly what is happening around you.

Fear says, “Something feels unsafe.”

It does not always mean danger exists.

Jealousy says, “I feel threatened.”

It does not automatically mean somebody betrayed you.

Embarrassment says, “I feel exposed.”

It does not mean everyone is judging you.

Anger says, “Something feels wrong.”

It does not automatically prove somebody intended harm.

Emotions bring information.

They do not always bring facts.

That distinction can save relationships, friendships, careers, and a whole lot of unnecessary text-message warfare.

Stop Putting People on Trial Without Evidence

Some of us can take one moment and build a felony case.

No witnesses.

No documentation.

No confession.

Just vibes.

You noticed a tone.

You saw a facial expression.

You did not like a pause.

Now somebody is emotionally handcuffed in your head.

Then you confront them based on what you assumed.

And when they become defensive because your accusation came out of nowhere, you say:

“See! I knew something was wrong.”

No.

You may have created the conflict you were afraid of.

Sometimes the problem is not what happened.

It is what you decided happened before you asked a single question.

Old Wounds Love New Evidence

Your interpretation does not appear from nowhere.

It often comes from somewhere old.

If you have been abandoned before, distance may feel like abandonment.

If you have been cheated on, privacy may feel suspicious.

If you grew up being criticized, correction may feel like rejection.

If people repeatedly dismissed you, disagreement may feel like disrespect.

That does not mean you are crazy.

It means your past may be helping your present fill in blanks.

And your past is not always an unbiased narrator.

Sometimes an old wound looks at a completely new situation and says:

“Oh, I know this story.”

No, baby.

You know a story.

Make sure this is the same one before you start acting out the ending.

Being Triggered Does Not Make You Automatically Right

This one may hurt.

You can be triggered and wrong.

You can be hurt and unfair.

You can be angry and inaccurate.

You can have a legitimate emotional response and still owe somebody an apology for what you did with it.

Emotional validation is not immunity from accountability.

“I was hurt” can explain why you reacted.

It does not automatically justify how you behaved.

You still have to examine whether the accusation was true, whether the response was proportional, and whether you gave the other person any room to explain.

Your feelings matter.

So does everybody else’s reality.

Ask Before You Assume

A healthier response sounds less dramatic.

Instead of:

“You clearly do not care about me.”

Try:

“You have been distant. Is something going on?”

Instead of:

“You embarrassed me on purpose.”

Try:

“When you said that, I felt embarrassed. What did you mean?”

Instead of:

“You are ignoring me.”

Try:

“I have not heard from you. Are we okay?”

Look at that.

Communication.

Wild concept.

You do not have to suppress the feeling.

You simply stop treating your first interpretation like a verdict.

The Mindset Check

When an emotion hits hard, ask yourself:

What am I feeling?

Then ask:

What am I assuming?

Those are not the same question.

Then go one step further:

What do I actually know?

That is where emotional maturity starts.

Not in pretending you do not feel.

Not in swallowing every reaction.

Not in convincing yourself everything is fine.

It starts when you can respect the emotion without becoming obedient to the story attached to it.

Everybody has a stupidbubble. Some are trapped in theirs. Some are breaking free. We turn ours into power.

Life Lesson

Your feelings deserve to be heard.

Your interpretation deserves to be questioned.

Feel it.

Name it.

Then check the facts before you let one emotion write an entire story that may never have been true.