A feeling or a thought?

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My current practice is to challenge the language I choose to use when describing my experience. Specifically, I am looking at my use of the phrase ‘I feel like…’

When we use this as an opening we almost always follow it, not with a feeling at all, but with a judgement. 

Example: 
I feel like I accomplished very little today. 

Feeling are limited, and when I say ‘feelings’ I am talking about the range of emotions a human being experiences, not sensations in the body. Although this does include specific sensations affiliated with the emotion. For example: a cold sweat of fear, a hot blooded moment of anger, a numbing sadness. 

We can experience an overlap of emotions that may seem conflicting: We can be happy about our friend going on a new adventure but sad to see them leave. But even the overlap does not expand the emotional universe. 

Emotions are few: happiness, sadness, fear and anger. And within these there are varying degrees: Joy or elation, depression or grief, anxiety or terror, rage or hatred etc.
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So ‘accomplishing very little’ is not a feeling, but a thought, and therefore should be presented that way. 

Example: 
I think I accomplished very little today. 

A thought can be accompanied with an abundance of feelings, but the thought itself is not a feeling. This is brilliant news because it’s much easier to challenge what we think than it is to challenge how we feel. 

It’s like an emotional math equation. First we convert a ‘feeling’ statement into a judgement statement so we can see it for what it is: A thought. Then we challenge the thought on the basis that thoughts are not real. 


I think I accomplished very little today. 

Is this true? Can we know, with definitive certainty, that we didn’t accomplish very much? What are the facts?

I made a list of what I did accomplish and it was actually quite long. So then I asked myself: Why the judgement? Is it because I didn’t accomplish something specific? As much as I wanted? Do I have an unreasonable expectation of what I am capable of doing in a day? How can I adjust that expectation to be more reasonable? 

Regardless of the judgements we make, when we see them as judgements and don’t confuse them with the emotions that accompany them, we are more able to examine and challenge them.