Get your feelings out of the driver’s seat.
That doesn’t mean to ignore your feelings.
It doesn’t mean to disregard your feelings.
It doesn’t mean to judge, suppress, or deny your feelings.
It doesn’t mean to toss your feelings out the window after you take control of the steering wheel.
Our feelings are a gift, and their key role is to energize us into action (or inaction) of some kind or another.
“Get your feelings out of the driver’s seat” means to take conscious ownership of our actions.
It means to allow the feelings to be there, to perhaps even inquire into what they’re communicating and what result they’re looking for.
It means we’re not reacting from our feelings, and we’re not letting our feelings determine our actions. Our feelings would love to take control of the wheel and steer us in the direction they think best. But that direction is not often the best direction for us.
Our feelings want the best for us, that’s why they’re so convincing! They want us to feel good, to be safe, to be liked, to win, to be successful. But they’re a child’s version of feeling good, feeling safe, being liked, and being successful. They’re often a younger version of ourselves, and they haven’t yet realized that we’re older now.
They haven’t yet realized they can trust us to drive ourselves to safety and success. This is partly because we haven’t demonstrated that we can. We haven’t shown that we have integrity, wisdom, and understanding to navigate life’s challenges without our feelings taking the wheel. (That's our real work.)
And that’s okay. Perhaps today, though, we can let these feelings know that we can be trusted to take the wheel. We can be trusted to slow down, to honor the important things in our lives, and to live with integrity with our values and what matters most.
We don’t have to wrestle the wheel from our emotions, but an important part of growing up is to be willing and worthy of being in the driver’s seat in all areas of our lives.
Much Love. ❤️