Julian Publication
The Feeling Comes First
Our first reaction tells us something. It doesn’t always tell us the whole story.
It started with a comment
I was watching an animated series when someone nearby made a passive-aggressive remark:
“Those are for kids.”
My first instinct was to explain why that wasn’t true. Animation isn’t a genre—it’s a medium. The style doesn’t determine the audience.
Then I stopped.
We weren’t really having the same conversation. I was talking about what I thought was true; they were reacting to how it felt to them.
That moment stayed with me—not because of the comment itself, but because it reminded me of something I’ve been noticing in my own life: sometimes a feeling becomes so convincing that it quietly turns into a fact.
If it feels obvious, why would we question it?
A feeling is a signal
We often experience a feeling before we understand it:
Irritation
Unease
Excitement
A sense that something isn’t right
We’re often told to trust our gut, and I think there is something to that. But a gut feeling isn’t really an answer—it’s a signal.
It tells us that something deserves our attention. It doesn’t necessarily tell us what that something is:
Maybe I’m irritated because someone crossed a boundary.
Maybe I’m tired.
Maybe I’m frustrated because I’m trying to solve a problem the other person isn’t trying to solve.
Maybe something about the situation reminded me of something that happened before.
The feeling doesn’t tell me which explanation is correct. I have to figure that part out.
The space between
This is where I think we can get into trouble. Something happens. I feel something. Then I immediately give it a meaning:
“I feel uncomfortable, so this must be bad.”
“I feel rejected, so they must not care.”
“I’m angry, so they must have done something wrong.”
The feeling may be completely real. But the explanation might not be.
The two can happen so quickly that they feel like the exact same thing. That’s when a feeling starts to become a fact.
I’ve started thinking about the space between those two moments. Instead of immediately deciding what something means, I can ask:
What exactly am I feeling?
What might be causing it?
What else could explain it?
The questions don’t guarantee the right answer. They simply prevent the first explanation from becoming the only one.
Finding the words
This is where language becomes useful. There’s a big difference between:
“I feel bad.”
and:
“I’m frustrated because I expected clarity and I’m not getting it.”
The first describes a state. The second gives me something to examine:
Maybe my expectation was reasonable, or maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe the other person owes me that clarity, or maybe they don’t.
Maybe I need to communicate differently, or maybe I need to leave the situation alone.
The feeling hasn’t necessarily changed, but my understanding of it has. And once I understand it better, I have more choices about what to do next.
It happens everywhere
The same pattern applies outside of emotions.
We can have a vague feeling that a job isn’t right, a sense that a relationship has changed, or a suspicion that we’re avoiding a decision. Without words, those experiences stay vague—we just carry the feeling around.
Once we can describe what is actually happening, better questions become possible:
Maybe the job isn’t the problem—maybe the lack of growth is.
Maybe the relationship isn’t suddenly bad—maybe something we needed was never being addressed.
The better we can describe the problem, the more possibilities we can see.
What I’m learning
I used to think understanding was mostly about finding the right explanation. Now I think it starts earlier: with noticing what is happening inside us without immediately deciding what it means.
A feeling can tell us: “Something is happening.”
It doesn’t necessarily tell us: “This is what is happening.”
That distinction has become increasingly important to me. I don’t want to ignore my reactions, but I also don’t want them making decisions for me.
The goal isn’t to stop having gut reactions. It’s to stop treating them as final answers.
A feeling can tell us where to begin. It doesn’t always tell us where to stop.