Things Are Signals, Not Verdicts

Emotions, reactions, and other people’s behaviors can be understood as signals rather than final verdicts about reality or identity. What once felt like anxiety or disapproval can be seen as information passing through, pointing to internal states, environment, or timing rather than defining meaning.

This shift allows experience to move without immediately turning it into a conclusion about self-worth or others’ intentions. Life becomes simpler when signals are allowed to arise, be felt, and pass before any interpretation is formed.

Transcript

Things are signals, Not verdicts. I used to think that behaviors or feelings or emotions. All meant something concrete? That had to be addressed right in that moment. For example, One day I started feeling anxiety out of the blue, And I looked around at the hotel I was staying in, And my brain made up this story about how the hotel wasn't clean enough, How it wasn't safe, And all of these other things that helped me explain why I had anxiety in that moment. So I went online, I booked a new hotel for the next day, And eventually went to sleep. Just to wake up in the morning and realize the anxiety was gone and I no longer felt unsafe in that hotel, Nor did I think it was unclean or any of the other things that I had thought the day before. So I realized I've done this a lot in my life where I take a signal like anxiety and I turned it into a verdict and I made it mean something. I found myself doing this a lot with people as well. If a person was disrespectful or did something that I didn't like, I would turn that into a verdict about what it meant about me. Instead of seeing it as a signal. As in maybe it's a signal that this person isn't healthy for me or I'm not in the right environment that would support my growth. This is really life-changing or it has been for me because now I can see the things that are happening around me and feel the things that are happening inside of me and I can just let them be without putting all of my energy into figuring out what it means. Yesterday I started feeling sad. And for one of the first times in my life, I left it at that. I felt sad. Period. Full stop. And then that emotion was allowed to move through me and about 30 to 45 minutes later, I realized that wave of sadness passed through me. When before, Sadness would actually stay longer, Like a day, Two days, Three days, Because I was clinging on to it, Trying to figure out what that sadness meant, And coming up with a verdict that gave me some sense of control, Or at least the illusion of control. And then I've come to realize that when I give emotions space to just be, Without trying to figure it out right then, Later, If there was a reason for me being sad, It comes to me instead of me having to figure it out. Life is so much easier than I thought. The last thing I want to say is that Have you ever noticed a child being upset, Crying, And screaming? Well, We don't go up to the child in the middle of their breakdown and start asking them questions as to why they feel that way, Do we? No, We usually wait for the child to calm down. And I've noticed it's the same with ourselves. We do need to give ourselves time to feel things without trying to figure it out with words. And then later, Once the nervous system has calmed down and we have found peace again, From there is when we can start asking ourselves questions or just allowing the space for the answers to come to us naturally.