Underneath
What's going on underneath #
Three things that tend to sit under the words.
It can also leave a quiet doubt behind, about which reactions are the kind that count.
It can echo childhood: a father who answered every worry with a list of what needed doing, a household where the people who got on with things were praised, and the one who said how it felt was asked to be more sensible.
Underneath, a belief can settle in: “Showing feelings is weak,” or “My view doesn't count unless it is practical.”
Reactions
What people often do #
- Switch to the practical side straight away
- Swallow the feeling and carry on talking facts
- Argue that the feeling is practical too
- Go quiet and sort it out alone later
- Start to doubt whether it mattered at all
The deck
The story in 6 cards #
Six short cards, from the moment to letting go.
The moved anniversary dinner
A kitchen table in Leeds. Your family has decided to move your parents' anniversary dinner to a weekend you can't make. You say it hurts that nobody checked. Your brother says, “Not everything is about feelings. It's just a date.” The talk goes back to the booking. You nod, and the knot stays, now with a small doubt that you made too much of it.
Feelings sorted into a pile
Underneath sits a rule: 'If it's about feelings, it isn't worth discussing.' It sounds like being sensible. Plenty of people would say it keeps conversations efficient. But look at what it does: it sorts what matters into two piles and drops the second one. The feeling that carried the real information never makes it into the talk at all, and nobody notices what was lost.
Why being practical helped us
We hold it because being practical has served us. Many people grew up in homes where getting on with things was how love showed up, and where long talks about feelings felt like a luxury. Wanting to be the capable one isn't wrong. It comes from wanting to help. That deserves respect, not blame, even when it leaves a feeling out in the cold.
What a trimmed feeling costs
Each time a feeling is trimmed to a fact, a little more goes unsaid. None of it shows from the outside, but it adds up. You agree to things with a knot in the stomach. You say 'it's fine' when it isn't. The reasons behind decisions stay hidden, even from you, and the people close to you know you less.
Is keeping it practical worth it?
Ask yourself honestly: has leaving the feeling out ever made it go away? Or has it mostly turned up later, in a different form? A feeling can be part of the facts. Take a moment with that, if you like. Is holding this rule so tightly worth it, when it keeps the most useful part of you out of the room?
Facts and feelings, same table
Letting go doesn't mean turning every talk into a feelings talk. It means one honest line can sit inside a practical conversation: 'The date works on paper, and I felt left out.' You can say it quietly, and decide what to do next. Nothing else has to change first. That's where some ease comes back: facts and feelings can share the table.
If bringing up how you feel is met with anger, threats or punishment, that is something else, and worth taking seriously.
The flip
The old rule, and a new one to try #
The old ruleIf it's about feelings, it isn't worth discussing.
A new rule to tryA feeling can be part of the facts.
Three small days
Try it for 3 days #
- Day 1
Add one honest line to a practical talk
- Day 2
Notice when you trim a feeling into a fact
- Day 3
Notice one person who hears both
Want to talk it through?
“What were you in the middle of saying when the sentence came?”
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Everything this deck knows
Go deeper #
What it sounds like, where it comes from, what it costs, and other ways to see it. Every question opens a chat on it.
How it lands
What was said
Said when you try to explain how it felt #
A father over dinner, a manager in a review, a partner in the middle of a disagreement, a friend when you try to explain why a plan upset you. You start to say how it felt, and back comes: “Not everything is about feelings.”
It is often said briskly, sometimes with a sigh, and it does a particular thing. It sorts what you were saying into two piles, practical and emotional, and quietly marks the second one as the pile that does not need to be discussed.
When did you last hear it, and what were you in the middle of saying?Talk about this ›
What happened to that part of the conversation afterwards?Talk about this ›
The first few seconds
Why it lands in the throat #
Some people feel the sentence stop them mid-breath, like a door that shuts just as they reached for the handle. Some nod and switch to facts at once. Some go quiet and start wondering whether they were making too much of it.
The feeling itself usually does not leave. It sits there while the talk carries on about schedules and money and logistics, as if it had been politely asked to wait outside. For some, the clear thoughts come later, on the way home.
What did your body do the last time?Talk about this ›
Did you sharpen up, shrink, or simply move on to the practical part?Talk about this ›
Why it lands
It files feelings under the wrong heading #
Often the feeling was part of the practical matter, not a detour from it. A plan that left you out is a plan with a cost. “Not everything is about feelings” can be true, and it can still sound as if yours were beside the point.
It can also leave a quiet doubt behind, about which reactions are the kind that count. Feelings can start to seem allowed only after the facts have been dealt with, and then there is rarely room left.
Does that sound familiar?Talk about this ›
If the feeling had been allowed into the conversation, what would you have wanted to say?Talk about this ›
What got lost when it was sent to wait outside?Talk about this ›
The voice inside
When the sentence starts editing you #
Hear it often enough and it moves in. “Keep it practical.” “Leave the feelings out.” “What is the actual problem?” It can switch on in the middle of a sentence and trim a feeling down to a fact before anyone else has to.
The person who said it first may have moved on, but the sentence keeps running, and now it sounds like your own good sense. That is what makes it hard to notice: it does not feel like their opinion any more, it feels like how a person ought to think.
Whose voice is it when you edit a feeling out of your own sentence?Talk about this ›
Is it yours, or one that was handed to you at a family table years ago?Talk about this ›
Where it comes from
Where it can come from
For some people, it was heard young #
It can echo childhood: a father who answered every worry with a list of what needed doing, a household where the people who got on with things were praised, and the one who said how it felt was asked to be more sensible.
In many families, being practical was a way of showing love or getting through a hard stretch, and the reasons for that vary from home to home. What a child quietly concludes can be different: that feelings belong somewhere else, and not at the table.
When did saying how you felt first begin to seem out of place, and who was usually in the room when it did?Talk about this ›
The belief under it
A quiet rule that can form underneath #
Underneath, a belief can settle in: “Showing feelings is weak,” or “My view doesn't count unless it is practical.” Some people carry a quieter version: “Feelings are for later, and later rarely comes.”
Beliefs like this do not feel like beliefs. They feel like maturity, like being the sensible one, which is exactly why they are worth taking out and looking at in daylight now and then.
Some people trace a rule like this back to early years; some don't. Either way it can be looked at: if I bring up a feeling, I will be asked to be sensible, so keep it to the facts. Which rooms does it still fit, and which not?
What it costs
What it costs
What the sentence costs in a year #
It can mean arriving at every hard talk with a tidy list, saying “it's fine, let's just decide” when it isn't, keeping what matters most out of the conversation, or finding that the real reason for a decision never gets said aloud.
There is a quieter price too: decisions that look sensible on paper can feel wrong for reasons nobody named. Some people find themselves agreeing to things on practical grounds and carrying a vague heaviness about them for weeks.
Not out of weakness. Editing the heart out of every talk asks a lot.
What has it cost in the last year: a plan agreed with a knot in the stomach, a friendship that stayed on the surface, an evening spent rehearsing the practical version?Talk about this ›
If it stays as it is
Five more years of keeping it practical #
Picture one ordinary Tuesday when “feelings are for later” is loud. What is in it: the meetings, the calls, the dinners where the real thing goes unsaid? It is only a picture to look at, nothing to fix.
Perhaps an agenda item agreed with a nod, a message about logistics that was really about something else, a sentence started with “I felt” and changed to “I think” halfway. Maybe a plan to explain it all moved to later.
Nothing here needs an answer yet, and the picture can be put down whenever you like. What, if anything, do you notice when you look at it?
Another way to see it
Another way to see it
Feelings can be part of the facts #
A feeling can be information. It often points at what mattered in the situation: being consulted, being valued, being treated fairly. Looking at what it points to can be more useful than arguing about whether feelings belong in the talk.
“Not everything is about feelings” and “this still mattered to me” can both be true. The second is usually specific: a date that was changed without asking, a tone, a plan made around you. A specific thing is far easier to bring into a practical talk.
Another way in: the person who said it is not required to be right about where feelings belong.
What would you say to a friend who was told that as they tried to explain what a decision meant to them?Talk about this ›
Noticing it sooner
What people notice when they look closer #
When people look slowly at the moment, many notice the practical question was fine, and the feeling was simply left outside it. The conversation moved on to what to do before anyone had said what it was like.
Others notice the sentence turns up with certain people or around certain topics, rather than everywhere. Some find it helps to see where it comes from, and where it never appears at all.
What was the feeling trying to point at that day?Talk about this ›
And who in your life lets facts and feelings sit in the same talk without ranking them?Talk about this ›
Making peace with it
No need to win the debate #
Making peace does not mean agreeing that feelings are beside the point, or insisting that everything is about them. It means the sentence gets less say over whether your reaction is allowed into the next conversation.
Some people find it lighter once they stop proving that feelings are practical, and simply let what they felt be one true thing among the facts. Some rooms really will not take it in, and you do not have to test them.
What would it be like to let the sentence stay theirs, and keep hold of what the feeling was pointing at, since that part belongs to nobody else?Talk about this ›
A truer sentence
A truer sentence to keep nearby #
If “not everything is about feelings” has been running for years, there is no need to fight it head on. Some people keep a truer sentence ready instead: “The facts matter, and so did how it felt.”
It does not have to feel true the first time. It only has to be more accurate than the old one. Said quietly and often, it can take up a little of the space the old sentence used to fill, especially before a decision talk.
What would a truer sentence be in your own words, one that is accurate about what you felt without needing anyone else to agree?Talk about this ›
What to let be
Some of it can simply be put down #
Not every remark needs a defence of why feelings count, a debate about practicality or a perfect reply. Some of it can be noticed, felt for a moment, and put down, the way you might set a heavy bag on the floor at the end of a long day.
That is not giving up. It is choosing where your energy goes, and some people say it leaves more room for the people who ask “and how was that for you?” without being asked twice.
Putting it down for the evening does not mean it was fine, or that it is settled. It only means it does not have to travel into everything else today.
If it loosened
And if the rule loosened, even a notch #
Imagine, only as a picture, the rule a notch quieter. A talk can still be practical, and a feeling can still be named in one plain line within it. What is the first thing that feels different?
Small things can be enough, such as a feeling noticed before it is turned into a fact, one honest sentence in a practical talk, or an evening without rehearsing the sensible version. What would your first small thing be?
Nothing here needs to be said to anyone. Whatever comes up is yours, and worth noticing. If you would like to look at it properly, a chat is one tap away.
Small things to try
Something to try
A few small things people try #
- Notice the moment you trim a feeling into a fact
- Ask yourself what the feeling was pointing at, in one or two words
- Try one sentence that holds both: “Practically X, and it also felt like Y”
- Notice which of your reactions got waved through as sensible
- Notice one person who lets you say how it felt without an argument
Small, private and all optional. Try whichever feels doable.
Pick a question
Talk it through #
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