It is challenging for people to find the problem they are working with. Getting the root cause of the problem is 50% of solution, however many of us can’t do it, even though each of us have an internal system that helps identifying the problem we have. Many people disregard this system. I will explain why after a small illustration.

v The Dashboard

Imagine a car that is moving from one city to another. The driver has to ensure the car can cross this distance and will not brake or run out of gas. The car has a dashboard with lots of indicators. Some of them warning lights indicating the problem that needs an immediate attention, some of them informational showing how different systems and features in the car are currently working.

If the system is active and functioning correctly then you see blue and green lights on the dashboard. If the system needs attention and there is a potential problem (almost out of gas) the yellow lights start blinking and when it becomes critical, just before the car stops functioning the red light with the sound goes off.

That is how our lives are sometimes. We live our life, we are happy, your daily routine is clear, everything is working, everything is under control. Then we start seen yellow lights but we can still go on. And, we just keep going as if the most important thing was to never stop. If we know how to deal with the problem that is indicated by yellow light we go and fix it. But if we don’t know or don’t find time, we usually will get upset and frustrated with the red lights. Because now we don’t have a choice. The pause is not questionable anymore. Now we have to deal with it otherwise there will be a disaster, Full and Total Stop.

So our plans brake, money evaporate out of the wallet, and many more..

Just like a car dashboard, your organism has different chemicals in the body that signal to us about the system functionality.

• You have almost fallen but was able to catch yourself: adrenalin hits the blood stream
• You are late for an important meeting: cortisol is released
• You had a friendly conversation with a loved one: oxytocin or dopamine start filling your veins.

What those chemicals are telling to our brains? You can imagine from the described situations because I am sure you know the feelings.

For you to visualize how those feelings work let me show you this table where you have a feeling and what chemicals are responsible for them (not going to read all of it, you can find the whole list under this video):

Feeling	Chemicals Involved
Loneliness	Low oxytocin, low dopamine, high cortisol
Abandonment	Low oxytocin, high cortisol, low serotonin
Rejection	Low dopamine, high cortisol, brain activity similar to physical pain (especially in the anterior cingulate cortex)
Heartbreak	Low dopamine, low oxytocin, high cortisol, withdrawal-like brain response
Guilt	High cortisol, high norepinephrine, low serotonin
Shame	Low serotonin, high cortisol, high self-awareness neural activation (e.g., in the prefrontal cortex)
Grief	Low serotonin, low dopamine, high cortisol, disrupted oxytocin systems
Emotional Numbness	Low dopamine, low serotonin, dysregulated endorphins
Insecurity	Low serotonin, low oxytocin, high cortisol
Jealousy	Dopamine (desire for reward), cortisol (stress), serotonin imbalance
Envy	Dopamine (comparison-based craving), low serotonin
Resentment	High cortisol, low serotonin, sustained emotional arousal (linked with rumination)
Regret	Dopamine (lost reward), serotonin (rumination and mood), cortisol (stress from reflection)
Feeling	Chemicals Involved
Peace / Inner Calm	GABA, serotonin, melatonin, oxytocin
Relief	Endorphins, dopamine, GABA
Hope	Dopamine (future-oriented thinking), serotonin
Gratitude	Oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin
Self-Acceptance	Serotonin, oxytocin, GABA
Forgiveness	Oxytocin, serotonin, reduced cortisol
Compassion	Oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine
Trust	Oxytocin, low cortisol
Joy	Dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin
Contentment	Serotonin, GABA, oxytocin
Spiritual Connection / Transcendence	Dopamine, serotonin, endorphins (can be altered by meditation or deep states of presence)
Flow (fully engaged state)	Dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, anandamide (the “bliss molecule”)

As you can see your organism is always informed of what is happening with you. You don’t need to make a blood test to understand it, you just need to have feelings and understand what do you feel.

Feelings are the dashboard of your system and it indicates what is happening around you and how it affects you. By knowing what are we feeling we can figure out what is the problem.

That is exactly what therapists do: they ask you what do you feel. But why do you have to go to the therapist anyway?

v What do you feel

Many people are hiding from their feelings. Sometimes they have no idea what they are feeling because they never think about it. They jump into conclusions about the problem when their car already bursting in fire. This means that after ignoring informational indicators, later ignoring urgency alerts their feeling have made quite a journey and therapist needs to untie this node.

To understand the problem, we are dealing with we need to understand our feelings. Deeply understand: what do I feel, when do I feel it.

A famous therapist in his book described how he worked with a couple trying to understand their situation.

The lady complained about her husband working late and being unresponsible for his family, hiding in his work routine from dealing with the family. The husband could not understand it because that is how he saw contributing to the family. So the therapist aske the lady:

• How do you feel
• He is coming late every day, the dinner is cold already at that time, we miss our family time and get colder to each other just like the dinner. – she said.
• No, I am asking how do you feel.
• I feel, that my husband is irresponsible and he is staying late at his job, not thinking about our family, he only cares about his work. – she tried to give the right answer.
• No, I want to know how do you feel when all this happens.
• I feel lonely, abandoned and betrayed. I feel that all I do is in vain and I feel frustrated and sometimes depressed – she burst in tears after spitting it out.

It turned out that the husband never new that his approach to family making the wife feel in such a way. Most importantly even the wife never knew what she felt.

Understanding the feelings changed the whole perspective. If you think of your situation and burst into tears or silently cry inside after thinking about your feelings – that is where you need to dig.

To understand your feelings, you need to start the sentence with I feel and continue describing the feeling, not the person that causes that feeling, even if the person is you.

For example, if you fail to come in time and blame yourself for been disorganized, you don’t say: I feel that I am disorganized. You say: I feel ashamed that I can’t get to the meeting intime, I feel low and depressed, like I can’t accomplish anything. I feel that I am a loser.

You might say there is no clear difference between “I feel disorganized” and “I feel like a loser”. The difference is vulnerability.

Disorganized feels like ok, I am in partial control. Loser is a deeper feeling. It is not protected by coping mechanisms. You don’t have to call yourself names. What I want to bring to your attention is that honesty with yourself is necessary about your feelings, because Disorganized and Loser – have different problems on the background. Feeling a loser might be why the person is Disorganized. So disorganized is rather a conclusion then a feeling.

In the next lesson I will explain to you how to work on your problem practically.

Your task from this lesson is to find those feelings. Not the problem you think or sure you have. But what do you feel when this problem affects you?