Can we humans trust our feelings?
Reflections from the Coaching Room
One of the questions that recurs in coaching conversations, whether I am working with a thinker, a coach in supervision, or a group of leaders, is whether we can trust our feelings. It tends to arrive as a practical dilemma rather than a philosophical one: "Should I listen to this discomfort, or is it just getting in my way?" "Is this excitement telling me something real, or is it just nerves?" We rarely discuss it in the abstract. Feelings surface when something matters.
I have been sitting with this question for a long time, both in my own life and when working with others. In supervision, coaches often describe moments in sessions when their own reactions catch them off guard. Sometimes a feeling offers a kind of quiet guidance: something shifts in the conversation, and the coach finds a more resonant question. Sometimes it feels more like static, anxiety, frustration, or even boredom, that seems to cloud rather than clarify. Anyone who has tried to pay close attention to their own experience while also being responsible for supporting someone else's thinking will recognise this tension.
What feelings actually are (and are not)
My own sense is that feelings are neither reliable messengers nor irrelevant noise. They are signals, and like all signals, they require interpretation. When I began re-learning French a couple of years ago, I noticed that my sense of who I was shifted as I moved between languages. I was often more emotional in French, sometimes to a degree that genuinely surprised me. Over time, I came to understand that my feelings were being shaped by context, by the assumptions I was carrying, and by the words I could or could not find in the moment. The same holds true in coaching. The feelings that arise in a session are always situated: shaped by personal history, cultural expectations, power dynamics, and the language in play. They are never "just" feelings.
Working with emotional reactions in coaching supervision
In supervision, I am interested not only in what a coach feels, but in how those feelings are named, interpreted, and used. Sometimes a feeling is a clue to something important in the thinker's experience, an unspoken anxiety, a subtle shift in energy, a moment of insight that has not yet found words. Sometimes it is more about the coach's own unfinished business. The work is to slow down, to notice, and to ask: "What might this feeling be telling me, and what else could it mean?" This is where reflective practice earns its place. Genuine development, in my experience, comes from sitting with that question rather than rushing to resolve it.
The language we use to name our feelings
I find that language is both a resource and a limitation in this process. The words we reach for when describing our feelings are shaped by culture, upbringing, and personal history, and they can close down possibilities as readily as they open them up. My Spanish teacher once pointed out that Spanish has several common words for "fear," each carrying its own shade of meaning, while English speakers often default to "anxiety" or "nerves" as catch-alls. In coaching, I listen for the metaphors people use, the silences they keep, and the moments when words fail entirely. These are often the richest areas for reflection.
Emotions as data: what the research suggests
Jennifer Garvey Berger, whose work on adult development I return to often, suggests that emotions are both data and drivers of meaning-making. They are part of how we construct our understanding of what is happening. Ignoring them means missing valuable information; treating them as infallible can lead us into equally unhelpful territory. The task is to relate to our feelings with curiosity, as one source of intelligence among several.
Emotional intelligence and leadership
For leaders and thinkers working in technology, the creative industries, and the fast-moving sectors I often work with, the question of trusting feelings can feel especially loaded. The dominant narrative in many of these environments favours rationality, analysis, and measurable outcomes. And yet the most effective leaders I have worked with pay genuine attention to their responses, not as the final word, but as part of an ongoing process of sense-making. They ask themselves: "What is this feeling telling me about the situation, about my values, about the assumptions I am bringing into this room?" They treat feelings as information to be reflected on and, where appropriate, acted upon.
How to work with your feelings more wisely
The question, then, is not really whether we can trust our feelings. It is how we can work with them thoughtfully. In coaching, in supervision, and in our own lives, the invitation is the same: slow down, notice, and ask what else might be true. Our feelings are part of the conversation. They are not the whole of it.
About Amanda
Amanda Livermore is the founder of LORE Consultancy Ltd and a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). With over 20 years of experience in coaching, coach training, training design, and facilitation, she works with individuals, leaders, and coaches at different stages of their development. As a trained mentor coach and ICF Approved Coaching Supervisor, she supports coaches in their own professional growth and works with organisations to create conditions where people can think well, work honestly with one another, and bring more of themselves to what they do.