Words are powerful. What we say shapes the way we view ourselves and our circumstances. Our feelings often reveal our unstated assumptions, our hidden beliefs, and the unrecognized stories by which we make sense of our lives. And then our words give voice to these feelings and reshape or reinforce — for good or ill — who we are and how we see ourselves.

A number of years ago, a counselor friend of mine introduced a simple and accessible concept that he regularly uses in his practice. He calls it “felt reality.”

Reality is reality. It’s objective. It’s what’s actually happening. Felt reality is what’s happening from my vantage point. It’s reality framed by my own thoughts, assumptions, and emotions.

Reality and felt reality aren’t the same. Sometimes they align — what I think and feel fits with what is actually happening. Other times, my felt reality is out of accord with reality. In such cases, I might be believing lies, or framing reality wrongly, or overreacting. My perspective might be distorted by my emotions or my sinful desires or my own limitations.

Once my friend gave me the category, I found it to be incredibly fruitful in my own life and marriage and parenting and ministry. It gave me a way to speak about human experiences of reality — whether mine or another’s — without necessarily validating those experiences. In other words, it enabled me to acknowledge that I think and feel a certain way, without affirming that such thoughts or emotions were necessarily true or right or good.

Getting felt reality on the table can be the first step in seeking to steward and shepherd our thoughts and emotions so that they more fully align with God’s.

“Cut Off from Your Sight”

Even more than that, the concept (though not the term) seems present in the Scriptures. Consider the Psalms. In the middle of Psalm 31, David pleads with God to deliver him from his distress. In doing so, he vividly describes what it’s like to be in the pit:

• His eyes are wasted from grief. They’re heavy from crying; they feel like lead. He just wants to rest, but there is no rest (verse 9).
• His soul is wasted. His body is wasted. There is a weariness that reaches to every part of David’s existence (verse 9).
• His life is spent with sorrow and his years with sighing (verse 10). This is how it feels: “I’ve been here forever, and I’ll be here forever.”
• His strength fails (and he knows he partially deserves it because of his sin), and his bones just waste away (verse 10).

David’s powerful emotional and physical responses are influenced by his perception of reality, of what’s going on around him:

• His adversaries have made him a reproach to his neighbors. Everyone runs from him because they think his suffering is contagious (verse 11). “Don’t stand too close to David. Don’t let him breathe on you. You don’t want to catch what he’s got.”
• He’s forgotten like the dead. People remember the dead — for a little bit. Then they’re forgotten. That’s how David feels. Dead and useless, like a broken vessel (verse 12). “What good am I?”
• He hears the whispering of his enemies around him — terror on every side. The other shoe could drop at any minute. Every rock and tree is ominous. Every bit of news produces fear. The future is filled with the almost certain prospect of bad surprise (verse 13).

This is David’s felt reality, and he gives explicit voice to it in verse 22:

I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.”

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