But if your feelings are based on mistaken beliefs, then your feelings can change when your beliefs become more based on reality. It isn't that your feelings are mistaken--they are what they are--however, if your feelings are being based on beliefs that are quite possibly mistaken (and beliefs are thoughts, not feelings), you can fact-check your beliefs and bring your feelings in line with the actual facts of the situation.

Example: I may "feel" shame and worthlessness about myself, but those feelings are based on mistaken beliefs that I am broken, a bad person, and I cause trouble for others, which I bought into very young at the hands of my abusers. If I fact-check my beliefs--my thoughts--about being broken, bad, and a trouble maker, I realize those beliefs really aren't reality.

My abuse has not "broken" me; I am a wife, mother, teacher, I function in society. I am not a bad person; I have a good heart, live a pretty moral life according to my value system, etc. And, I really didn't cause problems for others; my ABUSER caused the problems; I was the victim of HIS trouble-making.

If I can acknowledge the above as fact, then my feelings of shame and worthlessness that stemmed from those mistaken beliefs can begin to change. My "feelings" don't hold up quite so well in the face of the reality, so when I "hear" myself thinking those thoughts and feeling those feelings, I have some justification for challenging my thinking which eventually helps lead to an adjustment in my feelings in the long run.

Does that make any sense?