Emotional vs Rational Thinking

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Striking a balance between too much logic and too much emotion isn't easy. But with a bit of practise you can create what therapists sometimes refer to as the Wise Mind.

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Episode Transcript

Richard (00:00):
And hello to you.
Today's bonus episode is allabout finding a balance between
too much logic and too muchemotion.
'cause being able to feel whatyou feel at the same time as
logically processing it is areally great skill.
If we can listen to our emotionsand understand why we feel the

(00:22):
way we do, and then use ourlogical brain to come to a
decision about what to do, thenwe all live happily ever after.
But that's really hard'cause ourbrain has evolved far too slowly
to make that natural.
If you see a picture of thehuman brain, you'll see the
prefrontal cortex, where we doour thinking, and right

(00:43):
underneath it is the ancientlimbic system that controls
emotional drives, but theyaren't connected, not directly
anyway.
So, it's really slow.
Meaning it's easier toexperience the world in
extremes.
To either live in the rational,logical brain full of worries

(01:03):
and catastrophes or live in theemotional brain full of sadness
and grief.
And if you wanna be happy weneed to be using both parts of
our brain.
Our conscious and ourunconscious.
Our logical and our emotionalbrain.
Sometimes people call that thewise mind.

(01:25):
It's a phrase that comes out ofdialectic behaviour, therapy,
whatever you call it.
It's about being emotional andrational, respecting the way
that we feel as something thatshows us our values.
But also respecting logic andreason as a way of actually
implementing those values.
Getting both parts of us to beworking together at the same

(01:47):
time means implementing all ofthese different ramblings that
you hear from me each week,because it's about having some
understanding about why you feelthe way that you feel.
Accepting the way that you feeland then acting appropriately.
You might've heard me say thisquite a few times.
That means we need to lengthenthe gap between being

(02:11):
stimulated, angered, upset,whatever you want to call it,
and then acting on it.
Like that time honoured.
Take a few deep breaths andcount to 10 thing.
Only, instead of counting to 10,you are asking yourself What's
really going on here?
Now, please know, you canalready do this.

(02:34):
You are not an excited puppy,and you are not a robot.
Even if you might feel likeeither of those sometimes.
You do already have the abilityto both think and feel at the
same time, and that's the firststep in getting better at
integrating these two parts ofus.
That's why DBT folk call it theWise Mind.

(02:55):
It's a metaphor that you can useto call up the skill of being
both rational and emotional.
Conscious and unconscious.
So you can say to yourself.
Hey, wise mind, what do youthink?
And the combination of emotionand reasoning is true wisdom,
true intuition.

(03:16):
To intuit something means tounderstand or work out something
by instinct.
Intuition isn't just reacting togut instinct.
It's working out what your gutinstinct is telling you and
using wisdom to work out whetherit's right or not.
And if you can't trust your gut.
Because you are overly sensitiveto rejection, maybe due to

(03:37):
childhood trauma, then your wisemind can remind you of that.
If someone else is the center ofattention in a group and
something you say is overlooked.
Your wise mind knows that that'sjust how groups work, but
understands that you feel as ifyou want to belong.
And so directs you to look forthat instead.

(04:00):
And of course, we always findwhat we look for, which in that
situation then helps you to feelconnected to the people in the
group and foster that sense ofbelonging, whether you are being
spoken to or not.
This is the reason I think whymindfulness has had the success
that it has had in all thestudies.
By learning to be more mindfulyou can accept your emotions for

(04:23):
what they are, listen to whatthey're trying to tell you and
take longer than you used to, tointerpret a situation.
And eventually you can do thison the fly.
But to get started.
Do take some time out to trainyour brain to connect up all
those neurons.
Practice using your unconscious,but at the same time as being

(04:45):
aware and conscious, you cancall it meditation.
You can call it mindfulness, youcan call it hypnosis, you can
call it whatever you want.
But there are hours and hours ofstuff on my Patreon page for six
pounds a month to help steer youin the right direction.
Plug, plug.
Nothing for free in this worldis there, and if I don't ask, I
don't get, and then you don'tget the weekly content that

(05:08):
might make such an importantdifference to your life.
The link is in the descriptionif you want to find me out or
just search for me onpatreon.com.
Either way, see you there.
Ta-ra.