I was privileged to speak to a wonderful group of people down in Manhattan Beach on Saturday. The topic was New Thought Spirituality and Psychotherapy–I’m calling it Spiritual Psychology because of the blending of the two concepts.
When I present a topic on something, I’m really prone to asking the audience questions and I’m genuinely wanting verbal responses. I don’t want just the nod of the head. That said, one man in the audience had a really solid point and question about emotions. He had heard not to do anything when you’re “emotional,” and to not trust emotions as they are all fleeting.
I LOVED his question, because I, too have heard don’t trust your emotions, don’t make decisions based on emotions because they’re fleeting, they come and go. In many (if not ALL) twelve step groups, the message is to not trust our emotions. (Please correct me if this isn’t accurate!).
That said, I challenged this man’s thinking about it. You see, from my perspective, the thought comes first. Like the chicken or the egg, I’m going with the chicken came first. In this case…the thought comes first. From this thought an emotion will be linked to it.
In the presentation, I gave the example of me having the thought “I’m not enough.” I clearly (or tried to clearly) delineate the thought from the emotion. “I’m not enough” is a thought…the fancy word thought or thinking is cognition. When I have that thought, an emotion is going to be right behind, or below, or hidden SOMEWHERE, but it WILL be close.
When the man that brought up that emotions are fleeting disagreed with me, I totally understood where he was at. I told him I really appreciated his viewpoint. And. I said that thoughts are fleeting. Just as emotions are fleeting, thoughts are fleeting. When I keep thinking and thinking and thinking a specific thought, that tends to turn into a belief. When I keep feeling an emotion, I reinforce that belief.
Emotions are signs, symbols, guideposts, clues…inner messages that something IS upset…out of balance…that something is wrong, or, that something is right in my world. Instead of listening to them, we seem to continue to tell each other, “Oh there, there, don’t feel that way,” “Don’t feel that, don’t be silly.” But if we WERE to listen to our emotions (and we do that be feeling them and expressing them) we would be much better off. We’d have much more peace of mind. Using this model, if I’m at peace inside that “inner peace” that I hear people talking about (maybe you do, too), that would be the indication that everything is going all right.
Now if I’m having racing thoughts (when I am thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking…and thinking) about something, a tool that can BREAK that cycle is to identify the emotion that’s underneath all these thoughts. Okay, I’m worrying, I’m anxious about something. Got it. Now for the psychology part…what’s the hidden thought beneath that emotion of anxiousness and worry? THIS is the dance that our brains play with us. Thought–Emotion–Thought–Emotion.
If I keep allowing me to follow this dance, I’ll get to the core thinking that I have about me, the “Schema.” In one theory of psychotherapy (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or, CBT), the Schema is the core set of beliefs that I have about life. It’s my foundational vision of the world–my world view. It’s whether I think the world is safe or unsafe, about what’s “good,” and about what’s “bad.” In the schema the emotions are intertwined with the thoughts.
Because I don’t want to go into super detail about all that, let’s get back to the conversation about the emotions and the thoughts. Emotions are the “energy” that we feel inside…JUBILATION when I attain a long sought after goal or dream! Joy at seeing my son/daughter happy. Anger at not having things go my way. Each emotion that’s attached to the thought can give us clues about our hidden thoughts which will lead us to our set of values and mores.
Emotions allow us to connect with ourselves at deeper level. Feeling them, Expressing the emotions can give us really good guidance as to what we really think about something.
So…getting back to that man in the audience…do I make or take actions based on emotion? My answer is: Maybe. If the emotions are “joyful and spontaneous!” then booking that flight for my dream vacation may be a life changer in a positive way. But if the emotions are hurt and rage that might go along with the thoughts of “my wife left me and took my son with her!” then no, I wouldn’t take any action that is rash.
My personal guidelines are that if I experience a major event in my life, good or bad, I might want to wait about a couple of weeks to let the emotions and the thoughts integrate into my being. It’s like…whoa…okay…this was big…all kinds of thoughts and emotions are rushing around. Physiologically or biologically, my mind and body needs to integrate whatever just happened. Just as when I’m so angry that I have tunnel vision and can’t see anything else except the object of my rage…my body in that moment has a rush of adrenaline which actually can change my thinking…that’s why I need to “cool down.”
Our bodies respond to all the different thoughts and emotions we have. The thoughts and emotions dance together to create our ego, to create our psyche, and to create how we look at life in any given moment. What I’m saying to that man in the audience is to honor your emotions…honor the feelings, know that they are not thoughts, but dance with the thoughts. It’s the thought and the incorrect thought about myself (That I’m wrong, that I’m less than, that I don’t have anything to offer) that are the poisons that feed our minds. Not our emotions. Our emotions can give us guidance to the lie that we tell ourselves (That I can’t make it, it’s too much for me, they could never love me). Challenge the lies we tell ourselves. Honor the emotions.
Your homework for this post is to watch your thoughts. Watch what your brain is thinking…separate that from the emotion that you’re feeling. Don’t judge the thought OR the emotion, just tease the two out. Remember, the emotions that we can recognize on our faces, all around the world are: Happy, sad, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise. When you have your thought, which of these emotions (or something close to it) comes from the thought.
~Jim