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Healing and our Brains

I Feel That … I am Really Thinking…

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The title pretty much gives it away, if you get what I am talking about. You know, all those times when someone says “I feel” and then describes what they are thinking, not what they are actually feeling. When they use an expression along the lines of  “I feel that the world is full of silly people.”  This is an opinion, which is a thought, not a feeling. Feelings include fear, anger, sadness, etc. Hardly a day goes by that I do not hear someone say “I feel” when they are describing their thoughts and opinions.

Hair-splitting? Perhaps… and perhaps not. You see, in my world, thoughts and feelings are really not the same thing, even though they often arrive together on the scene. It is normal that we feel a feeling/emotion (I’ll use both terms interchangeably here, for the sake of convenience), and have a thought or two about it at the same time. And vice versa – we can have a thought and then a feeling arises. Thoughts and feelings are usually linked together, so we tend to have them pretty much simultaneously in our inner world. And, as I’ll explain in a bit, being aware of the difference between thoughts and feelings can be quite important to our happiness.


Think, think, think

The interesting thing these days is that in most situations we are discouraged from feeling and encouraged to think instead. One of the earliest examples of this was when IBM put up “THINK”  signs in their offices starting in the 1930s. The intent was good – IBM wanted people to act consciously, not just go charging ahead without a thought for outcomes. This is a wise approach, and it certainly worked well for IBM for years.

The psychoanalytical community has contributed to this thinking bias as well, successfully convincing many of us that we need to think about everything, analyze it ad infinitum and if we happen to notice that we are having a feeling, that we should think about that feeling, determine why we feel that way, and think real hard about when was the first time we felt it, and finally, analyze it all, in the hope that we’ll discover some way to better manage whatever is bothering us. One of the ways this thought bias works against us in this particular realm is in suicide prevention, where a lot of attention is placed on suicidal thoughts and little on suicidal feelings. There is a big and potentially fatal difference between thinking about suicide and having the desire (feeling) to act upon those thoughts.

TV and films are full of examples of people going to see counselors as soon as they have some issue, and counseling/talk therapy has become a standard remedy prescribed by almost every advice “guru” out there. What is funny and sad at the same time is that while people are constantly pointed at talk therapy as the solution to their issues, rarely is there a pause for reflection on what is actually the appropriate course of action for the situation. Alternatives to going to see a talk therapist are rarely contemplated, so well has the campaign to instill the belief that talk therapy/counseling is the best approach succeeded. Be aware that I am not trashing talk therapy here, but merely pointing out that people often jump on that bus without actually giving it much…err… thought.

In addition, those who use their minds as their primary means of relating to the world, otherwise known as intellectuals, are revered in modern society. If you do not have a PhD, then you’d better be a rock star or TV/film celebrity if you intend to write a book and expect it to succeed or want to comment publicly on anything and be taken seriously. Yes, those prized letters after your name give you instant credibility, regardless of what your actual knowledge on a subject might be. Those who work in specialized fields such as anti-virus/anti-malware research bristle when the general computer security PhDs start to talk about the subject, as the generalists often get malware protection wrong, and assume that their academic degree was sufficient to allow them to draw conclusions about something they had not actually studied in depth.

In a somewhat related example, until recently many couple therapists in America could earn their doctorates without actually working with couples for more than a few hours. Their courses focused on theory and research, not working with live people. PhD or Masters in hand, they could pen works that talked about the theory of couples, relationships, personal growth, etc., and have the entire work based upon theoretical knowledge. Given how humans are a tad complex, it may make more sense to actually interact with them before writing something purporting to contain some valuable insight. When these ivory tower therapists started seeing clients, they often had to learn the hard way how to properly deal with a real human sitting in front of them, feeling upset over their relationship. I wonder if the clients got a discounted rate while the real world learning was taking place…

But I digress in my thinking about thinking.

I’m sure that if you take a moment, you’ll find plenty of examples in your life where you are encouraged to think about things, not have feelings about them. Thoughts are nice and neat, and feelings are messy and often out of control or overwhelming. At least, that is what we are told. Obviously, I’m not against thinking. I used it to prepare and write this. In fact, I use thinking all the time, regardless of what some people might say… 🙂

But, there is a need both for thinking and for feeling, at the the appropriate time. Living in our thoughts constantly is no better than living constantly in our feelings. Each can inform the other and we can achieve a level of balance when we pay attention to all aspects of ourselves. We’re not our thoughts and we’re not our feelings, even though they happen to us in such a way that we could be easily led to believe that they are.

Why do they say I feel when they mean I think?

In pondering why people might so often use the expression “I feel” when really they mean “I think”, I concluded that this is because there is a pent-up desire to express their feelings, and so it is a sort of warped Freudian slip. They really do want to express their feelings, but society has us managing them, or regulating them, or suppressing feelings to such an extent that when they do pop out, it is with a large POP. In the meantime, there is a tension just beneath the surface that creates situations in which someone wants to express a feeling, but knows that thoughts are more acceptable, and we get mixed up expressions. Of course, hearing others use incorrect expressions all the time trains us to use them as well, part of our mechanism to fit it. Using the expression “I feel” to express thoughts is a way to stay safe in the tribe and yet still suggest that one has feelings, albeit ones that are well managed to the point that they are hardly distinguishable from thoughts.

Why do we need to be more precise?

When people are encouraged to think instead of  feel or not express their feelings, there is a danger that those feelings will come out in some other way that is destructive. Men, who are constantly constrained in terms of feeling expression, suffer more heart attacks and die years younger than women, who are given a little more lea-way in terms of expressing feeling. This lea-way is not so great however, as no woman wants to be seen as hysterical, and so they too stuff down a lot of their feelings.

Allowing feelings to arise naturally and flow through and out is one of the key aspects of having a healthy relationship with them. Releasing old feelings which were stored inside is a necessary part of achieving a balance between healthy emotional expression and over-the-top emotional reactions. When one releases the stored feelings, the new ones that arise are not burdened with the excess charge of the past combined with the present response.

Becoming aware of this little mind game we play with ourselves is important, as it allows us to be more present in the moment and more congruent with our thoughts, feelings and actions.

The next time you say “I feel”, finish that sentence with a mention of a  feeling, not a thought or opinion.

Copyright 2010 Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved

Healing and our Brains, Moving to a stress-free reality

Are your thoughts causing your stressful feelings?

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There is a prevalent theory making the rounds, time and again, that your thoughts are what create your emotions and therefore your stress.

One of the expressions of these is what is called “Appraisal Theory”, which has been summed up as follows:

Event ==> thinking ==> Simultaneous arousal and emotion

Back in the day when I believed that the mind was supreme, this made perfect sense to me. After all, we humans are the thinkers, which is supposed to distinguish us from all other beasts. Hey, we have really old books that tell this story as well, and it just feels dang good to be top of the heap, don’t it? Stop noticing how we slaughter each other by the millions and how nasty we can be to others – it is best to ignore all that conflicts with our idealized vision of ourselves as simply wonderful.

Well, truth be told, I’m not so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed any more, which is another way of saying that I no longer automatically accept that humans are so much better than other species. Yes, we’ve managed to develop incredible technology so we could leave our trash behind even on the moon… Yes, we’ve polluted and ravaged the landscape to such an extent that there are few places left on Earth which are not damaged in some way.

OK, we have also done lots of good things, but if we are going to be relatively objective, we need to own what we do that is not so pretty or a good subject for polite conversation.

If we accept that even though humans seem to do a lot more thinking than dogs, for example (although your mileage may vary, depending on the human and canine subjects used in a study you might undertake), it would appear that this thinking is not always giving us a better world.

Ah, you might say, what we need is better thinking. Well, that would be an improvement, of course, but there is no guarantee that just because you are going to be thinking better that your actions are going to be congruent with these “better” thoughts. I know lots of people who can talk a good talk and who obviously are quite developed in the thinking department. They also happen to be less than optimum in the acting department – they don’t walk a good walk. Maybe you know someone like this too – a brilliant mind, but not so good to interact with.

And this is just one example of how I find less than satisfactory the concept that it is always our thinking that triggers our emotions. I would argue that there is a three-way street on which our physiological environment, our cognitive thought processes and our emotional responses are all interacting constantly.

A few examples from real life:

Imagine that you are standing outside and it is raining, cold and you are getting soaked and feeling rather clammy. You don’t need to think about this situation to feel miserable – you just feel it, as a normal result of your environment.

I would venture to say, given how the weather is the starting topic for so many conversations, that people generally respond to their environment without thought – they feel the environment acting on them and their emotions pop up in response. One can change one’s emotional and mental response to the environment, of course. But that is grist for another mill, fodder for another cannon, etc., etc.

Another example of this is when one eats something that tastes really good. This bite of Bill’s blueberry pie that I just ate triggers in me a feeling of comfort. I did not have to think about it – the pie enters my mouth and my taste buds signal “yum, good!” to me. And, as a result, I feel good about the pie and about Bill. I don’t have to think gratitude – it just comes up as a response to the good taste and texture.

When I think about this body and emotional response to the pie that I am enjoying, the feeling of gratitude can become more intense, of course. In fact, eating the pie triggers good thoughts about Bill. The communication is in all directions – from my body to my emotional centers to my mind. They interact with each other, back and forth.

Let’s look at another example – you are driving along and your car hits a slippery spot on the road and for a moment or two, is out of control. Before you have time to think “Oh Dang!” or something a little stronger, your body and emotions respond to the situation. Your body, probably guided by your enteric brain,  starts telling all of you – “holy jumping jelly beans, we’re outta control here!!!!” It also floods your system with those infamous fight or flight chemicals and maybe you break out into a cold sweat and your heart is racing. You feel fear both emotionally and viscerally, and way before any thoughts can arise. Your mind can say anything calming or rational it wants, to no immediate avail – you are still reacting to the situation and until those chemicals that are flooding your system start to subside, not much calming is going to happen.

The same thing happens with people who are upset – while in that state, they are not thinking rationally – they are experiencing their upset and will continue to do so until they start to settle down. Their thoughts are greatly influenced by their physical and emotional state. Again, we can see that no matter what the starting point, our bodies, our minds and our feelings are interacting and influencing each other constantly.

Another example is when you are feeling some heart-based emotions. These emotions, whether of love-sickness or heartbreak, trigger all kinds of non-rational thoughts and result in all kinds of out-of-the-box actions. Go on, tell someone in love to think logically and see what happens.

Now, I’m not dismissing the notion that thoughts can trigger feelings. We can find plenty of examples of that, too. Someone sees a bully pick on a child and thoughts of disgust can arise which lead to anger and then some intervention action.

Less Chicken and Egg

I think the world would be a much better place if we spent less time on chicken-egg-what- came-first notions which place one part of us in a superior position to the other parts. Our minds can do a good job of analyzing, understanding, comparing, etc., but they are not designed for loving, for caring, for empathy – that comes from our hearts. If you ever try to drive a car using your mind instead of allowing your body to handle the majority of the work, you’ll find it rather tiring rather quickly.

Remember that we have lots and lots of neural networks in our head brains, heart brains and enteric (gut) brains. Even though many, many people have been convinced that “it’s all in your head” that just ain’t so. All three of those brains talk to each other constantly just as our thoughts, emotions and body sensations constantly interact.

So, if you are feeling stressed about something and someone tells you it is your thinking that is to blame, smile and know that they have only got one piece of the picture, one nibble of the cookie. There is a lot more going on with us than simply our thinking triggering emotions – any one of the three parts I have mentioned can trigger a response in the other and influence, often enhancing or diminishing, the response that the other part is having. We’re not machines – we are complex organisms with all kinds of internal systems, many of which we have yet to properly discover.

Like a lot of people, I have tried many cognitive approaches to improving my life – I have a wealth of books and courses done on this. The stark reality is that my emotions are not dictated by my thinking, nor are yours. I can’t think myself happy when I am feeling sad, and when I am feeling happy, sad thoughts are nowhere to be found.

What I have found really useful is to acknowledge my complexity as a human and use the appropriate tools for the specific. I use AER to release stressful emotions which in turn releases stressful thoughts, both of which help hold in place non-resourceful beliefs.

You think, you feel, you act, you be, you respond – and therefore you are. 🙂 Help me spread the word – Rene has done enough damage with his “I think therefore I am”.

Copyright 2009 Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved.

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Healing and our Brains

Stressed out from throwing your arms in the air?

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For far too many people, the world is a place full of boulders. Every day, they bump into these boulders, feel frustrated and then perhaps defeated and then stressed out. What would it be like if they could actually experience the world as a place of opportunity instead of obstacles? Wouldn’t that provide much more opportunity for a life that would be happier and calmer?

Let’s take a closer look at what often happens when life’s little challenges are seen as major problems. Imagine that you buy a new bicycle and discover after riding it for a week or so that some of the nuts need tightening. You go to your toolbox and grab your wrenches. None of them fit properly on the nuts, and perhaps you feel tension rising inside you. After all, you’ve had these wrenches for years and they were used successfully by your father before you. Frustrated, you call the store where you bought the bike and demand to know what is going on. Perhaps you are silently steaming at all the time that you are wasting on this. Finally, someone explains that the bike uses metric fasteners, and your tried and tested Imperial measurement wrenches will not fit properly. At this point, some people will feel so upset they might try to return the bike to the store, demanding one that is made using fasteners that their wrenches can fit. They might be verbally abusive with the clerks, and vent loudly to all who will listen, perhaps even waving their arms about in the air.

What’s really going on here? Is this reaction appropriate to the situation? Is the store to blame for the type of fasteners used on the bike? Would someone be justified in feeling all upset and angry over this situation? Is there some sort of crazy conspiracy to annoy them? Or is something else going on, beneath the surface?

As some of you may have guessed by now, trying to return a bike because your wrenches don’t work is an overly intense reaction for the situation. However, when someone is in this state of mind, with emotions being felt intensely, there is no point in trying to reason with them. After all, their body has already shifted much of its resources to the survival part of the brain and body core, and little logical thinking is possible (or happening) at this moment.

Why would someone get so upset over the fact that metric fasteners were used? The answer lies in their stored emotions and memories. Because their emotional kettle is almost full to the brim with emotional responses to situations in the past when they also felt similarly, it does not take much fresh frustration for the kettle to boil over. We humans constantly access our stored data banks to evaluate each new situation. We look in the data bank, which holds visual, verbal and emotional memory components, to see if we’ve seen this sort of situation before. If we have, we then tend to automatically respond in the same fashion as previously, without thinking.

If we have a very pleasant memory of feeling good when someone gave us a gift of flowers or chocolate, for example, we”ll access those stored memories and emotions in a flash when we see these same things again. This can be very useful and enjoyable when what we access is pleasant or heartwarming. On the flip side, it can be rather disheartening if what we recall are unpleasant or painful stored feelings and memories.

So, when you are confronted with a situation which appears in some way to be similar to a prior negative one (and even more so if there are numerous prior ones), it is normal to have the same feelings arise, and for your kettle to boil over. This boiling over can be expressed in anger, frustration, sadness, pain, guilt, etc. And, until such time as you empty that particular kettle, you are going to keep adding to it with each fresh situation.

Empty the kettle

Releasing stored negative or unpleasant feelings is the only way to experience fresh negative situations without them becoming overwhelming. People often try to suppress these built-up feelings as a coping mechanism for when they get too strong, but that is a stop-gap measure, and it does not work. Those feelings lie just beneath the surface, waiting to be triggered and to join in with the recent ones, overflowing from the kettle.

Releasing these stored feelings, or emptying the kettle, if you will, is actually not that hard. However, given our well documented human tendency to avoid unpleasant feelings, the process of emptying the kettle is not so intuitive. To empty a kettle of stored pain, for example, requires that one not only acknowledges the existence of the stored feelings, but that one remains present to the discomfort they bring long enough for them to dissipate. There are techniques such as AER which are designed to accelerate this dissipation process, but they are not so widely known yet. Most people keep stuffing down the unpleasant feelings, hoping they will go away on heir own and then suffering when they don’t.

Just buy or borrow a metric wrench already!

For those who are not emotionally engaged in the situation, it is easy to suggest logical and rational solutions, such as buying some new wrenches. However, these suggestions are falling on ears which are only tuned into fight, flight  or freeze type responses – people who  are in an emotionally intense situation are not going to even hear what the other is saying, let alone be able to think about it or act upon it.  Don Ferguson, a therapist who works with couples, remarked at a Smart Marriages conference in 2008 that talk therapy does not help those suffering from trauma, as it addresses the prefrontal cortex while the intense  emotions and memories are mainly stored elsewhere in the brain. When dealing with stored emotions and feelings, talk therapy usually has little effect, offering a sort of  drive-by relief at best. In fact, constant surface level recalling of traumatic incidents by talking about them can re-inforce those brain circuits, keeping the stored emotions well energized.

While we might not feel much pity for people who engage in dramatic expressions of their discontent when the world does not go the way they want, we can at least try to see that they are being pushed in a certain direction by their stored emotions. Yes, like everyone else, they need to take responsibility for their actions and empty that kettle so their over-reactions become more moderate and appropriate responses. Their reaction to what life serves up each day, which looks to them like a stream of constant problems which are almost insurmountable, is a result of unresolved past issues. There is no need to analyse these responses – they feel anger about something, for example, and that is the kettle to be released, before it boils over again.

There is also little to be gained in trying to figure out why someone feels a certain way while that feeling is present. The feeling puts them into an intense emotional state and at that point, they are literally incapable of rational thought. Empty the emotional kettle and the possibility of analysis of the situation arises. For many people, though, as soon as you drain the emotions from a kettle, there is little interest which remains in the situation and what was a hugely important situation a few minutes earlier. Without a lot of emotional content, the situation becomes benign or even banal.

Learning how to release stored emotions, emptying those kettles, is not hard. Using this approach to situations in which you feel frustrated means you stop finding yourself stressed out over what are really minor situations, but which appear larger when that kettle is full. You’ll also be less likely to wave your arms about, mad at the world, and getting all stressed out.

Copyright 2009 Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved.