matt1981
16-02-07, 20:28
I dont know if this is in the right place but it relates to me a lot and Im pretty sure itll relate to others aswell :)
Beware of Emotional Reasoning
by Adrian W. Savage at 06:52AM (MST) on June 6, 2006 | Permanent Link | Cosmos
There are many joys in the self-development journey, but plenty of pitfalls too. Sometimes the most difficult blockages to overcome are the ones inside our own heads. The way we think and what we tell ourselves can stop us cold on the journey towards self-development.
Have you ever told yourself something must be right because that's how it feels? Or that you were correct to avoid some opportunity because it "just felt wrong?" Emotional reasoning is very common. It's based on assuming that your emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are. Yet emotion is a poor guide to the truth. People's emotions are driven by many factors, including their state of health, their digestion, and external influences from TV shows to magazines and chance encounters with others. We want some thoughts to be true because they feel good. We want others to be wrong because we fear them. While these emotions are natural and understandable, they give almost no useful information about the truth or falsehood of whatever triggers them. Why are people ripped off by slick operators? Because they so want the deal to be as good as they feel it is that they shut their minds to the evidence pointing the other way.
Emotional reasoning leads to us seeing our world though faulty perspective. It's the same problem of hope making the "good" parts appear better then they are, and fear making the "bad" bits look more threatening and terrible. Instead of getting an objective view of our lives and progress, we oscillate between unreasonable levels of hope and equally unsupported feelings of despair.
"All-or-nothing" thinking is also a common problem of emotional reasoning. It's a form of temperamental perfectionism you find most often in high achievers. If they try something new and it doesn't bring them quick success, they drop it. But making significant change is a slow process, calling for patience and willingness to accept you're not going to shine at the new approach for quite a while. When people tell themselves — and others — they won't do something unless they can do it really well, they're guilty of "all-or-nothing" thinking. They're also indulging in melodrama. Making statements like that sounds so tough and dramatic, they miss the utter idiocy behind it. No one who starts something new does it well at first. That only comes later — often much later. But since these people are too impatient to hang on until there's some chance of the "all," they most often end up with nothing.
Mind-reading is another frequent expression of emotional reasoning. Here's how it works. Your boss has been down on you all day, so you're feeling pretty pissed off. About half-an-hour before it's time to leave, she comes to your desk and slaps down a pile of papers. "I'm too busy to cope with these," she says, "but they're urgent. Read them through and give me a one or two page summary by the morning." Then she walks away. As the anger rises in you, your emotions turn mind-readers. You tell yourself she did this deliberately to upset you. It's clear she dislikes you and enjoys causing you as much grief as she can. In fact, your mind-reading ability tells you, she's obviously trying to force you to resign — probably to save some costs, so she can look good to her boss.
Is any of this true? Who knows? There could be a dozen or more other explanations for her actions. Do you consider them? Probably not. Your emotions fasten on the explanation that suits your mood of the moment, ignoring the fact that it's all based on nothing more than supposition and mind-reading. So you go home late, spend a miserable evening still fuming at your boss's insensitivity, sleep badly and arrive for work next morning already primed to explode at the slightest provocation. Does this help you? Does your boss even notice? If she does, the cha
Beware of Emotional Reasoning
by Adrian W. Savage at 06:52AM (MST) on June 6, 2006 | Permanent Link | Cosmos
There are many joys in the self-development journey, but plenty of pitfalls too. Sometimes the most difficult blockages to overcome are the ones inside our own heads. The way we think and what we tell ourselves can stop us cold on the journey towards self-development.
Have you ever told yourself something must be right because that's how it feels? Or that you were correct to avoid some opportunity because it "just felt wrong?" Emotional reasoning is very common. It's based on assuming that your emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are. Yet emotion is a poor guide to the truth. People's emotions are driven by many factors, including their state of health, their digestion, and external influences from TV shows to magazines and chance encounters with others. We want some thoughts to be true because they feel good. We want others to be wrong because we fear them. While these emotions are natural and understandable, they give almost no useful information about the truth or falsehood of whatever triggers them. Why are people ripped off by slick operators? Because they so want the deal to be as good as they feel it is that they shut their minds to the evidence pointing the other way.
Emotional reasoning leads to us seeing our world though faulty perspective. It's the same problem of hope making the "good" parts appear better then they are, and fear making the "bad" bits look more threatening and terrible. Instead of getting an objective view of our lives and progress, we oscillate between unreasonable levels of hope and equally unsupported feelings of despair.
"All-or-nothing" thinking is also a common problem of emotional reasoning. It's a form of temperamental perfectionism you find most often in high achievers. If they try something new and it doesn't bring them quick success, they drop it. But making significant change is a slow process, calling for patience and willingness to accept you're not going to shine at the new approach for quite a while. When people tell themselves — and others — they won't do something unless they can do it really well, they're guilty of "all-or-nothing" thinking. They're also indulging in melodrama. Making statements like that sounds so tough and dramatic, they miss the utter idiocy behind it. No one who starts something new does it well at first. That only comes later — often much later. But since these people are too impatient to hang on until there's some chance of the "all," they most often end up with nothing.
Mind-reading is another frequent expression of emotional reasoning. Here's how it works. Your boss has been down on you all day, so you're feeling pretty pissed off. About half-an-hour before it's time to leave, she comes to your desk and slaps down a pile of papers. "I'm too busy to cope with these," she says, "but they're urgent. Read them through and give me a one or two page summary by the morning." Then she walks away. As the anger rises in you, your emotions turn mind-readers. You tell yourself she did this deliberately to upset you. It's clear she dislikes you and enjoys causing you as much grief as she can. In fact, your mind-reading ability tells you, she's obviously trying to force you to resign — probably to save some costs, so she can look good to her boss.
Is any of this true? Who knows? There could be a dozen or more other explanations for her actions. Do you consider them? Probably not. Your emotions fasten on the explanation that suits your mood of the moment, ignoring the fact that it's all based on nothing more than supposition and mind-reading. So you go home late, spend a miserable evening still fuming at your boss's insensitivity, sleep badly and arrive for work next morning already primed to explode at the slightest provocation. Does this help you? Does your boss even notice? If she does, the cha