Opinions Oct 24, 2021

Feelings and mind: how to cooperate?

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Feelings and mind: how to cooperate?

The mind is complex in its essence, because it consists of a colossal number of neurons, connections between them, electrical impulses running along them and hormones that trigger these impulses.

This machine almost never switches off and does not rest, it is greedy for information and its endless digestion. In its mirror labyrinth, everything gets complicated, while the blessed emptiness simply cannot be digested by the mind at all.

Nevertheless, the mind practically does not decide anything in the sense of simply making decisions. It only throws options and juggles with ideas. It can weigh pros and cons, model, predict, explain, excuse itself, lie, dig, cover and analyze. But it is the feelings that arise in response to this work of the mind that decide everything. Most often, feelings decide everything instantly, even before we think with our mind. It simply rationalizes everything after what has already happened. If the question or choice is not easy, feelings get confused, and the situation requires the participation of the clear mind.
The first thing our mind can help with is to realize the feelings themselves by decomposing this square polynomial into simple components. After all, banal anxiety - our hostile friend - arises most often from a confusion in our feelings. And no matter how we are used to separating body and soul, mind and feelings, ourselves and others, the world is a single whole psychological field, as it was formulated by the wonderful, but very difficult to read Kurt Lewin in his “Field Theory”.

Что здесь общего в знаменателе? Конечно же, вы сами и ваши отношения с людьми. Это именно вы чувствуете весь этот набор эмоций по отношению к людям.

Therefore, the second thing that the mind can help is to unite all our fragmentation with one comprehensive common denominator. Do you remember from school that fractions cannot be added and subtracted while the denominators are different? That is why some unification is needed. For example, you find that you are anxious because you simultaneously resent your partner, fear an upcoming presentation, and feel guilty toward your friend. What is the common denominator here? Of course, you and your relationships with people. It is you who feel this whole set of emotions in relation to people.

The third action of the mind is categorization. Friendship, work and love are completely different disciplines associated with completely different people. They work in different ways, there are different rules, motives and reactions, different meaning of the results for your life. Screwing something up at work is a survival threat. Problems with friends are not conducive to strengthening social hierarchical positions. Broken relationship with a partner lets our reproduction goals down the drain.

Now the mind should stop twitching in spite of the feverish commands of the senses. "I allow me not to rush" - you say to yourself and boldly take a break to think. And then you feel it again, only consciously. Go through the options and give yourself the opportunity to feel your reaction to them, a bodily response. Performing the actions described above, you notice the connections between all the points, prioritize the time and the desire / unwillingness to deal with them. And with this honest picture, you are already acting in the most optimal way.

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