06/05/2022
Sure, sometimes when you think about a thing, it can lead you to feel a certain way. And it’s true that deliberately changing your thinking about a topic can impact your outlook and behaviour somewhat.
But the idea that thoughts CAUSE emotions, is untrue.
Emotional response is the result of brain development, early experiences (often pre-verbal) and the neural encodings developed in response to what ‘worked’ to restore emotional and physical comfort at the time. It is directly tied to the sympathetic nervous system so we have both an affect (feeling) memory, and a somatic (body) memory, and the two memories form the basis of our automatic response patterns. What ‘worked’ was likely random, may not have been deliberate or even directly connected to the event, but the inner mind, the automatic and unconscious mind, remembers anyway. This is how neural pathways form.
When a new experience triggers an emotion, it is this affect/somatic ‘remembering’ from previous experiences which is responsible for the emotional reaction.
For someone with real trauma, deep wounds or very strong feelings, blaming their thoughts for their emotions is patronising.
The mind does not like to be patronised.
Telling the brain to ‘think’ differently will often be ignored (or actively rejected) because the mind has contradictory evidence and rather than using words, it remembers feelings and provides a feeling response which is ‘appropriate’ given previous experiences. Telling the brain to think differently disrespects the genius and protective nature of the mind. In addition, it shames the part which is acting protectively, leading to counterproductive internal responses such as defensiveness, self-loathing or mistrust in oneself.
To permanently change emotional responses, the inner mind must first be respected. Only then can it choose a better way to restore comfort, automatically.
