We have this assumption that being emotional is being irrational. Counter productive. Silly.
And being rational is about being cool, calm…and most importantly – unemotional.
This often creates a conflict where others blame us for being ‘too logical’, ‘cold’, ‘insensitive’.
Can being emotional and rational go together? Can they be balanced?
Yes!
By understanding how they are deeply connected. Yes, they are deeply connected!
The head and heart are NOT in opposite teams – as is commonly depicted. So there is no question of ‘balancing’.
Creating a conflict where none exists is where the problem starts.
Your actions and experience of life happen only through the thoughts in your head. The heart cannot ‘tell you’ anything. The heart just feels. There are no words. It has no preferences, judgements etc
Preferences, value judgments, desires, cravings, repulsion are all in the realm of the mind.
The heart feels. The mind is afraid of some of these emotions. So it tries to protect itself against by creating a world view that avoids situations that can cause such emotions.
The heart feels. The mind craves some of these emotions. So it tries to protect itself against anything else, by creating a world view that avoids situations that can cause such emotions.
The mind then proceeds to tailor it’s environment, and train the people in it to fit this world view.
Of course, there is nothing more irrational than trying to force reality to your world view. Reality just doesn’t care.
But the mind likes to believe it can. The alternative is just too scary!
So it subjects itself to a lot of turmoil trying to resist reality, change it, control it, shape it, manipulate it. It’s like pushing against a wall. A lot of stress and suffering gets created. The mind tries to resist that too, and the emotions are compounded even more!
You see how the ‘rational’ mind created suffering for itself out of the most ‘logical’ and noble intentions to protect itself?
And where did it all start?
By trying to protect itself from certain emotions and hold onto others.
The more it tries, the more irrational it gets.
So the secret is not to resist emotions, but to accept them for what they are: emotions. Some churning of the heart that happens involuntarily. But something that has not power unless you choose to believe so by making up your own interpretations around it.
So as you can see, the rational mind is one that is not afraid and does not try to avoid experiencing certain emotions. That allows it to not get ‘caught up’ in emotions, and have a clear, undistorted view of reality from which it can act as objectively as humanly possible.
Extraordinarily beautiful…. This article made my day.. 🙂 thanks