Are You Thinking or Rationalising?
By: Sebastian Hahn
Tags: Philosophy, Emotional Intelligence, Emotions, Thinking, Personal Development

How Investigating Your Emotions Allows You To Think More Clearly

I recently had a debate with one of my best friends about personal development. He is very sceptical about personal development and thinks that people rarely change fundamentally. I noticed that I was getting agitated during the conversation. Why was it frustrating to hear that “personal development doesn’t work”?

When you notice that you are getting upset, angry or tense when hearing an idea or opinion, pay attention. Ask yourself: “Why is this idea making me so angry?” When an idea is upsetting you it is very likely that you are emotionally invested in something that is touched by the idea. If this wasn’t the case, the mere fact that someone holds an opinion that you believe is false would not trigger any strong negative emotions. The statement “pigs can fly” is obviously false and it is unlikely to trigger any strong negative emotions. So mere falsehood is not sufficient for an emotional charge.

When a statement touches something that you are invested in things can look very differently. The statement “god doesn’t exist” is likely to trigger emotions in those who are religious, the statement “climate change isn’t real” will trigger frustration in environmental activists. It can sometimes be surprising how strong the reactions to statements that are not directly saying anything about anyone who is involved in the conversation can be. Someone else might make a statement about politics, philosophy or science, and in theory the statement could be taken as a proposition about the world that can be true or false and that has nothing to do with us personally. But we are often unlikely to see it that way. We make it personal.

When a statement hits an emotional investment of ours and we don’t realize that this is happening, we can lose the ability to be objective. As an intellectual ideal we may wish that we listen to ideas calmly, look at them from different perspectives, evaluate them on their own merits and then make a judgement about whether they are true or false. But in practice our emotions already get in the way in the first stage. If we feel angry about an idea, and are emotionally not prepared to consider that it could be true, we will be unable to consider perspectives that may show us that we are wrong. We will selectively only pursue those lines of reasoning that bring us back to emotional comfort. This mechanism can close us towards new ideas, prevent us from correcting our wrong beliefs, and hinder our ability to learn.

I use the term emotional investment because often we invest time and energy into life projects that are tied up with particular beliefs that we hold. The beliefs may help us to meet some of our emotional needs, and we want to see the life projects founded on those beliefs as meaningful. Some of these projects and beliefs are so important to us that they have become part of our identity. They have become part of how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us. When these fundamental beliefs are attacked it feels like we are being attacked. This can trigger strong emotions

What can you do when you notice that an idea or discussion is triggering emotions in you?

There are different ways in which an idea can touch an emotional investment that you have. Some questions that can be helpful in identifying where the emotional investment lies are the following:

What would it say about me and my life if this idea was true?

Statement: “personal development doesn’t work”. Impact if I am a coach: “I am a fraud, I am selling snake oil and empty promises, I am wasting my time attending seminars and reading self help books…”

Statement: “god doesn’t exist”. Impact if I am a Christian: “I am wasting my time praying and reading spiritual texts, there’s no hope for salvation, we’re just animals inhabiting a large rock that is spinning through empty space. I feel lost”

Statement: “if you work hard, you can achieve anything” Impact: “I’m not living the life of my dreams, therefore I must be lazy and I am to blame for the state my life is in. All this responsibility feels heavy and I am frustrated with myself”

What would be the consequences if people believed this idea?

Statement: “climate change isn’t real” Impact: “people won’t care about CO2 emissions, and destroy the planet even more quickly. I am angry and scared.”

Statement: “individual votes don’t count” (paradox of voting) Impact: “people won’t vote, democracy won’t work, the world will be dominated by authoritarian regimes, chaos, and oppression. I am scared.”

What would be the consequences if I took this idea as advice and followed it?

Statement: “You can actually talk to attractive strangers on public transport, in cafes and in bars. Lots of people do it.” Impact: “If that’s true, I actually have to ask her out. I am scared. Also: I feel pathetic for being too scared to do it. I felt better about myself when I had an excuse.”

Which social group would I no longer fit into if I accepted this belief as true? What would my family/friends/colleagues say about me if I endorsed this idea?

Statement: “We should immediately deport asylum seekers that commit crimes” Impact: “If I endorsed this view, would my liberal friends still accept me? I am scared of being ostracised”

If you keep noticing what upsets you and ask questions you will notice themes. If you are aware of these themes you are more likely to catch yourself in the moment when you get worked up in a discussion.

Another way of identifying your emotional investments is to stay with the emotions directly and really feel into the anger, sadness, fear or joy you are experiencing. Notice where you feel the emotion in your body. Ask: If my anger had a voice, what would it say? What is my anger telling me?

Emotions are not the problem. We need emotions. They help us decide and they convey information. The problem arises when we think we are thinking, but we are actually just rationalizing emotions that we are not even aware of. When this happens, we can lose touch with reality.

Once you have identified where your emotional investment lies, think about the topic that was making you emotional again. If you were having a discussion about the topic with a friend, give it another go and see whether you can learn something new. Knowing what is triggering the emotions in the discussion gives you some distance towards them that allows you to be more objective than you otherwise would be.

If you have friends that are open towards this idea, you can also do this together. When you notice that an intellectual discussion gets heated take a pause an switch perspectives. Move away from the objective arguments in the discussion. Take a moment to both reflect on what emotional investments you have in this debate. Share those emotional investments with each other. If you know each other well you may even help each other to discover blind spots that you individually wouldn’t have noticed. Now look at the objective arguments again. See what you can learn from each other.

This process of paying attention and questioning the underlying emotions expands your comfort zone. It expands the universe of ideas that you can engage with and opens the door for clear thinking and new insights.