Oddbean new post about | logout
 you are spot on that our emotions sadly dictate most if not all of our critical thinking. it is a question of: do we think WITH our emotions or do we USE our emotions to think?
The former implies that emotions DICTATE our actions. Eg. Anxious then we act negatively to our external stimuli or lashing out blindly. The latter implies that emotions are use as an INSIGHT to better understand how we act to external stimuli. Eg empathy by putting yourself in one's shoes. 
In a nutshell, understanding our emotions is important on how we can use our cognitive abilities. All of these take practice. ☺️👌 
 beautiful reply, Lady Mae~!
insight is a great way to look at it in a healthy manner. emotions are essential for a rich life experience and learning to use them as insights is so helpful. i made life difficult for myself in the past for ignoring them or stuffing them down in the favor of "logic"—this led to many frustrations.
but i also recognize that the ignoring of emotions was also a defense mechanism of sorts. 
 don't worry we all have this lifetime if not more to experience and learn from our emotions. Earth is said to be the most difficult school we can learn from because we are bound to forget by the time we come here and we have to navigate with our emotions. Learning this school of thought help me and my clients to take it easy, never to take ourselves too seriously. if we cannot learn it this lifetime then let's do better with the next one. And believe me, WE WILL. 😃 
 Lady Mae, you are an incredible leader.  <333 
 thank you, you are too kind ❤️. I am like everyone else, navigating my emotions and the world. ☺️