I was leaving an office building this week and overheard a women say to her friend, “it’s nothing, it’s just an emotion.” I couldn’t help but wonder why she thought that her emotions didn’t matter.
Did you know that the actual number of neural connections going from your emotional areas to your cognitive (thinking) areas is greater than the number going the other way?
Your body is absorbing information all the time. It hears sounds, sees images and smells the environment, as well as the people in it.
Weather you act on it or not, you have an emotional response – then, your brain makes logical “word” sense out of it.
For example, if you felt a chill in the air – smelled wood, burning outside with cinnamon and apples – and heard the crackling of a fire, your sensory information would be greater than if you just thought about these things!
So, when I think about that woman I wonder…
- did she “feel fear,” possibly a signal to wait… but she didn’t.
- did she “feel confused,” possibly a signal to get more information… but she didn’t.
Who knows – but the fact is, her emotions gave her something and she saw it as “nothing.”