The double-edged sword of thinking

Many of us have a conflicted relationship with thinking, logic and reason.

I hear some people say things like, “I know logically what would be good for me, but I’m just not doing it”; or “It doesn’t make sense for me to have this emotion, I just can’t seem to do anything about it”. These people value logic and reason, and they express frustration that other parts of them are not aligned with what they rationally know.

Others say things like, “I just need to stop overthinking this”; “The mind is a bullshit machine”; and “I wish I could get out of my head.” These people value feeling and intuition, and wish that their pesky rational mind would sometimes leave them alone in peace.

As someone with a very active mind, I understand the desire to get out of one’s head. I often notice how getting too involved in thinking can take me far away from the present moment, my body, and my breathing. However, I also love philosophy, intellectual exploration, and meaning-making through stories. And, even when the thoughts feel like too much, good luck willing them out of your head!

How can we reconcile the power of thinking, a basic part of our nature, with its pitfalls?

For better or for worse, thinking has long been identified with the essence of being human. Descartes spoke the famous words “I think, therefore I am,” suggesting that our intellectual capacity is the basis of any access we have to truth. Aristotle believed that humans were the only animal capable of rationality, and that a good life emerged from the rational soul governing over the non-rational, ‘lower’ parts of ourselves. (Of course, other animals have rational capacities as well. Why they apparently don’t struggle with some of the issues we humans do is a topic for another blog post!)

Speaking of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ parts, brain functions can be thought of hierarchically. The neocortex, which is responsible for ‘higher-order’ brain functions such as reasoning and language, is responsible for much of what we consider to be human nature. In comparison, the older, ‘mammalian’ part of the brain (the limbic system) is in charge of emotional experiences, while the even older ‘reptilian’ part of the brain governs basic instincts and bodily functions.

There may be a hierarchy of brain functions, but when this hierarchy is interpreted as a value hierarchy, things tend to get wonky. In my view, our culture tends to value reason over emotion and feeling, assigning it more weight and reality as a way of knowing. We give more of ourselves to efficiency and productivity and make less space for sensitivity, art, beauty, play, and rest.

In reaction to our hyper-cognitive society, thinking can get a bad rap. I often hear a narrative that the part of the brain that is distinctly human is responsible for our troubles due to its functions of analyzing, judging, and dwelling in the past and future. This can be the problem with forms of counselling that only involve talk: we can re-hash the same thoughts that we are already tired of, perhaps gaining new insights but ultimately not feeling transformed.

As a result, in the realm of somatic therapy and in some meditation techniques, the instruction is to pay less attention to our thoughts, to give priority instead to our physical sensations and emotions. I believe in these methods and I am rooting for the evolution of counselling in the direction of including more embodied, non-cognitive approaches. I also believe that in the kindest interpretation of these practices, we can make room for the nonverbal, affective (felt-sense) aspects of experience without dismissing or disparaging our thoughts.

The human capacity for rational and abstract thought does, indeed, cause us suffering. It is implicated in anxiety and depression, judgement of self or others, and disconnection from the Earth. Yet thinking is also responsible for our capacity for self-awareness, our constant striving for self-improvement and personal evolution, and our desire to connect with a sense of meaning greater than ourselves.

Our cognitive capacities are to be honoured and honed, not disparaged or ignored. We are learning to work with the dual nature of the rational mind as both an Achilles’ heel and a precious gift. As we participate in the evolution of the appropriate use of this gift, we need to ensure that we explore and understand our thoughts. Rather than falling into repetitive thought loops, we can learn the skill of ‘meta-awareness‘: maintaining reflective distance from our thoughts rather than identifying with them.

By gently probing our thoughts with curiosity and healthy detachment, we have the opportunity to discover the core beliefs that implicitly rule our lives. I think that core beliefs are an important intersection of cognitive and non-cognitive methods in counselling: we can think our beliefs, but we also act out our beliefs (especially the ones we acquired early on in life) through habitual behaviours, bodily postures, and emotional patterns. Our core beliefs are usually invisible to us, yet they colour our perceptions of the world, the palette of emotions we experience, and our stories about ourselves. By becoming conscious of these implicit beliefs, we have the choice to update the ones that are limited, outdated, and unhelpful.

Thinking gives us the ability to self-reflect: to conceptualize our lives, to confront our shadows, and to tell stories about the kinds of people we wish to become. So while our cognitive minds may cause us dissatisfaction and cause some big messes, it’s the refinement of our thinking, not the avoidance of it, that will help us evolve.