Learning To Balance FEEL with THINK
Have you ever been “suckered” into something? Emotional blackmail, manipulation, guilt, and all those touchy-feely things get you doing things you don’t really want or need to do. In fact, this sort of materialistic manipulation of my emotions is the primary reason I DO NOT WATCH T.V. Or at least, the T.V. I watch is striped of all advertising. Advertising makes me retch (or sometimes laugh) at the ridiculous antics of marketers.
Everything we do in life, everything we buy, comes from two places, want and need. The wants come from your gut; your emotional desires. “Oh! I want that dress! It’s so pretty” If you act only on your wants you’ll be facing some pretty dire consequences. This is how I could relate to Holly’s lessons regarding FEEL.
I know what it is to impulse buy. When Bipolar sends me manic I have to take very firm control of these impulses. I have to remind myself to pause, to THINK, and to evaluate every potential purpose I might make. “Yes,” I tell myself, “that dress is pretty, but it’s also $79.99 and I don’t need it at that price.”
When it comes to shopping I’ve got this one handled. But how does FEEL affect my writing?
Oh, oh! THERE it is. Every time I give into anxiety and choose NOT to write, I’m dominated by FEEL. The logic, THINK, knows that there is nothing to fear. THINK knows that writing is about putting word after word on the page. It knows that the process, while emotional, is technical. Words are the domain of the left brain, the logical brain, the thinking brain.
Creativity I’ve got mastered. That’s right brain. Creativity is feeling. And I’m tapped into my creativity. I’m confident of my creativity. I never sit down to write and find myself grasping for my imagination or my ideas.
But I do find myself grasping for my logic. I flounder in a sea of FEEL, of emotion, and fail to hear the reasonable side of my voice telling me to THINK. I struggle to find how to put my creativity into logical constructions. I need to use that left brain to organise my ideas and to put them into a pattern and shape that makes sense.
So, next time I sit down to write and get swallowed up in FEEL I’ll call on THINK and ask him to express to my emotional mind a logical argument. Step aside emotions, we’re working now, and that’s what writing is, work. Strictly professional, emotions aside.