1 Writing and thinking
You think. I think. We all think. It’s what we do. You’re thinking as you’re reading these words.
THINKING
We think in different ways. Here are some of them.
We try to figure things out. We could call that “puzzling”. It’s when we try to solve things. That could be when they are actual puzzles like crosswords, sums, playing chess or draughts.
We think about what we look like. We could call that “thinking about our self-image”. You might wonder what the back of your head looks like. This is an example of how our mind and body are really all part of the same thing. Our mind is part of our body and an image of our body is in our mind.
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We have fantasies. This is where we daydream about who we might be or things that could happen to us. These can be exciting, awful, wonderful. All sorts. This is what we mean when we use the word “imagination”.
We think about things that have happened to us. These are memories. Sometimes these are when we think about what people did to us, or things that we’ve seen or heard. Sometimes these are about things that we said or did. When we think about these things, we might become happy or sad or angry or just generally very fed up … or lots of different feelings.
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We do something we call “reasoning”. This is where we say to ourselves, If this happened and that happened, then this explains what happened next. This may sound complicated but one time we do a lot of this is when we watch a TV series.
After one episode, we often talk with other people about what we think will happen next. We do that by saying, “If that person said this … and that other person did that … then I bet what’s going to happen next is – ”. Some tests we do in school ask us to reason. This is sometimes called logic or logical reasoning. Guessing what will come next is called prediction. Sometimes, we do this in real life.
We listen to music or look at pictures. Sometimes this gives us feelings like happiness or sadness. Sometimes we can’t say what we are feeling or why. It’s hard to put into words. What this means is that it’s possible to feel – which is a kind of thinking – but there may not be words for it. That means it’s possible to think without words!
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We plan. Sometimes this can be very, very simple like saying to yourself, I’ll go out later. Or it can be very complicated, like drawing a plan of something you’re going to make.
We process all the things that we see, hear, smell, taste and touch. These are called our five senses. Our body has receptors which make it possible for us to use our senses, but it’s through thinking that we know what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch. We also use thinking to help us use what our receptors tell us, and to help us decide what to do next . If we see something coming towards us very fast, our mind might decide to tell us to blink our eyes, or get out of the way, or duck. If we touch something very hot, our mind tells us to pull our hand away very fast. We think about this, we remember it. 5
Any of these ways of thinking might be mixed up with our feelings. Sometimes we are happy, excited or pleased.
At other times, we might be unhappy, worried, confused, lonely, sad, depressed, ashamed, sorry. That’s OK. We all have feelings like this.
Maybe you can think of some other ways we think!
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Sometimes these feelings can seem too much or overwhelming. That means it’s as if we are being surrounded with them or covered with them or even drowning in them.
Again, we all have feelings like that at some time or another: even the most cheery and happy people have those feelings.
Some people rarely have overwhelming feelings, some have them quite a lot, and some have them very nearly all the time.
What can you do about this?
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One thing you can do is
write