Thinking & Feeling
The quarrel between the rational and the heart is part of our daily life. Exploring how they can best affect each other and be woven together is my passion for more than 30 years. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is the most brilliant model and my most loyal friend in this journey. Its hands-on tools have helped me to appreciate the rational more deeply and walk the path of the heart more smoothly. Rational intelligence and knowledge gives us the art of discrimination, planning and mental organization and clarity. The downfall is “nothing is ever enough’, perfectionism, manipulation and compulsive control. The result of the pitfall can be dogmatic mental states and contracted emotional and energetic states. Our heart offers unconditional acceptance and appreciation of oneself, others and situations. It values respect, relationship and loving care. Its energetic highest state is infinite expansion. The downfalls are over-sensitivity and loss of boundaries. Most of us have a tendency overusing the mental dimensions as they offer more control and apparent safety. In order to feel fulfilled, however, we need love, trust and interpersonal nourishing exchanges. Our thinking and brain processes are directly connected through Neuro-pathways to the rest of our body. A negative thought represents itself in dark pictures, negative internal dialogues (critical, putting self or others down) and also in physiological and physical tensions. These results in a contraction of the heart space and what is called “feeling bad” and any forms of inappropriate emotions, responses or behaviours. When our heart is open and loving we experience what is called “feeling good”, our thoughts are positive and exude acceptance and our behaviour is inviting, friendly and soft. Dividing our mental/rational and heart dimensions into two is actually a fallacy. Just as our physical head and brain cannot exist without our physical heart, thinking and feeling are directly linked to each other. Our rational and our heart are thus going hand in hand and really are one. NLP gives us the best explanations, systems and strategies to understand and integrate both.