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Old 02-02-2007, 03:33 AM
Megan Megan is offline
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Default Both thinking and feeling

Scientist, it's the tendency of many people in the West to over-think and over-analyze things, so you are far from alone, it seems to me. It's sort of our signature cognitive style.

Also, the parenting style of many parents is to supress kids emotionally and it takes a lot of healing to overcome that. I'm still working on that one.

It's hard to value your feelings when your parents didn't value them, and it's hard to have compassion for others when your parents had little compassion for you. I don't know if that is your situation, but it is the situation for many of us.

However, it's not a matter of either thinking or feeling.

Really fascinating research has been done by neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio and others about the key role feeling plays in rational thinking. In fact, people who have brain damage to areas affecting feelings do not make good rational decisions.

Quote:
From Publishers Weekly

In an important, gracefully written exploration of the neurochemical basis of mind, neurologist Damasio rejects the Cartesian notion of the human mind as a thinking organ more or less separate from bodily processes.

Emotions and feelings, he argues, are essential to reasoning and decision-making.

Amazon.com: Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain: Books: Antonio Damasio
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