Introduction to thinking, feeling and action (TFA)

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Thinking, Feeling & Actions

Part 1 - Introduction to thinking, feeling and action

Is it fair to say that the very essence of how we are comes down to the way in which we think, feel and do things? That these three parts of us help make up our immediate internal world?

Could we also suppose that the ways in which our thoughts, emotions and actions react with each other account for where we are on the continuum between:

In this section, we will be exploring each TFA in turn, as well as looking at how they combine with each other. We will also look at moods, mental states and bodily sensations, taking the opportunity to see if we can improve our own internal workings by understanding it better.

Thinking, thoughts and mental states

Do these definitions match your understanding of the words...?

Thought: an idea or opinion produced by thinking, or occurring suddenly in the mind.

Thinking: the process of considering or reasoning about something.

Mental states: a state or frame of mind, a mind-set, or a
mental process, such as hoping or believing or fearing.

It has been suggested that we have up to 70,000 thoughts a day. If you stop to work out the maths on this, that’s around 50 thoughts a minute over a 24-hour period – whether we are awake or sleeping.

If this is true, how on earth do we decide which thoughts are useful and which ones are mere brain-chatter?

Also:
Can we learn how to filter out thoughts that are unhelpful to us?
Can we learn how to have fewer thoughts in general?
Can we change the type of thoughts we have? Or change the intensity of them?
Can we learn to produce thoughts that are more balanced and
in tune with our feelings, our actions and ourselves in general?

Most people tend to rely on their thoughts to guide them through life, while spending less time with their feelings and actions.
But this is not always the case. Would you say this was true of you?

Emotions, feelings, facial expressions, bodily sensations and moods

Emotion: a stirred-up, bio-chemical state that occurs in response to an event. Emotions can be measured by blood flow, brain activity and facial expressions.

Emotions can be so mild we hardly notice them, or they may be so intense that we become entirely fixated on them.

Emotions can either be allowed to run their course or they can be suppressed). Suppressing emotions can cause multiple health problems further down the line.

Feeling: a reaction to an emotional experience.

How we respond to what is happening in our bodies depends on how emotionally aware/intelligent we are and how we interpret our emotional messages.

Our feelings will also vary according to which we consider to be acceptable and which we avoid or modify. This can create all sorts of complications and confusions, such as anxiety, depression and stress.

If we go overboard with our feelings they can, in reverse, trigger an emotional response, which can then heighten our feelings further. This is why understanding and accepting our emotions and feelings is so important.

Facial expressions: positions and movements of muscles beneath the skin that help to reveal what a person is feeling.

Bodily sensations: feelings or sensory experiences that affect parts of the body, such as heat, prickles, pain or butterflies in the stomach.

Mood: whatever combined emotional and mental state we have at any given time, be it for minutes, hours, or days. Moods are not caused by any one event or episode, but rather a result of any number of factors, such as our environment, people, our physiology, health, diet, as well as our genetics and temperament.

Do these definitions make sense to you, or would it be worth making a note of your own interpretation of these terms?

Feelings and emotions help us by revealing exactly how we are at any moment in time, giving us huge clues as to whether or not we are okay, or if we need to galvanise ourselves into action...

Doing, actions and behaviour

Doing: engaging in an activity.

Action: doing something to achieve an aim.

Behaviour: the way in which we act or conduct ourselves, especially towards others; the way in which we behave in response to a particular situation or stimulus.

Doing, actions and behaviour are actively entwined with our thoughts, thinking and mental state as well as our emotions, feelings and mood.
In turn, these can affect our motivation and energy levels.

Motivation: to have a reason, need or purpose to do something; to be driven to start or complete something.

Energy levels: the will and energy to do things can fluctuate for people at different times. This can sometimes be a result of diet or different times of the calendar, or it could be due to the delicate balance of our emotional, psychological and active systems.

The trouble with thoughts, feelings and actions

It can be hard to fathom just what is going on within our bodies (as well as trying to work out what is going on inside other people). As far as the emotions are concerned, it’s estimated that one in ten people have a great deal of trouble recognising what they are. This has its own recognised status: alexithymia.

One thing that makes matters of the head and heart especially hard to understand is that we don’t have a language to describe all that we are experiencing. Perhaps in a hundred years’ time we will have a whole new vocabulary to help us understand what is going on for each of us. Until that time, we will have to make do with words and metaphors as well as non-verbal, visual and artistic ways to express ourselves.

Our thoughts can be dishonest and deceive us; they can be confusing, obscure and hard to understand. They can lead to uncertainty and doubt, and we can forget them in an instant. They can be unreliable, losing their impact or changing over time. They can overwhelm us, burden us, worry and disturb us. They can make us fall prey to fears and make us anxious and depressed and stressed. They can contradict themselves or lead us away from our true self. They can be easily manipulated by power-mongers and abusers.

Our feelings and emotions can also be problematic.

One of the biggest issues with them is that we can misread the signs. We can, say, interpret excitement as a cue for anxiety. They can be intense and overwhelm us or cause us great hurt and pain and suffering. They can also misguide us.

Emotions signal how we are feeling at any moment in time and assist us to make decision. However, sometimes our emotions from the past (emotions that we didn’t or weren’t able to process at the time) can combine with a mild current feeling to produce an overwhelming response. Sometimes this can result in us getting angry with a person we are with, even though they are not the cause of our anger. Sometimes a huge amount of fear can surge through us, even though we aren’t particularly fearful at that moment in time.

Many people mistrust their feelings, don’t like their feelings or seek to deny their feelings.

Our actions and behaviour can also get us into a lot of trouble, as you cannot undo what you have done. And you cannot go back in time and do what you didn’t do.

We can also end up consumed by guilt, shame, blame and regrets over our actions or non-actions, as well as be punished by others, which then makes it hard to move on in life.

We can also experience flashbacks and post-traumatic stress disorder as our body tries to cope with what has been witnessed and what has been done.

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