When Thinking Takes Over Feeling: How to Apply Emotional Bandaids

Intellectualizing is a cognitive distortion which helps you avoid emotional pain by spending all of your brain juice attempting to use logic and reason. Avoiding uncomfortable sensations too often can keep you from being in the moment and disrupt your ability to get through difficult experiences. Learning how to identify and respond attentively to difficult sensations is a practical life skill we all need.

Thinking Over Feeling

I have worked with many different kinds of clients over the years including many people who would likely identify themselves as “head thinkers.” These folks usually see themselves as logical creatures who attempt to analyze situations carefully. Leading with your Head over your Heart is neither better nor worse than the alternative. All of us experience cognitive distortions. Those who lean towards understanding the world to be a place of logic have a habit of engaging with a cognitive distortion called Intellectualizing.

Intellectualizing helps you get distance from uncomfortable emotional sensations. Unfortunately, that distance also means it can be difficult for you to notice and attend to the people you care about in a way that is empathetic. Intellectualizers tend to have a great deal of trouble managing their personal relationships. Their attempts to “help” are often seen as intrusive or unfeeling. I came up with the following metaphor on the fly one day and thought it may be a good example for showing what this looks like in action.

Faulty Monkeys

While letting his kid play at the local park a father hears his kid scream out. The man runs to find his little boy below the monkey bars on the ground, clutching the area around a skint knee, with tears streaming down his face. The father looks at the monkey bars, runs back to his truck for his tool bag, and climbs up to see if he can fix the playground equipment. The little boy is left by himself crying on the ground.

Though this is a metaphor I’ve seen something similar happen way too many times both in my office and in the stories clients tell me. While figuratively fixing the equipment could potentially keep your kid from getting hurt again later - right now your kid is on the ground and needs you.

Attempting to offer advice or “fix” something that has caused someone distress is not the first step. In fact, you’ll probably notice it makes a lot of people mad or sad when you try this first.

It may come more naturally to you to attempt to respond to an emotion with advice or an action. Focusing on something tangible, like fixing playground equipment, is much easier than making room for the pain of seeing someone you care about hurting.

So what else could you do instead?

Playful Monkeys

While letting his kid play at the local park a father hears his kid scream out. The man runs to find his little boy below the monkey bars on the ground, clutching the area around a skint knee, with tears streaming down his face. The father bends down to assess the damage.

“Hey little man. That looks like it hurts. Does it hurt?” Enthusiastic, snot-filled nodding. “Wow. You were up so high. That must have been pretty scary to fall like that.” More nodding. “I wonder what helps you when you feel scared like this. Hm… I know you like big hugs.”

“Yeah. I like hugs.” The kid is still sniffling, but not nearly as panicked. The father wraps his arms tightly around his son and then ruffles his hair.

“I bet we’ve got at least one Hulk bandaid left. I bet that would help you feel better.”

The kid gets to his feet with his dad’s help. “Ice cream would help even more.”

The father gasps dramatically. “You want to put ice cream on your leg?!” The little boy giggles.

While this is definitely an idealized scenario, kids who know their parents are engaged and empathetic are more likely to regulate faster. Seeing a parent come over concerned but not panicked is a good sign to the kid that he isn’t about to lose his leg or get in trouble for falling. Hearing dad guess how he felt lets him know his dad cares about him. When the dad asked the kid what the kid needed there was an opportunity for the kid to give his dad instructions. Kids can be great at letting you know what they need if you give them the opportunity to let you know.

Learning how to show emotional empathy is like providing a kid with a skin knee disinfectant. It doesn’t make the wound go away, but it is a great first step toward healing.

When someone is hurt they need to know you are engaged and that you understand. Everything else needs to wait.

What if I Don’t Know What to Do With My feelings?

If you are trying to practice noticing and responding to your emotions it can be useful to have a structured place to start.

Practice filling in the blanks:

I feel _____. I would like to take care of that by trying _______.

First blank: Is an emotion word or sensation. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you.

Second blank: What specific behavior would you like to try? Make this a values-guided committed action. If you were behaving like the person you want to be, what would you do next?

Ex 1. I feel irritated. I would like to try to take care of that by taking my dog on a walk.

Ex 2. I feel like my chest is full of bees. I would like to try to take care of that by working on my new Lego set.

I phrased it intentionally as “try to take care of” because the attempt matters more than the result. We can’t make ourselves feel any particular way, but we can make an effort to take care of something. We can connect to the fact that we are having an uncomfortable experience and choose to attend to it in a way that is healthy for us. Sometimes putting on a bandaid isn’t going to help a wound heal faster, but the ritual of acknowledging that you got hurt and that you can do something about it is an empowered first step toward getting better.

References

Intellectualization Article