46. understanding our emotions....

​46.

Which comes first: thought or feeling?

The relationship between thoughts and feelings is complex, and often the link is so fast that we can barely say which one is first. Here are the main ideas of how our thoughts and emotions are interacting:

The Cognitive Theory of Emotion (e.g., Lazarus).
Thoughts or cognitive appraisals come before emotions. In other words, our interpretation or evaluation of an event is what generates our emotional response. For example, if you see a dark cloud in the sky and think, "That looks like a storm, I’m going to get wet," or you may think “Oh, finally rain will water the flowers I just planted” thus the story we make is before and generates the emotion we experience..

The Physiological Theories ( e.g. James-Lange)
This theory suggests that physiological responses come first, and the feeling of an emotion follows. According to this view, your heart starts racing when you face a stressful situation, and then you label that physical response as "anxiety” - thus there is a bodily response prior to it all.

The Integrated View
In many cases, thoughts and feelings influence each other in a continuous loop. For example, a person might first feel anxiety due to a physiological reaction - rapid heartbeat - which they then interpret cognitively - I must be in danger - leading to an intensified feeling of fear.

These theories also, however, tell us that this is a cycle and in coaching we work with breaking the circuit of this cycle. This is the beauty of it - thoughts - physiology - emotions - all interact together, which also means that by changing one of them, we can influence the whole cycle.

Are there any emotions that are harder to work with, however?
            The states we tend to label as negative are definitely tricky.