The Cost of Emotional Efficiency

In an Age of Constant Optimization, Learning to Stay True to Your Emotions Might Be the Most Rational Move of All

Written by: Michael Tighe, PsyD Student

When we push down unwanted emotions, it becomes harder to stay congruent with them. While this may help us manage situations where their expression feels inappropriate or overblown, it also threatens our awareness of what we feel. While some of this helps us meet our many modern-day responsibilities, over time, this weakened awareness can leave us disconnected from our emotions.

In the short term, numbing or compartmentalizing can seem adaptive, but if we don’t find meaningful ways to return to ourselves, that pattern can deepen. Like a beachball held underwater, suppressed emotion eventually surges back up, confirming the self-fulfilling fear that emotions are chaotic and need to be controlled.

The term Wise Mind in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy captures this balance. It describes the integration of what DBT calls the ‘rational mind’ and the ‘emotional mind’, which, like Emotion-Focussed Therapy, reminds us that “the head and the heart need each other.”  This integration helps guide our actions, so we not only reach our goals but also ensure they align with what truly matters.

This is especially relevant today, where it’s easy to over-index on our rational mind to manage budgets or time a home purchase. In this mindset, it may seem “inefficient” to take a break during the workday for an overpriced coffee or lunch with a colleague. Yet, is any formula of success complete if it doesn’t also incorporate a stress-release valve to avoid burnout?

Our emotional felt sense isn’t always logical or grounded in reality, but that doesn’t mean we can’t unpack or make sense of them or learn from the habitual ways they affect our lives. While sound in theory, this ideal becomes harder in situations when we’re emotionally flooded, like after a breakup or when emotions linger long after traumatic experiences. We may know there are “seven stages of grief,” but understanding them doesn’t make it easier to accept each one as it comes in its nonlinear, human fashion.

The EFT heuristic, “you have to arrive at an emotion before you can leave it,” is a hard pill to swallow when another reminds us that, “the thing that hurts the most points to what is most important”. While facing what’s most emotionally painful is difficult, research has shown that, like waves, emotions rise, crest, and eventually fall. Join me next month as I dive deeper into how you can use your rational mind to help you embrace your emotional one.