Your capacity to reason and your capacity to feel emotions are both crucial to living a fulfilling life.

 

• Reason is how you GUIDE your life. You need to use your reasoning powers to survive and thrive.

 

• Emotion is how you EXPERIENCE your life. You need to be in touch with your emotions to provide you warnings of inner conflict as well as to enable you to experience excitement, passion and joy.

 

Reason and Emotion are always friends - even when they seem to be at war with each other. That's because Emotional Conflict is actually a friendly signal to your Reasoning Mind that some of your beliefs are incompatible with each other. Think of Emotional Conflict as an early warning signal to summon your reasoning powers to re-evaluate your beliefs to make sure that none of your beliefs are out of sync with each other.

 

When you feel torn in different directions, you owe it to yourself to do some detective work before the day is over. For example: Suppose your mother wants you to do something important with her at the same time your husband wants you to do something important with him. You might feel torn between doing for your mother and doing for your husband. Suppose you also have something important you want to do for yourself. Now you feel torn in three directions!

 

Your resulting emotional conflict means you hold conflicting beliefs about how you should act toward your mother, your husband and yourself. You need to call on your reasoning powers to help you resolve your conflict so you can make a wise decision.

 

HERE'S HOW TO GET STARTED:

 

1. Write down your conflicting choices.  In this case your conflicting choices would be:

 

Do For My Mother          Do For My Husband          Do For Myself

 

Ask yourself, "What beliefs do I have that make it difficult for me to choose how to act toward these three great values?" Write down all the beliefs you can think of that make you feel torn between these three choices. In this case, your beliefs might be:

 

• I believe that if I value my mother, I must be available to her whenever she wants me.

 

• I believe that if I value my husband, I must do what he wants me to do in order to show him that I love him.

 

• I believe that if I value myself, I must be true to all my values and goals and strive to make my dreams come true.

 

Can you see how these beliefs can lead directly to your emotional conflict?

 

2. Give your conflicting beliefs a Reality Test. Ask yourself if the expectations you have of yourself are reasonable. Is it really possible to be at another person's beck and call when you have your own life to take charge of? Are you responsible for other adults' lives as well as your own? Or is each adult responsible for his or her own life?

 

3. Give your conflicting beliefs a Double-Standard Test. Do you expect your mother or your husband to be at your beck and call every time you want them to do something with you? Or do you recognize that they, too, have their own lives to live and that they are responsible for their lives just as you are responsible for yours?

 

4. Come to an understanding. It might go something like this:

 

• I cannot act toward all my values at the same time. Neither can anyone else. I will prioritize my values and I will prioritize my goals for each day. That way I will be able to decide when and if I can act toward a certain value at a certain time.

 

• If I can't do a specific thing at a specific time for my mother or my spouse, that doesn't mean that I don't love them both. It just means that I am taking responsibility for my own life. I need to take care of my life first because mine is the only life I can live. I need to make sure my ducks are all in a row before I can help others take care of their ducks.

 

• My husband and my mother are in the same boat. They can also feel torn and they, too, need to take care of their own lives first. If they can't do a certain thing with me, it doesn't mean they don't love me - it means they are being responsible for their lives. Loving other people doesn't mean that you are a "slave" to them or that they are "slaves" to you. It means you have a profound respect for them, you delight in who they are, and you are rooting for them as they go after the things they want for their lives. It means you value them for the richness they bring to your own life.

 

5. Decide What To Do. The stronger the emotional conflict, the more you need to call on your reasoning powers to help you make a wise decision. Sometimes the values might seem to be all equally high, resulting in excruciating emotional conflict. Here again, you can use your reasoning powers to come to your rescue.

 

How you decide to act in any situation depends on three things:

• What you value
• Which of your values are highest
• Which of your values are at stake in any given situation.

 

In any conflict situation, it is not just the value itself, but how you prioritize those values. And it's not just how you prioritize those values, it is which value is most at stake in your particular situation. When you are in conflict over values that seem equally important to you, different circumstances can have a direct bearing on which value you act on at any given time. Here are two examples:

 

EXAMPLE ONE. Suppose all at the same time:

• Your mother wants you to go to her book club with her.
• Your husband wants you to go camping with him.
• You have a deadline to meet for publishing your book.

In this case, after weighing each value in terms of each circumstance, you may decide:

 

To honor your mother by

• Thanking her and telling her how much you want to go,
• Explaining your situation, and
• Making another date to attend her book club meeting.

To honor your husband by

• Thanking him and telling him how much you look forward to camping with him,
• Explaining your situation, and
• Making another date for going on your camping trip.

To honor yourself by meeting your deadline.

 

This acknowledges your loved ones' value to you - and you give them permission to tell you when they, too, have other things to do. That way, when you actually do get together, you can all enjoy yourselves anxiety-free, with no resentment and no regrets.

 

EXAMPLE TWO. Suppose all at the same time:

• Your mother has a medical emergency.
• Your husband needs help preparing for a business trip.
• You have a rare opportunity to spend a day with a dear out-of-town friend.

In this case, there is no question that if you value your mother you will drop everything else to get her to the hospital.

 

This does not mean you act because her need is greater than yours or your husband's. There are many people in this world who could claim their need is greater than yours - this does not obligate you to them.

 

Furthermore, this does not mean that you are turning your back on yourself by sacrificing your values or desires to help your mother. It means that you value your mother - you desire to have your mother in your life. You choose to forgo helping your husband prepare for a business trip or meeting with your friend in order to go after your value to continue having your mother in your life.

 

You act because one of your own highest values is at stake. You will still have your husband and friend if you don't act on your value for them at that time. But you may not have your mother if you don't act on your value for her and get her to the hospital. If your husband and friend respect your values and understand that one of your values is in serious jeopardy, they should applaud your decision. If they don't approve, you must still be true to your values and priorities. Because what you need approval from most is your own conscience.

 

Do you see how your Reasoning Self and your Emotional Self can be your best friends? Your emotions are the way you enjoy your values and they let you know when you have values that conflict with one another. That's your signal to use your reasoning powers to identify your values, to prioritize your values, and to discover how to act on your values in each situation.

 

Throughout the month of July, practice joining your "hot" emotions with the "cool" light of your good judgment and see how much more harmonious and successful your goal getting and your relationships can be.