Have you noticed how people react differently to stressful situations? Some are calm and rational, while others are anxious and emotional. Thought can explain the difference.

What is thought?

Psychosis is a defense mechanism where a person views a situation as intellectually stressful. They deal with stress using cold, hard facts and removing the emotional content from the situation.

Now, you might say wait, you are talking about a logical and rational solution to problems here. Well, not exactly.

Let’s see it this way.

If I have a problem, I look for answers to solve that problem. What won’t help my problem is being emotional and hysterical or exaggerating my problem. I use logical and rational thinking to analyze the problem, then I can come up with a solution.

This is all well and good when I need to process information and navigate through my daily experiences.

For example, I am traveling to a new destination for a meeting. I will plan the route in advance and check parking lots in the immediate area so that I can arrive on time.

But that’s not the thought. Meditation is when you use this type of analytical thinking to deal with an emotional or painful situation.

Meditation is the conscious act of blocking out your emotions so that you don’t have to deal with the stress and anxiety of a situation. Instead, you should focus on the facts and distance yourself emotionally from the problem.

When is thinking healthy?

Now, in some situations, intellectual thinking is useful. For example, look at the work of paramedics, surgeons, scientists, or police.

A paramedic cannot let his emotions get in the way of treating a patient in a life or death situation. The ability to work in a calm, methodical and unemotional manner is the key to achieving the best results.

So when does it become unhealthy?

When is overthinking unhealthy?
You continue to suppress your feelings.
Blocking your feelings doesn’t make them go away. It only suppresses them. Suppressing something long enough causes it to escalate and grow.

You will have to escape from these feelings at some point, and you may not be able to control them in a healthy way or environment. You may lash out at your partner or children because you never had the opportunity to resolve your childhood trauma. You may turn to drug use because you can’t deal with your feelings.

Emotions are not things to be “fixed.” They are things that we must live, experience, deal with and understand.

Only by going through our feelings do we realize that we have come out the other side. So what happens if we keep thinking about our problems?

You always live in fear.

“Fear grows in the dark. If you think there is a bogeyman around, turn on the light.” Dorothy Thompson

If you don’t experience the thing that makes you anxious, sad, or stressed, how will you know how the situation will develop? It’s a bit like being in a constant state of shock but moving forward with your life anyway.

When we are dealing with a traumatic event, our minds often shut down due to the shock because we cannot cope with such a horrific experience. But ultimately, we have to deal with the situation because life goes on.

What this means is dealing with all the messy, ugly, and scary feelings that overwhelm us. Because if we don’t, we will never learn that eventually, these overwhelming feelings will gradually begin to subside. Over time we can manage it.

You end up making the same mistakes.

“Knowing your own darkness is the best way to deal with the darkness of others.” Carl Jung

By not acknowledging how we feel, we are not dealing with the things that create those feelings. If we don’t know why something makes us feel a certain way, we can never learn from our mistakes. We end up repeating the same behavior over and over again.

And in my own life, I can see how this happened. My mother was a cold and unemotional person and did not pay any attention to me. As a result, when I was a teenager, I would say terrible things to shock her to get her attention.

Even now, as an adult, I have to stop myself from saying something rude or hurtful that I know will shock me. However, if I had not realized that my behavior stemmed from feelings of hurt and abandonment from my mother, I would still be saying bad things to people today. I had to admit that my mother’s emotional neglect hurt me so I could move on from it.

Feeling emotions helps you get to know yourself.

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to realize that this, too, was a gift.” Mary Oliver

You are allowed to feel what you feel. It is normal to feel devastating grief after the death of a loved one. You won’t go crazy. You’re supposed to feel deprived, lost, and hopeless. All those feelings mean that you loved with all your heart.

If you accept happiness as a part of your life, you must also accept sadness. When my friend died a few years ago, I felt overwhelmed with emotion. I wanted to give up, fade away, and go to sleep. I didn’t want to deal with the world. I felt betrayed, lost and broken. What is the point of continuing? For days, weeks and months I was there.

Now, seven years later, I’ve learned that you don’t get over loss, you live a different life without it.

So how do you know if you are using too much intelligence?

4 Signs that you rely too much on thinking

1. You only use facts when you argue.
   Facts are great tools in argument, but relying on them too much is a sign of a lack of empathy. It shows that you are ignoring the other person’s feelings if you only use facts in an argument.
2. Don’t let the other person talk.
   Not allowing someone the opportunity to express their opinions indicates that you want to maintain a position of power and control. It’s your way or the highway. You’ve spoken, and that’s all that matters.
3. You keep coming back to your point.
   Like a broken record, you repeat your point until the other person gets frustrated and gives up. Going back to your point indicates an unwillingness on your part to listen. Why the discussion in the first place?
4. You are calm during the most emotional outbursts.
   Remaining calm during an emotional scene is admirable, but he may also appear dismissive and aloof. You don’t care if your partner is upset.