The Emotional Mind, The Rational Mind, and The Wise Mind: A Story

Wise Mind sat at her desk, mentally preparing for another day. She looked over the to-do list and sighed. Emotional and Rational Minds would be coming in for another disagreement. The two of them just didn’t know how to listen to each other. She could hear them in the waiting room now - she could hear both the tears and the cold responses. 

She stood up, stretched her arms, took a couple of deep breaths, and opened the door. “Come on in, you two,” she said, inviting the unhappy duo into her office.

“Please tell her she is being irrational,” Rational Mind said calmly, striding into the room. Emotional Mind came in right behind, still wiping her tears. 

“It’s just so hard,” she said, her voice shaking, “she is making me feel crazy.”

Wise Mind motioned for the two of them to take a seat. 

“I can see the two of you are finding it hard to find common ground again. Is that right?”

The two Minds nodded. Indeed, that was the problem. It was always the problem.

“Talk to me,” Wise Mind said, picking up a pencil. She gestured toward Emotional Mind to start.

“Okay, so, this is what happened,” Emotional Mind said, her voice starting to shake again. “We got an email today that we are being passed over for a promotion. A promotion that we worked so hard to earn - do you know how many hours we put in overtime? This just reminds me so much of the time that we were passed over every single time when we were little, our siblings always got everything and…I just cannot handle this! Everything is totally ruined! The whole plan…I just…” 

Rational Mind rolled her eyes. “You see what I’m dealing with?”

Wise Mind passed Emotional Mind a tissue and thanked her for sharing. “Rational Mind, what is your perspective?” she asked.

“Ok, so it’s simple. There is someone else at work who did better. It’s completely fine. So we worked hard for a promotion and someone else got it. Okay? It is what it is. Life happens. Big deal. Moving right along. We don’t need to cry and make a big hullabaloo. And why in the world is she talking about when we were little? That is not connected. We are an adult now, and the attention our parents did or didn’t give us has absolutely nothing to do with this. She needs to grow up.”

Wise Mind looked between the two. 

“Okay. We’ve done this before, but let's do this again. Emotional Mind, being passed over for this promotion sounds like it really tapped into a hurt that you remember from your childhood, feeling like you could never do enough to please your parents. These feelings are overwhelming for you. It makes a lot of sense that you’d be hurting. You worked hard for this promotion. Can we sit with that for a little?”

Rational Mind started to speak, but Wise Mind held up a hand. “Rational Mind, I know that it’s hard for you to allow Emotional Mind to feel her feelings. I know it scares you. You’re just trying to protect. But her feelings are important - they are your feelings too, and they deserve some space. It doesn’t mean you’re weak if losing the promotion hurts.”

The room sat in silence as Emotional Mind allowed her tears to flow, and after a few minutes, Rational Mind held out a hand. Emotional Mind took it.

Wise Mind smiled. After a few minutes, she turned to the two again. “Rational Mind,” she said softly. “I know you’re determined to stay cool, calm and collected in response to this promotion loss. And you’re right - rationality is important here. As painful as this is, it is not the end of your career, nor does it mean that everything is lost. Emotional Mind needs your steadiness to balance her. The two of you need to work together. And this is how you can:

By making some room for the sadness and hurt of being passed over for a promotion, you can acknowledge how hard you worked for this. You can use what you learned to make some decisions. Do you feel valued at this company? Do you want to have a conversation with your boss to see what it is they are looking for when choosing who to promote? Do you need a few days to relax and comfort yourself before thinking about these next steps?”

Emotional Mind and Rational Mind looked at each other. 

“If the two of you don’t work together, you are only left with two options. Wallow in bed for the next few weeks, or brush it off and get back to work at a job that might not be the right fit for you. But that is, of course, why you come to me to help make those decisions.”

The three exchanged smiles. 

“Thank you, Wise Mind,” Emotional Mind said, throwing out her tissue. “You always just know how to find the best parts of both of us.” 

The two of them stood up, the room no longer filled with the tension that it had been only a few minutes before. 

The door closed behind them, and Wise Mind leaned back in her chair, watching them walk to their car in the parking lot.

They’d be back. She’d put her money on it.

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“Wise Mind” is a therapeutic technique that is most commonly used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. It goes with the belief that we all have rational parts to ourselves and emotional parts to ourselves, and neither one should be the one that makes the final call. Ideally, we want to be in the state of Wise Mind, where there is room for both rational and emotional ways of thinking, allowing us to make decisions that align with our values and goals.