Although people believe they make their decisions on a rational basis, the truth is that emotions dominate their life.  In a tug of war between reason and emotion, your emotions almost always win.  It's an unfair contest with the outcome rigged in favor of emotions; the rational mind doesn't stand a chance.  It's almost as if your emotional mind is taking anabolic steroids and is unstoppable.  For your entire life you have been pumping emotional iron, and your emotional muscles are so powerful they bully your rational mind and push it wherever they want it to go.  Your emotions end up controlling your life.

Negative  and depressing thoughts packed full of emotion climb into the driver's seat and take you wherever they want.  The message is clear.  When your emotions are out of control, your rational mind will go for a rough ride until the storm of emotion subsides.  Logic is powerless in the face of unrestrained emotion.  Your rational mind watches disaster getting ready to happen and is powerless to stop it, because the emotional mind is deaf to the voice of reason.

Even courts recognize that we are creatures of emotion.  When people lose control of their emotions and in a fit of passion commit murder, the courts charge these people with second degree murder because it wasn't premeditated.  First degree murder is reserved for those who plan and carry out their crime in a calculated, cold-blooded fashion.

In the battle between facts (reason) and emotions, emotion is the unequivocal winner.   Emotion keeps conflicts going for hundreds of years.  If you ask people why they are fighting against another ethnic group, they will tell you the reason is obvious.  They point to a previous injustice or war that happened five-hundred years ago.  They believe they are totally rational when they say it makes sense to fight about something that happened hundreds of years ago.  When you hear these people talk, you aren't listening to the voice of reason.  You are listening to the voice of emotion explain why hate and conflict are the proper responses to the injustices of the past.  For most people, renewing the emotional mind is nearly impossible.  That's why conflicts in the Middle East continue without end in sight.

One of your highest priorities must be to tame your emotional mind and push it in a positive direction.  Until you do that, you will not be in control of your life.  The power of emotion will dominate your life until it meets the most powerful force in the universe, God's love.

Excerpt from :

Zero Tolerance To Negative Thinking : Good-by Depression - Hello Positive Mind

David J Abbott M.D.