Mind, Body and Emotions
During this last year of coaching with my training from CoachCompanion, I've discovered a new way of looking at how I make the *right* decisions with a new tool: The Mind-Body-Emotions Trifecta
Image of a light green equilateral triangle that depicts even distribution with labels mind, body and emotions
Mind-body-emotions
The mind-body connection is often talked about, but feelings get left out of the question. I’m not a scientist or researcher here, but I imagine that the mainstream discourse of labeling someone “emotional” in a negative way, or treating it as a behaviour that only women have doesn’t help. For the record, anger is an emotion.
“Is there a problem with the mind being the boss?
Not always, but yes, often.”
As an analytical person, it's not surprising that I make a lot of decisions with my mind, and my mind is often the boss.
I can give into my emotions, yes I can be impulsive, but I rarely give my body the chance to be the boss.
Even if my body is telling me, "no" or "yes" I tend to default to my brain. I think that happens to a lot of us and especially if you have an occupation that requires a lot of brainpower and cerebral work.
Is there a problem with the mind being the boss? Not always, but yes, often. My brain is too analytical and doesn't consider what is always best for me as a person.
This image shows different triangles of shape and form to illustrate some possibilities for how decisions can be made depending on where the weight is between mind-body-emotions.
I'll give you an example: If my mind doesn't feel entertained enough it would rather that I stay up and try to learn something late at night, while my body is just screaming at me to go to sleep, I'm sure you can relate since the pandemic years left a lot of us living a secluded life with a lack of novelty and impressions ... if this sounds familiar it's because it's science! Check out the term languishing aka revenge bedtime procrastination aka the feeling of “meh”.
I know I'm not alone in this, and neither are you, because this commonly comes up when I'm coaching clients.
Is it a problem? Well that's for you to determine what's more reliable for your decision making. I provided an image above to show some possibilities for how decisions can be made depending on where the weight is between mind-body-emotions. For me personally, I'm often like triangles #5 & #6, and I'm practicing letting my body be the boss more often which would be like a less exaggerated triangle #4.
My strategy for decision making
I do that by actively asking myself, "ok thank you brain, but what does my body say?" or "I feel knots in my stomach, what does that tell me?"
Instead of only letting the brain override things, I delay choices and decisions until I give the body and emotions a chance to speak.
So who is the boss of you? 😄 🧠 🏃🏻♀️🎭
