I’m not sure that I agree with that. I am a very logic driven person, who, based on my upbringing, naturally tries to suppress my emotions in favor of logic. My wife on the other hand is very emotional. While I don’t process the world in the same way that she does, I can understand and accept that the difference exists. It took a little time for me to figure this out, but now I know enough to realize that the argument “you shouldn’t feel that way because of X, Y and Z.” is as foolish as telling someone to just to decide to be gay.
@Buck Gadot
I have a work colleague that used to say that about his emotionally charged (passionate about life) wife. Her mottos were things like “Live every day like it’s your last”, “Love Laugh Live”, “Dance like no one’s watching”. She became more-so as she got older (menopause?). Meanwhile he was a planning and logical kind of guy (eg: set a household budget, plan for retirement etc).
She came home last year with a new $45,000 car. She was getting her’s fixed for some major issue and just paid $3500 for repairs and when she was walking out of the dealership she absolutely “fell in love” with a new model. She paid full list and they gave her $2500 trade-in for hers.
She literally could not understand why he was so pissed off about it. He could not understand why, when they’d agreed no major purchases within a couple years of their retirement she went ahead and bought the car, without even talking to him. “But I fell in love with it!!”
As he grew older his “understanding” and patience for her emotionally driven decisions waned. As she grew older she became increasingly emotional. Recipe for disaster. They’re now split.
Not saying you and your wife are like this. My wife and I aren’t either but she is more passionate and emotional than I am. But I do see it as a cautionary tale.
A friend of mine, who was utterly terrified of flying, took a familiarization class. The instructor explained how a plane worked, and - more importantly - took the class through the entire process of a takeoff and landing. He explained what was happening, and what each sound they heard was. “Okay, that’s the flaps moving. And that thump is the landing gear retracting. Now the pilot is going to increase power to the engines, which is why they just changed pitch…” and so on.
She said the class didn’t completely cure her fears. But it did reduce them from just-below-full-freakout panic attack to nervous-but-endurable. The key was explaining the sensory cues - the sounds, mainly - and putting them into an understandable context.
So a reason-based approach can have some effect.
I’m no fan of needles sticking me, but I am a fairly frequent blood donor. I don’t think I’ve ever actually watched them put the needle into my arm, and I kind of like it that way. It might help some if the kids don’t actually watch the nurse bring out or use the needle - there’s no reason they need to.
Agree that not all situations respond to pure logic.
What helps when someone is overwhelmed by emotion is empathy, and compassion.
When you apply logic to someone experiencing an overwhelming emotion, with the expectation that you are going to helpfully make their emotion go away, hope they don’t have a heavy projectile near to hand.
Who has more trouble with new information that contradicts what they think? Whether they arrived at what they think via logic or emotion, it seems to me that we as a species don’t deal with cognitive dissonance too well.
Yeah, that’s probably a decent analogy. I’m okay with needles, blood draws, etc. as long as I turn my head away and fix my gaze somewhere else. Then I’ve even occasionally been all, “Oh you’re done already?”
Last time I watched, I came to … on the floor.
Right. I’m trying to figure out how to convey this - that logic is no antidote to emotion. They’re on different wavelengths entirely.
I think I would try logic with the logical person. Explain that what she is doing is not working and in fact, making the situation worse. Obviously, she needs to either change her tactics, or just not engage with the other person.