The importance of emotions as a compass for our decisions and wellbeing
Emotions as a guide in decision making and their impact on well-being were the central focus of the activity "Emotions, a compass that guides our actions", led by Manuela Rama for the EEC Alumni learning community.
In this online lecture, followed by nearly 200 people, the coach and facilitator of the Escuela Europea de Coaching He proposed a transformative reflection: to banish the old Western notion of emotions and reason as opposites and embrace a unified model where the two coexist as a seamlessly integrated system.
"When we get stuck in the belief that we are exclusively rational, we fail to listen to valuable information provided by our emotions. This information is key to our actions, decisions and, above all, our well-being, explained Manuela Rama, stressing the importance of giving emotions the place they deserve in our daily lives.
Using the metaphor of the compass, the coach illustrated how emotions help us to orientate ourselves: "Emotions play an essential role. They orient and guide us towards well-being, whether in our personal relationships, with others or even with the environment. They are a powerful tool that gives us valuable information.
The expert also underlined the interconnection between the brain hemispheres and how they work together: "We are looking, from this new paradigm, for a balance between the right hemisphere part and the left hemisphere part. But always feeling that they are one brain, not two brains. We don't have a left brain and a right brain; we have one brain that has two parts".
During her intervention, Manuela Rama presented an everyday example to demonstrate how emotions and reason work together. "When I drive and hear a strange engine noise, the emotion that quickly arises is surprise, followed by fear. But I also integrate my knowledge, however basic, about engines, and that integration helps me decide whether I should stop immediately or continue to safety,he recounted, underlining how this balance is essential in decision-making.
Finally, the coach invited the participants to rethink their relationship with emotions, to stop seeing them as adversaries of reason and to start integrating them as allies in their wellbeing. "It is important to accept our emotions and the thoughts that accompany them. We need to be our own compassionate friend in emotional management", he concluded, encouraging people to embrace this new paradigm in order to live a fuller and more conscious life.
