In her book Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness, Miki Kashtan writes, “I want our needs, desires, emotions, imagination, intuition and faith to be embraced as a route towards changing relations with self, others and nature.” She is “not advocating completely unrestrained expressions of emotions”, instead she believes that “reason is not comprehensive enough on its own to serve as a foundation for human socialization, and that the bias in its favour is at best problematic and at worst dangerous”.
She goes on to say that, instead of using reason to suppress our emotions, it can be used to “shed light on our emotional life and help us get clarity and insight” into our self and others.
Like Miki, I believe that the integration of the head and heart, the rational and the emotional, the body and the mind, is the way to move towards a more caring, socially just, happier and healthier world.
It is easy to recognise that unbridled emotions can be problematic and at times very dangerous, but it is good to be reminded that unbridled rationality can also be dangerous indeed. Have you ever heard someone use a rational argument to justify inhumane behaviour or to justify short term gain, causing long term destruction? Have you ever seen someone use rationality to mask very problematic and damaging irrational beliefs?
Emotions and reason are not mutually exclusive. They are both part of us and can work hand in hand to help us choose the kind of life we want to live, and the kind of person we want to be.
When we try to use one without the other, we are losing, suppressing or contorting our inbuilt valuable assets. I believe that when we learn to use these assets together, with care and consideration, there is hope for a better world.