Wise Decisions

Chapter 12Managing Emotions and the Role of Y.O.D.A.

Our emotions and their outward‐facing counterparts, our feelings, are an ancient and powerful form of information stored and sensed in both the brain and the body. They can be understood and expressed in verbal and nonverbal ways, and in fact are a formidable language of their own. Far from soft and ephemeral, both positive and negative emotions, the bodily messages that give rise to our feelings, when used wisely, must be considered hard, actionable data in decision‐making. Evolutionary forces spanning hundreds of thousands of years have equipped our brains and bodies, when properly trained, to recognize, understand, and manage our emotions, interpret them, and use this important data to shape and fine‐tune our day‐to‐day choices.

Ever have a strong “gut feel” about an issue? Something that created a subliminal pull in your stomach, a sensed intuition about a particular life event unfolding in real time? You may have pondered for a moment whether it meant anything or whether it was simply a random sensation related to something you just ate or drank.

This “emotional nudge” has been referred to as your “second brain” talking to you, providing information that, in mentally healthy individuals, should not be casually dismissed. In fact, it is precisely this kind of felt and sensed information that is now becoming widely recognized as vital in augmenting our ability to arrive at the best and most important decisions.

In today's ...