Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: How does reflection influence our emotions and feelings? Marc and Jürgen join Dr. Yasemin Yazan to explore “assumption is the enemy of truth,” why perspective-taking neutralizes emotion, and how Marc’s own relationship changed once he stopped assuming bad moods were about him…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very good morning to you all. Today we’re continuing with reflection and emotionality — that’s our room topic under the overarching theme of reflection, and today we’d like to engage with the question of how reflection influences our emotions and feelings. So not what effect emotions and feelings have, so to speak, but the other way around — when we reflect, what actually happens to our emotions and feelings, and to what extent reflection influences or shapes them. And I’m really curious about that. In that sense, you’re of course very warmly invited to join again this morning in the sense of a reflection room, to bring in first impulses, thoughts, experiences, so we can see what emerges from that, what insights we can derive from it, so to speak, and take away for ourselves. For those who might not have joined in a while, or are joining for the first time, another quick note that we record the entire time, so the whole thing gets published afterward. If you join, you automatically agree that it will be published. We have three small room rules: a profile picture you can be recognized by, first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. And anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason, doesn’t like it, can’t speak, or similar, can of course, as always, use the chat to bring in thoughts, questions, or similar. So, with that, I’ll gladly mute myself for now and see who’d like to start the round with me this morning.
A very good morning, dear Marc. Good morning, everyone. I had another technical challenge setting up my headphones, so I wasn’t sure if the opening remarks had already happened. I’d like to wish you all a good start to the week first, and I’d like to start today with a quote. This quote, for me, is the summary of today’s topic, or I couldn’t put it any better, really. It’s from a Greek philosopher, Epictetus, I hope I pronounced that right, and it’s about how it’s not things themselves that make us sad or happy, but only our thoughts about them. Let me repeat that — it’s not things that make us sad or happy, but our thoughts about them. I’ve thought about this sentence for a long time, not just a week or a month, but again and again, and it’s one of those quotes — we all know a lot of quotes — that have really changed my life, because today’s topic is reflection and emotionality, and to what extent reflection can change our feelings, and becoming aware, first of all, that I am sometimes sad, and sometimes lying, and sometimes happy, and that’s all of us. I think that connects all of us in this room. But I never really thought about why I’m sad or happy. I always find a cause for it. I have thought about it, in the sense that if I’m angry, something must have annoyed me. But this realization, that I don’t actually have to be angry, sad, or happy and cheerful, but that I determine that myself, that our brain is basically the control center for all the emotions we have — having this realization gave me the tool for how I can reflect differently in the future. Not better, but differently, so that I get into a position where reflection can, going forward, influence my feelings.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. A lovely opening with a quote. I just googled it too, and it says, it is not the things themselves that disturb us, but our opinion and imagination about the things. And I find that really exciting. That means, of course, this can be transferred to many things, whether that’s sadness, being disturbed, thinking about something, in one direction or another. That means, essentially, that thoughts, or the steering of thoughts, plays an essential role here, and against this backdrop, or in this context, if we look at where reflection actually sits, so to speak, it fits wonderfully with today’s room, to look at how this reflection we undertake, an analysis and evaluation of a situation, for example, or of ourselves — we can open this up in various contexts — how this reflection actually transforms our thoughts, or transforms our stance toward something, our attitude toward something, changes our view of something, through reflection. And so this is a really exciting aspect, meaning we’re essentially talking about emotion regulation here too, the moment we talk about reflection. Marc, would you like to follow up here?
Yes, if you don’t mind, I’d like to start with an example again. I thought about this, because personally I have the problem that some topics in other rooms are too abstract for me. I always need personal examples, otherwise I have trouble understanding, through thinking, through reflecting on new words, what someone actually means with the situation, and I’d like to say again that for me, reflecting means examining thought — for me there’s also a difference between brooding and just thinking things over. Brooding and thinking things over is also a kind of reflection, but a reflection that leads me nowhere. So for me, reflection is examining thought, and when do I examine something? When I want to find the cause or the truth. In the mechanical field, with a car or a plane, I examine something to find the fault, and in thinking, I examine something to find the fault in my thinking or perception. So, I hope this doesn’t confuse you too much, but for me, reflection isn’t just taking in information, and the example I brought is my partner — I’ll go back to the relationship example again, because I hope everyone here has a partner, or had one, or can draw on that past experience. My partner comes home and is annoyed. I can see it, she doesn’t say anything, but I see it immediately in her face, she’s annoyed. And the automatism I’ve developed for myself, just to quickly assess the situation, is that I first go inward, and automatically, this used to happen much more strongly in the past, did I say something wrong, did I do something wrong, or did I forget something? That would be this short program that immediately runs, to be able to assess the situation. Did I say something wrong, do something wrong, or forget something? Reflection, in that sense, would simply be — and now not the typical information-gathering anymore — in that moment I try to gather information by thinking about what actually happened. So, did something happen that could have led to my partner being annoyed with me now? And I’ve learned there are so, so many causes. And so I don’t fall into this error-thinking, meaning making an assumption from the outset, I first wait to see what develops. Because if I immediately assume I said something wrong, did something wrong, or forgot something, the whole thing goes in a completely wrong direction. And then I try — I already mentioned this recently — to press this stop button, so my thoughts don’t go in the wrong direction. And there are several options then. One is, I wait a certain amount of time, and it will certainly come up in conversation. But if that period feels too long for me, the first question, which is also quite harmless, you don’t need to apologize for it yet, no admission of guilt, but simply first checking with a counter-question — that would be the examination, for me — is, is everything okay between the two of us? And then I still have time, and now I can look at my partner and say, is everything okay between the two of us? The background to the question is, does the cause of this annoyance, or this bad mood, lie in me — what I’m assuming here, or possibly wrongly assuming — or is there an external cause, something didn’t go well at work, someone cut them off in traffic, the car broke down, and through this checking I get an immediate answer, and I first know whether I’m the reason or whether there’s an external reason. If it’s an external reason, then of course I’m relieved, because then I can direct my thoughts toward asking, do you need help, can we sort this out, do you need support, and if I am the reason, then the reflection immediately goes in a different direction again.
Yes, thank you so much, and I find that the example you just opened up shows very nicely that it’s not just one single reflection happening at that point, but that there are loops of reflection. We already talked about this — that means we keep building in this aspect of reflection at different points. You just described this so nicely in the example — you perceive something and evaluate it based on body signals. Those are already the first stimuli hitting us. That means you engage with it, and that’s already the first reflection loop. Then, based on that, you make a decision, for example, and address it openly. And depending on what answer comes back, the next loop of reflection comes up again too, considering how you now handle it. So what kind of information did I just receive, and what do I do with it now? And interestingly — and this maybe makes the complexity clear again — depending on what all comes together, or what kind of situation it is, especially now in this interaction, we have, of course — we already talked about feedback and feedforward and such — that means I have very different options here too, in the interaction, to combine various things together, various techniques, strategies, and so on, that we’ve already covered in various rooms in Deep Talk, to, for example, send I-messages. And at the same time, especially with this reflection, to connect back to today’s topic of emotionality — how does reflection influence our emotions and feelings? At that moment — often we tend, especially with examples like the one you just opened up, Marc, to relate that to ourselves, that it could have something to do with us, especially in a relationship, but in many other contexts too, to have the feeling, so to speak, this must have something to do with me. Much, much more often than it actually having something to do with us, statistically speaking, it’ll have a different background. And the first, impulsive thing, though, for us, is actually, because this person matters to us too, to first, possibly impulsively, check whether it has something to do with me, or the feeling that it has something to do with me. The moment I go into reflection, into a conscious reflection, within the situation, I have the opportunity to open up different perspectives here, even before I’ve possibly said a single word to my counterpart in the interaction, in their direction — that through reflection alone I can already open up different perspectives, to make clear to myself what different things this could actually be about. And through these different perspectives I open up, alone, I already achieve a kind of neutralization of the emotion, the feeling. And it might not feel so bad to me anymore, and it might even increase my curiosity to actually move into the second step and just address it, and then see what the answer is. So I find that quite exciting. Thank you, Marc. Do you have further thoughts on this?
Yes, I’d like to go into the process a bit more, because I forgot something important in the whole thing. I see my partner come through the door, and I see something’s up. Now I make a decision, and now I’m back at how can reflection change our thoughts and feelings, and for me it’s really important to make clear — I don’t know if this came up in the room — the difference between thinking things over, brooding, and reflecting, those are milestones. I can perceive it, so the information I’m taking in now is, I see something’s not right. Now there are two possibilities. I ask myself how I feel about it, and I also ask myself how I’ll feel over the next few hours, should we spend the next few hours together in a car or a room. If we’re in a room, in an apartment, then I see she’s in a bad mood, and it could be, out of ritual, she’s in a bad mood, I’ll avoid her now. I go into my office and work for four hours, do nothing at all, that’s also a decision. I do nothing and see what happens. But I can also decide, and if I look inward, how do I feel about it, how am I doing, do I want to sort this out pretty quickly, so I have a clear head for new things, so I can focus on new and different tasks. And if I decide that I’m not doing well, then, after the decision, I also have to move into action. And that action, the first action, would be the question, is everything okay between the two of us? So that the information I’ve already gotten, meaning I see in her face that something’s not right, but this information I might have wrongly evaluated in the past, or might evaluate wrongly, because I think it has something to do with me — exactly like you explained it, Yasemin, it has something to do with me, oh, something’s wrong. But in order to really check this, to reflect on it, I now have to ask the right questions, with a questioning technique, and that would be, for me, how you reflect at all. And only through new questions do I get new thoughts. If I just let it run its course, then I’m done for too, dear Jürgen. I could now go into my office for three hours and brood over what happened, why is she annoyed, what did I do again, that can’t be true, everything was fine just a few hours ago. That won’t get me anywhere at all. Then I’m thinking about it, sure, and I’m brooding, but it doesn’t bring me any closer to a solution, and for that solution, the fastest way is to make a decision and then move into action after the decision.
Yes, thank you so much, and a result of the reflection could also, per se, not just relate to this situation, but quite generally to the relationship, on a further, higher level too. I decide not to assume that it first has something to do with me, but I adopt a stance where I always assume that it first has something to do with other contexts, other things, and I regularly open up the space, so to speak, when I realize that my counterpart isn’t doing well in some way, bad mood or whatever, to see if we want to talk about it, in order to conjure a smile back onto their face. With that, I’d like to hand over to Jürgen. Jürgen, a very good morning.
A very good morning to you all. If I suddenly jump away in a moment, I’m being called to the slaughterhouse, so to speak, so don’t be surprised. But I’d like to raise two things from my perspective, again on a conscious meta-level. I think the essential thing being considered here, in this context of how emotions influence reflections, is the status — if an emotion is already present in us, then there are two possibilities. The example fits nicely again — this emotional initial spark, something might not be right here. The emotion is there and has set the trigger for the reflection. Then, in my view, on this point, there are two essential influencing factors of the emotion, namely, on one hand, the possibility, through reflection, of understanding this emotion, and on the other hand, that this emotion, which struck us as the initial spark, quite essentially determines the way in which we reflect on it. Those are, for me, two, well, how should I put it, manifestations, if the initial trigger is imposed from outside — we already had this topic, what triggers the reflection, hits us. But I see, on the meta-level, a second point too, to experience — and sorry, I need to keep this really brief now, because I have to go — namely, that the emotion first arises during the reflection process itself, through our inward view. That suddenly emotions come up, because my reflection process triggers emotional strata. That’s what I wanted to say. Sorry, I have to go now. I wish you a good continuation, and I think I’ll come back. Thanks.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Marc, would you like to follow up here?
Yes, very gladly, because I also sometimes talk on the phone with Jürgen, and we’ve discussed this topic quite intensely too. And now another example. Information alone isn’t enough at all, and this coming from within — we already said, if we want to change something, so if we ourselves want to influence something for ourselves, the question is always, what can that be good for? And do I even want that? Now another example — I hope you haven’t experienced this in your own environment. If you talk to an alcoholic, you know that they also know alcohol isn’t good. They have that information. And they will also reflect that too much alcohol isn’t good. And that too much smoking isn’t good. They’ll reflect on that, they’ll think about it.
But our brain shies away from the energy expenditure. Yasemin can explain that better than me. And then an automatism kicks in, because you get answers like, great-grandma smoked too, and she made it to 93. Well, and there are also dead people. We’re all going to die anyway, and not everyone dies of lung cancer. So we find all sorts of answers for why we don’t take the reflection further. And we don’t have to take it further either. So a bit of alcohol and smoking here and there isn’t the problem either. The question then, which for me comes on top of the reflection, is that we also make a danger and risk assessment. So, is it worth it for me? What’s the point of reflecting on this? And after that, I can decide whether I want to change something or not change anything. But there’s a lot of information we have, we think about many things. And we also know the consequences of these things, what happens if we keep going this way. And yet we don’t change it, if the desire isn’t there within us ourselves, not what Jürgen said, brought in from outside, that we have to change something because it’s better for us, because someone says so — that was always the case in school too, if you learn, you’ll have it better in life. Or, you’ll need this. Where the question always arises, what would I need this for? I don’t know, I’m not going professionally in that direction at all. But if I myself decide, oh, that’s interesting, I need this information for myself, I might be able to use it at some point, then a completely different kind of reflection takes place, namely driven from within rather than triggered from outside, or the demand, now think about it. And the second thing is, then I’m done, because, dear Yasemin, you also said, unwanted feedback — that’s a form of reflection for me too. You have to be careful in a conversation with that. Because if someone says to me, “Marc, reflect on that,” I think, oh, reflect on that — that already implies I should reflect so I arrive at their level of thinking. So they already believe, per se, that my perception isn’t correct. And that’s why communication is so difficult — formulating sentences that invite the other person to adopt a different way of thinking and a different stance, and really phrasing sentences so they’re not understood as an attack by the other person, because an attack triggers an intuitive defense from us too, without us even thinking about it.
Yes, absolutely. And especially this aspect with the benefit factor, so what for, so to speak, is also really important in this context. It underlines this complexity again too. That means our brain is programmed to save energy. We have a very high energy consumption, even in resting mode. That’s why our brain basically doesn’t want to, so to speak. Our brain is programmed to check whether the stimuli, the information coming from outside, has something to do with securing our survival. That’s the first and essential task of the brain. And the second thing that gets checked is whether it brings me anything. And exactly what you said, depending, I handle it differently. That means, if I’m in a relationship that doesn’t matter to me anyway, or whatever, then I probably won’t go into a big reflection, but I’ll possibly just perceive that my partner is somehow in a bad mood from the outside, and I’ll possibly just skip over it, because it has no benefit for me at all. Why is it of interest at all, staying with this example? Because my partner matters to me, so to speak. That means I have a relationship, a connection to this person, and because this person matters to me, I even start thinking about whether it could have something to do with me or something else. I maybe also have the need to now go into checking, to address it, possibly also to help my partner get out of that bad mood, and so on. And all of that is, so to speak, coupled to my motivation — whether I move into action or not has a lot to do with whether I see a benefit in it. And this benefit — that might sound harsh now, especially in a relationship, like, what benefit do I get, I’m not doing this for a benefit. Well, yes, actually — the feeling of togetherness. I have a connection here, and if this connection matters to me, then I also get a benefit from it, in that the other person is doing well, so to speak, and thereby I’m doing well again too, in a sense. That’s really to be understood and seen as a cycle, so to speak. So, addressing one thing or another accordingly. What Jürgen said in turn, about an emotion only arising during the reflection process — you could take a really classic example there too, you might know this from your own coaching or training sessions or such, where various reflections are undertaken, or exercises are done, and only through the exercise itself are you led into an emotion, and then you’re suddenly totally astonished at what that’s doing to you, because a memory maybe popped up, or something similar. And especially in such reflection sequences, so to speak, this can happen too — that unexpected or surprising things come up, and that doesn’t have to be negative, it could be positive as well as negative. Viewed neutrally at first, so to speak, that emotions simply pop up, and then it’s again about looking at what you actually do with that. Marc, would you like to follow up here too?
Yes, very, very gladly, and again another example from a relationship. I’ve had many relationships, and you just said something really great, because my partner matters to me. And this thinking about it, asking new questions, helped me with that. This reflecting helped me get to the point where I’ve now been in a relationship for nine years where we’ve never had a fight. We’ve never fought. It still matters to me, and it came about because I really sat down at some point and looked at the results of my life. There were many relationships that always ended at some point. Because you reach a point where you want to show strength, where you want to come out as the winner. And I’ve redefined strength and winning for myself. Discussing, yes, that’s important, because only through discussions, or through exchanging thoughts, do you move forward. But I’ve defined for myself that I need calm, I need harmony, I’m a person who needs harmony, and I can’t focus on my job if something is unclear in my closest, my nearest environment. And that’s led to me no longer fighting, because I no longer assign the significance to conflict, whatever the reason, that it used to have. Small example: vacation is coming up, my partner says, I’d like to go to the sea, and I say, I’d like to go to the mountains. In the past, that might have led to one of us saying, the mountains are much nicer, or the sea is much healthier. You’d fight, vacation is really important, and then I asked myself, okay, we’re spending two weeks together, or one week together. It’s about the shared time, and I came to the conclusion for myself that it’s completely irrelevant to me where we spend the shared time, that there’s no need to fight over it at all for me, and I then make compromises, because it matters to my partner. And a second example — because it matters to my partner, you also get into situations where a conflict could of course arise, and where my partner, on the other side, is so strongly emotionally involved that they can’t follow my argumentation. But the way you treat each other, how you approach each day with the norm, might mean for us that you do something even though the other person simply doesn’t want to. Example, in the situation, because there are private reasons why this matters to me. Those don’t have to be professional reasons. It really matters to me that we get through this now, and that we’re there. And I don’t need to say the partner just does it then. I don’t need to convince them, they still have the bad feeling, the emotion. But they meet me halfway, because it matters to me. And that no longer requires reflection either, but you just do things because they matter to the other person. And because you think it’s more important that we still get along harmoniously the day after tomorrow and tomorrow, than at that particular point, at a particular moment, to enforce your own position, your own standpoint, and supposedly come across as the winner. If you win a situation, it can, with today’s experience, still mean a big loss for me, and I don’t reconcile the one with the other.
Yes, thank you so much, and there are various ways to use techniques here too. Sonja also wrote something in the chat — it’s also about the type of questions we use to approach the subject, let’s say, in reflection, and how that relates to what answers we get, because our brain goes on a search course and directs focus onto something specific. We’ll definitely look at these techniques more closely too. We’ll also look at what types, forms, settings and so on there are for reflection, and what techniques we can use, so we can pick up concrete tools and tips for each other here too, bring them in. Today I’d actually like to stay a bit longer on this level, to reflect a bit further on this meta-level, so to speak, and look together too. So we’ve established, okay, reflection obviously, quite obviously, influences the emotions we have. That means we can steer things through reflection. Maybe we can try, from these examples that have already come up, to identify what actually happens that, say, an emotion gets neutralized somehow? Or how does that even come about? So not how do I do it, not from the doing side, but what does the reflection actually accomplish that, for example, you said, Marc, you pose the question, dot, dot, dot. And what happens as a result, so to speak, that leads to your feeling being neutralized or gone or whatever, Marc?
Phew, dear Yasemin, that’s a really hard question, because you’re completely — now we get to the difference between practice, between real life, and theory. And it’s a training process. Reflection, for me, is a training process. The realization that the information I’ve taken doesn’t have to be correct. And here comes the second quote that really helps me shape my life, professionally and privately. I believe it’s from Einstein, I’m fairly sure. The quotes aren’t verbatim, they’ve been rewritten by Marc to fit for me, but the content of the quote is, “Assumption is the enemy of truth,” and I always try to call that up first, in every situation. Assumption is the enemy of truth. And looking back, in hindsight — we’ve had this often too — my brain has now recorded, several times, how often I’ve made assumptions. He’s angry, the client is buying elsewhere, she’s gone, my documents were wrong, and so on. I make thousands of assumptions, and in most cases — I can’t give a percentage now — but in hindsight, most assumptions were always wrong. There was always a different cause. And then it’s a mathematical equation — if I get into a situation, professionally or privately, where I’m again a hundred percent convinced that my perception is correct, then I try to remind myself how often I was wrong with my perception. And that helps me first to become a bit calmer again. The feelings aren’t gone. I can’t switch off feelings. Even with this knowledge, I can’t switch off feelings. But this thought gives me courage, that it’s maybe, and probably, at least more than 50 percent of the time, going to be the same this time too — that it’s just an assumption, and tomorrow everything will look different again.
Yes, thank you so much. And especially the quote about assumption being the enemy of truth, so to speak, raises a lot of new questions too, which we’ve already discussed in various Deep Talks — things like, what is truth at all, is there even such a thing as truth. But quite independent of that, I find the quote a nice, concrete example of how it’s first and foremost about creating awareness. That means, first, if I assume that assumption is the enemy of truth, or similar quotes, similar sayings, whatever, then wanting to distance myself from assumptions at all means I’m creating awareness on some level. That could mean, in the sense of an interaction, that it’s important that we talk about it, that it’s not simply an iceberg model, that it doesn’t just stay underwater, that it gets addressed openly, or such. So there can be so, so many different examples here that will keep showing that first, it’s about a certain kind of gaining awareness, so to speak. That I realize that I can actually accomplish something with reflection, that in reflection I can also look at what assumptions have been made, for example, or what expectations, for example. Expectations often play a really big role too. Unmet expectations, for example, lead to disappointments. And that brings us quickly back to emotions too. And if I address my expectations though — if I develop an awareness here and then start to adjust these expectations, meaning not having any, or maybe approaching things more openly, letting myself be surprised, so handling it differently — then, in the end, I also neutralize the effect it ultimately has on me. So, a really, really exciting aspect. And now I’d like to give you the chance again, and in the meantime Jürgen has raised his hand again too, so I’ll bring him in as well. Marc, you first.
Yes, dear Yasemin, that’s exactly where I’d like to connect. What was important for me too was the result — how you act, the result of my actions in the past, and these expectations. And then I asked myself, dear Marc, what happened in the past when you reacted emotionally to emotions? And I can tell you — again, the best example, relationship. This is my current partner, whom I met. In the past it would have been like this — my partner, just for you, she works a lot, a lot, her work is extremely important to her, because she’s a teacher with heart and soul. That means, on the weekend, she also prepares things, or simply says, this isn’t good enough yet, and she wants to keep working. This relationship, today, nine years in, wouldn’t exist anymore if I hadn’t reflected. Because the old Marc was like, hey, we haven’t seen each other all week, we work a lot. You say you’re in love with me. Then I can’t understand why your expectation of seeing me isn’t as strong as mine. That would ergo mean I love you more than you love me. Something must not be right about this relationship. Either you’re not the partner I wish for, but I can’t change that either. Your feelings toward me just aren’t as strong as mine toward you. And the new thinking led me to no longer think that way. That I’m not loved less just because the other person doesn’t come to me right away, but because they’ve simply set other priorities. And I no longer evaluate these other priorities as being against me or for me, but rather that it just matters to the other person. And the new question I ask myself in such a situation is no longer, why isn’t she coming now, why can she do this, we haven’t seen each other all week, the weekend is the only chance to see each other and the partner cancels, but the question I now ask myself instead is, oh great, she’s not coming, that opens up a new time window for me to do things I don’t enjoy doing, filing, tidying the apartment, watching a movie she doesn’t watch, sitting outside, reading a book, that’s suddenly a time window that’s opened up. And of course I’d rather spend the time with my partner, but at the same time I’m no longer occupied with negative emotions and brooding, but instead thinking about what I’m going to do with the time I’ve gained, how I can use the time I’ve gained. And this new thinking, this reflection, has led to me now managing to be in a really happy relationship for nine years, and no longer reflecting negatively on my partner. And looking back, I have to say, I had really, really great girlfriends. The problem was always that, because I evaluated the situation this way, I took myself too seriously.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And alongside creating awareness, this is also, so to speak, generating new perspectives. I think that’s become clear again too, in what you described. And with that, I’m happy that Jürgen is back. Let’s see where Jürgen would like to follow up. Jürgen.
Always with the option of having to step out on short notice. What I caught with my left ear, which triggered me, was this quote from Einstein, assumption is the enemy of truth. Sure, that popped up, why actually? And maybe it goes in your direction — I’ll be quick, in your direction — I think it’s absolutely apt, because the emotion, as a trigger for reflection, offers us a relatively easy solution to the problem. I already mentioned this before, I believe. I’m a fan of this distinction between associative thinking and logical, reason-based thinking, which differ in terms of resource demand — not energy now, but time. That means an emotion, when it pops up — and this is my personal opinion — offers me a relatively simple option, either to run away, hit the roof, or sink into depression, or whatever else. If I take the time — and this is now, for me, the important point — if I take the time to say, stop, I won’t allow that, because I know this is an emotion that might lead me down the wrong path — topic unconscious bias — I need time to reflect on that. And that’s, I’d say, for me, the first step, checking myself. And that’s already reflection. Inward view — are you subject to an unconscious bias, does this emotion want to lead you in a direction that, rationally speaking, isn’t actually a solution, only I have to realize that. And that’s the connection, for me, to Einstein’s quote about truth. Because truth only arises through two parties. And the second party present here is the partner of the self-talk. And that takes time. I hope I haven’t talked past your current point in the discussion. Thanks.
The partner of the self-talk — do you mean the external partner there, or who is the partner of the self-talk in that context?
No, that’s myself, in that I raise doubt, toward myself, in that I take the counter-position. You know this, or those who know me a bit know, check everything with doubt. I am the spirit that always negates. I check whether I’m on the right path with my emotion. But I believe that was your input. We’re not talking about the methods. This is a kind of method, to even know that I might be led astray. That’s what I mean by that.
Wonderful, thank you so much. And based on the result of that, I can then accordingly make the decision to check that externally too, through the interaction, once more. That would then be the second, third, fourth step, so to speak. And it becomes clear, though, in this context, that this has a certain complexity. And that’s why I think it’s important to try to break this down a bit. And I’m completely with you, also with the associative and the logical you just opened up, Jürgen. From the brain’s perspective too, there are, so to speak, shortcuts, where certain things get triggered within milliseconds. And then there are also areas that, for decisions or such, then emotions, which play a role, take significantly longer via the pathways involved. And that’s exactly what this is getting at too. And you put it so nicely with the associative — that means, when it comes to survival, it naturally has to happen quickly sometimes. We don’t have the option, in certain situations — we probably don’t have this quite as often anymore today, but if we had a tiger standing in front of us, we can’t first go into reflection and weigh things up and think it over, it has to happen fast, I have to recognize the danger immediately, and our brain does that too, and within seconds, or milliseconds, the signals have been sent, and we immediately know what to do. But we immediately know what to do, I can say that with a smile, so, supposedly we know what to do at that point, because it doesn’t actually have to be the case that we know what to do. At least we get signals that give us the feeling we now have to either flee or freeze or something else. But whether that’s always the right thing in that context can be doubted too. And it can also be wrong, in a sense. That should maybe be underlined here too. And the moment I start going into this conscious realm, thinking about it logically, entering into reflection, then I’m engaging with it on a different level, and I also take time, on one hand, and space too, to open up different perspectives. I think this aspect of perspectives plays a really important role here again, namely opening up different perspectives in every reflection. So, along the lines of, whatever kind of questions I ask myself or such, what else could it be? What if it’s not about me — to stay with Marc’s example, the assumption that it could have something to do with me is, for example, the first impulse possibly, which is already an assumption again. I’m assuming that it could have something to do with me, sure, could be. But it’s much, much more likely that it possibly has nothing to do with me at all, but with completely different things. Because if my partner just came home, so to speak, then she had lots of other encounters out there. Why should it have anything to do with me, so to speak? So that’s, in my view, the smallest probability in this context. First, of course, it could be, sure. And then opening up these different perspectives. So of course I could think about what else it could have to do with, but I could also reflect in the direction of considering how I actually handle the situation now. Do I want to go into interaction, into a conversation? Do I want to articulate it, verbalize it, talk about it? What options can I open up? There are lots of possibilities here on this level too. But the moment I first open up the different perspectives, I get into a kind of neutralization of the feeling too. Because the feeling, the first feeling I have, is initially just an impulse, not something steered or such. And then, in the next step, I go into checking, and can then look at what I do with it. Jürgen, would you like to follow up here again?
Very gladly. Sorry, dear Marc. Namely regarding the term, or the one you brought up, perspective. And I think that especially perspective — I’ll say again, mind you, my opinion, not somehow scientifically based — that the type, or the perspective, is the clear-cut criterion between reflection and thinking. We’ll probably discuss this further too. Is there even a difference there? Are they synonyms, or how do they differ? In my view, thinking differs from reflection exactly in the perspective, namely, there are two kinds of perspectives, in my view — one, generating a perspective solely from my own view, from my own reflection, from my inward view, blinkered view onto myself, what perspectives am I capable of. The transition to thinking, with regard to generating perspectives, is that I include the results, the behavior, the thinking of the other person affected by my perspective. So, from the blinkered view, I open up the blinkered view also to the view of my environment. That’s, for me — I’ve probably jumped ahead a bit here to the interface between reflection and thinking — but that’s the criterion, for me, for saying, is there even a difference between reflection and thinking at all. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Marc, what do you say to that?
Oh, I’ll hug you both, dear Jürgen. That’s exactly what I feel too. I can’t back it scientifically, but exactly, I’ll say again, reflection is examining thought. And that has nothing to do with thinking things over or brooding. And I’d like to bring up this perspective, this term. And now I’d like to say something else. Reflection begins, for me, before the reflection itself. We’re talking about feelings. And if I go inward, we’ll all remember situations, where do I feel comfortable, where do I feel good, and in which situations do I feel bad. These haven’t happened yet, but I can remember such a situation. And then we’ve already discussed, very, very often in this room, that we see what we want to see. And then the first question, always, once we see what we want to see, is, in a neutral state, when we’re out for a walk, not when the problem is already there, so before the event has happened, to accept or acknowledge for ourselves, is it possible to see things differently? Per se, I don’t need to see them differently yet, but just answering the question for myself, is it possible to see things differently? And then the question, what could that be good for? Once I’ve decided that, then I’m already ready to at least look at how I can arrive at a new perspective. If I don’t go through this process, I’ll always arrive at different results in a reflection too. Because we all tend, as I said, to see what we want to see. But if I reflect, or acknowledge, that it’s possible to see things differently, both from my counterpart’s side and from my own, then I’ve taken the first step to ask myself the right questions, whether I’m even capable of, and whether I even want to be capable of, adopting a different perspective. And you notice this in others too, in all the discussions that happen — that could now be any number of political topics — if we’re so fixated on one answer, because we think it’s the sole correct answer, based on our experiences, which don’t have to be correct anymore either, then it’s really hard to go into exchange in the discussion, because then you just try to counter arguments with counter-arguments, you bombard each other with arguments and hope someone pulls an ace out of their sleeve, saying, well, my argument is stronger now, or I can now prove that I’m right and you’re wrong. And that’s why, for me, this examining thought, this reflection, is the first step, to engage with, am I willing, for myself at all, and can I, and can I learn, to perceive a different perspective. And this topic too, we’ve had often — perceiving a different perspective doesn’t mean you have to agree with that other perspective. That was a really, really hard learning process for me. A different perspective, that people see things differently, doesn’t mean that after the discussion, after the disagreement, I see it the same way — but first, acceptance, that there’s someone out there who perceives things differently than I do.
Yes, thank you so much, and maybe we can try this differentiation here — we’ll come back to this topic, but I find it important to look at again now, what you opened up, Jürgen, because it really is an interface, and we’ll pick it up again later, as I said. What might be a first approach here, based on everything that’s come up now, with examples and approaches, arguments? Let me try to open a door, so to speak, using other terms to express this. If we say that the first step, so to speak, is about a perception of the situation — so first, so to speak, looking at what’s actually happening, basically — that would be this reflection step. And when we then move toward a perspective shift, so adopting new perspectives etc., then we’re possibly already moving into the thinking process, so into this second stage. And we can use other terms now, just to check this. We can let that sink in too, we don’t need to answer that today, because, as I said, we’ll come back to these topics too, toward the end. We have, so to speak, a frame we put around something, the framing. And re-framing is then putting a new frame over it. And this new frame gets possibly handled in this second section, “thinking,” in a sense, if I want to call it that. Jürgen, would you like to follow up here too?
Very gladly, because you’ve just opened up, in my view, the second essential aspect of the distinction between reflection and thinking. Let me recap briefly — the breadth of perspective is the first thing, a self-reference versus opening up to possible perspectives and assumptions of the other person. And the second point, for me, is the distinction between reflection and thinking, that with thinking, the perspective also opens up toward the future. Let me say again — even though this is getting a bit tedious now — this is my personal opinion. I define reflection, this inward view, as an inward view onto the status quo of myself. And I make the distinction toward thinking, then, when I transfer the result of this reflection onto possible potential manifestations in the future. Basically, in a sense, moving toward thinking models rather than reflection models. Reflection is the basis for that, but thinking models differ from reflection in that they undertake a transport, a transformation, into the future. And I think that’s also, for us, for us Sapiens, among all living beings on this globe, a distinguishing feature. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And status quo, that ultimately means looking at things as they are. So not making them better, not making them worse, but simply first taking in the status quo, so to speak. Can we leave it at that, Jürgen?
Thanks again. What I still wanted to get off my chest was a hug for Marc, for his statement, we only see what we want to see. On my personal hit list, it’s number one among unconscious biases. This unconscious bias is called “what you see is all there is.” And that’s exactly the thing, this circumstance Marc described, that we settle for what’s currently with us, what we know, or believe to know, and what we take in. Basically also the topic of emotion, and then, based on that, we make our decision to act, and in the process skip over the thinking. That’s what I wanted to get off my chest. Thanks, dear Marc, for this connection to our previous topic, unconscious bias.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. So, as you can see, we still have quite a bit to do here, so to speak. It’s a complex topic too, which was to be expected, and we’ll gradually use the individual rooms, so to speak, to keep going deeper here, and then try to build the bridges again too. I think that’s worked out nicely again today, so that afterward, once we’ve looked at the individual overarching themes — reflection, then comes thinking, then comes acting — we’ll then, at the latest, in the sense of a linkage, do the bringing-together again too. All three overarching themes, in order to think of it as a process chain, and to see what exactly that means. And so I’m really looking forward to continuing tomorrow with reflection and personal development — how does reflection foster our personal growth? That’s what we want to engage with tomorrow, and you’re accordingly warmly invited to join again tomorrow too. For today, I’d like to briefly use the opportunity to at least get into the closing round with Marc — I think Jürgen had to step out. Marc, would you like to say what your highlights were today from the room?
Two points are still important to me. You just said, information — what do I underline too? With information as well, first is the taking-in of the status quo. And Jürgen, as well as me, and you too, kept using the word thinking. And for me there’s a really, really big difference. Thinking and examining thinking — so, thinking, thinking about something, versus examining thinking. If the word “examining” doesn’t come before it, the thinking process is different than with examining thinking. And for me, the decisive word for everything to do with reflection is examining thinking, and not just thinking alone. That’s a big difference for me. That’s also, I think, that — or I hope, Jürgen, that I’m not putting words in your mouth about what you meant. The difference between thinking, thinking things over, and following belief systems, versus examining thinking — that’s exactly the small detail that, in the end, can make a huge difference in the result.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. So we’ll have several more opportunities to really clarify this conclusively for ourselves, in a sense. Especially against the backdrop that we’ll be engaging much more intensively with the overarching theme of thinking too, once we get there, once we’ve reached that point. I think it’s good that in this first step, so to speak, we’re already opening up various interfaces that of course exist, again and again, just a little bit, to build the connection a bit already, but then set it aside again and say, that will come at the appropriate point, and work our way along, so to speak, in order to bring the whole thing together from the small to the large. And one thing or another that might still seem a bit unclear today will certainly become clearer for us through the exchange. And with that I don’t mean that it’s set, or such, along those lines — rather, quite a bit is still developing here. And possibly one or another of you has thoughts on these different pillars, let’s say, reflection, thinking, and acting. And we might come across areas where we ourselves will make corrections too, based on what we work out together here in the exchange, in terms of insights. And that’s the nice thing about it, that the topics are set, so to speak, but the direction within them can absolutely vary in one way or another, and these facets get brought in. So you’re all very warmly invited to join again tomorrow too, when we continue at 8am German time with reflection and personal development. How does reflection foster our personal growth? So, thank you so much for being here, and see you tomorrow! Ciao!
