Reactive Mind/Wise Mind
In an earlier post, I talked about the difference between the thinking self and the observing self. In their book, The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Move Through Depression and Create a Life Worth Living, Kirk D. Strosahl and Patricia J. Robinson describe these two parts of our thinking as the reactive mind and the wise mind. Most likely, the reactive mind is the way of thinking that you are most familiar with. The reactive mind helps to make sense of the world around you. It also gives you a sense of order; it helps you understand how things should operate in the world.
How does the reactive mind do these things? Well, it reacts. It looks for cause-and-effect and reasons; it offers evaluations and explanations. The work of the reactive mind will make sense and give order to the events happening in the world around you. This reactive mind is an amazing part of what it means to be human. With all this evaluating, analyzing, and explaining, it gives us the ability to solve serious problems and make the world a better place.
The problem is the reactive mind doesn’t stop with situations in the external world. It will also seek out cause-and-effect when it is looking at your behavior, your history, your qualities and characteristics, your feelings and emotions. You are this way and you act this way because of how you were raised. You don’t like this food because your parents made you eat it all the time. As this reactive mind works to develop a sense of order to your internal world, it will apply categories like good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair to everything you think, do, or say.
It is the work of this reactive mind that allows depression to take hold in your life.
From the reactive mind’s perspective, depression is not just something that happens to you. It is something that you have brought on yourself. Remember cause-and-effect? You must have done something to feel depressed; let’s figure what it is so you can correct it. Remember a sense of order? There must be something you have done, or there must be something about who you are, that is wrong or flawed. Let’s figure what it is, so you can change it and overcome your depression. It is hard not to go along with the reactive mind’s attempts to figure out and control your depression. One, it is always there generating explanations for why you are the way you are. Two, the process works so well with situations in the external world, it must work with your thoughts and feelings.
But when it comes to your internal world, it is important to remember: Just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s real.
You may have found yourself finishing this sentence in a variety of ways: I am depressed because…
I am depressed because of some of the bad things that happened to me in my childhood. I am depressed because I don’t have the social skills to be around people, so it makes sense to just stay at home. I am depressed because, well, I’ve always been this way, and I don’t see how it can be any different.
Getting over your depression does not involve finding ways to silence or ignore your reactive mind. Instead, my approach to depression treatment will give you some ways to notice and to wonder about some of the reasons that your reactive mind gives you for why you are depressed. When you hear some of these reasons, there may be part of you that feels a sense of relief. That relief comes from the cause-and-effect nature of these reasons. A situation in your life (I am depressed) is analyzed and explained by this cause-and-effect ((Bad things that happened in my childhood). You have an explanation for why you are depressed. But, one, having reasons doesn’t get you any closer to living the life you want. Two, just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s real.
You see, the reactive mind is relentless; it won’t stop until it finds a reason.
And because it has framed your depression as a problem, many of the reasons generated by this reactive mind can be harsh. It frames the reasons in terms of good and bad, right and wrong, fair and unfair. And you often end up on the short end of those evaluations and judgments.
Please understand. I am not saying the reactive mind is a bad thing. It will help you analyze and solve lots of situations in the world around you. The processes it uses work really well when you are trying to solve a complex problem at work; they don’t work well when you are trying to understand your depression.
The goal of depression treatment is to recognize the thoughts of your reactive mind and to hold them lightly. You really can notice them and wonder about them without getting caught up in them or fighting them off. This noticing and wondering gives you enough emotional flexibility to consider other ways to respond to the reactive mind. Because, remember, just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s real.
To learn more about how this approach to your reactive mind can be helpful, visit my depression treatment page.