Imagine that you are walking cross country, enjoying a sunny day and tranquility. In the distance, children play. Suddenly, unexpectedly, childish cries break the peace: a child has fallen into a well! Clinging to the ledge, the boy struggles not to fall to the bottom and asks for help, desperate. What do you do? Without hesitation, you run to the well and try to save the boy with all your might.
The Chinese philosopher Mencius tells us this parable as proof that we humans have a good background and we tend to goodness. When someone is in danger, our instinct is to run to help. However, Mencio observed that, despite this good background, we often hurt the people around us or we do not help them enough. Why?
Why do we sometimes not make good decisions?
External events trigger our emotional reactions on a daily basis.
For example, if your son or daughter surprises you with a bouquet of flowers that he has just made for you, joy invades you; if you suddenly come across someone with whom you fell madly in love, you feel a pang of pain or nostalgia; If your superior at work sends you an email reminding you that a delivery date is approaching, you may feel anxious. All our reactions accumulate. 3 Our lives end up becoming a series of response patterns that we have not trained, and these responses are often negative. In fact, there are a lot of decisions that we consciously think we make, but it's really about our old patterns.
Mencio was a great connoisseur of the human being. I think he would have been thrilled to know that neuroscience has validated a good part of the reflections that he expressed in a delicate and accurate way. So I would like to share with you another of his ideas.
It has to do with how we make our daily decisions. For centuries, we have believed that humans decide based on two different models: on the one hand, rationally. We are rational creatures capable of making logical decisions, and we observe, contrast and choose by weighing the pros and cons, the benefits and the problems.
There is also the "intuitive" model, in which we guide ourselves based on what we feel, what we prefer or what comes from within us.
Neuroscience tells us that, in general, we use a combination of the two models: we consider the possibilities rationally, but in the end we let ourselves be carried away by what we want most (by our emotions).
Instead, Chinese sages recommended that we focus on one or the other of these two models when choosing. However, Mencius was convinced that it was a mistake to try to choose between the rational and the emotional.
Choosing only with instinct, Mencio said, is a mistake, because humans accumulate automatic behaviors and prejudices, and many of these behaviors and prejudices are not positive, but the result of trauma, errors and behaviors that we have learned but that we no longer serving.
On the other hand, making decisions only with reason does not work either, since emotions are necessary to adapt and react quickly to a world that he describes as unstable, unpredictable.
Mencius feared that this rational way of thinking would divide our mind in two: the emotions on the one hand and the heart on the other.
A being divided, repressed, impoverished.
Again, neuroscience today agrees with Mencius: our rational decisions are highly contaminated, or influenced, by our emotions. We now know for sure that the human brain integrates emotion and reason, and that we cannot give up either.
We need emotions to be able to face an unpredictable world that moves the ground under our feet again and again. And we need our reasoning to best evaluate each situation.
Curiously, in Chinese the word for mind and heart is the same: it is called XI.
Neither mind nor heart: what you have is xi.
Xi is a refined instinct, an internal wisdom that we work and consolidate day by day, a well-developed emotional intelligence from which Mencius encourages us to make our daily decisions. From our Xi, which combines mind and heart, we make the right decisions without effort, with the same security with which we save the child who falls into the well. If we train and develop this instinct, says Mencio, we will make good decisions every moment.
How can we develop our xi, our center of wisdom?
One of the ways is to look at how we feel when we act well. How do you feel when you do something generous that connects you to others? Think of any kind act, however small it may be: speak to a person with affection, hug a heartbroken person, open the door or take a package to someone who needs help, lend a hand to a neighbor in distress ... What do you feel? Often, when we act from our xi —from that mix of reason and heart— we feel a physical sense of well-being. That feeling can be your compass to recognize, train and strengthen your best instinct, your emotional intelligence, your xi.
A little revolution to develop your xi
If you find it difficult to let your instincts guide you, try the following: Bring to mind a positive situation from your past, or think of someone who has proven to be a positive presence in your life. Then remember a time when you realized you were doing something right at the right time, or try to recall the feeling of love and trust that the person you thought of before gave you. Think about what you experienced: did you smile, relax your shoulders, feel a warm warmth in your solar plexus?
Now bring to your mind a negative situation from the past or think of someone who has been a nuisance to you.
Recall the times when you knew that this situation or this person was not a good influence on you. Did your stomach shrink? Did your pulse speed up?
Lastly, choose a current life situation (a job, a hobby, a class in the gym) or a person you have recently met.
Concentrate on that image of the activity or person, and see what emotions arise. Do not censure or judge them. Of the emotions in your past, which ones are the most similar? The ones you had with the destructive or positive person or event?
Whatever the answer, you are beginning to connect with your instinct. Now imagine what you would do in relation to this situation or person if you were not afraid that your behavior seemed strange and the only thing that mattered to you was to act as you feel. Would you increase the amount of time you spend on it or drastically reduce it?
Whether you follow what your intuition tells you or not, watch what happens. If you have connected with your true emotions, you will discover that over time that person or that situation probably proves to be what your instinct predicted. Perhaps you have trusted your intuition throughout your life, and if so, this exercise will not surprise you. But if you tend to pay attention to your thoughts and ignore your emotions, when you do this exercise you may feel something like an epiphany. You may begin to realize that your thoughts made you trust what you didn't deserve, or, on the contrary, made you reject experiences that would have benefited you.