emotions and reasons

The impulse to withdraw is often an emotional reaction which doesn't even make sense to me, but it's so compelling. I think, I just have to give up on this or that, and I don't really want to but I think I have to.

Then I decide, no, I'm not going to give up. That's what they call the 'wise mind' in dialectical behavior therapy. There's the emotional mind which is a powerful influence but isn't very rational, and then there's the rational mind, which is logical but lacking in empathy. 

When you are reacting emotionally, and you don't even know why you are speaking and acting a certain way, except that it just seems like what you should do, and then you think about it and decide what you really want to do, and you change your mind about what you were going to do - that's exercising your wise mind. 

Wisdom requires both kinds of thinking.