Emotions are not dumb. Damasio’s patients made terrible decisions because they were deprived of emotional input into their decision making. Emotions are a kind of information processing.39 Contrasting emotion with cognition is therefore as pointless as contrasting rain with weather, or cars with vehicles.

Both our thoughts and our feelings can be powerful, but a strong emotion can silence a thought, while we can rarely think ourselves out of a strong emotion. In fact, it is the strongest emotions that will trigger ruminating or incessant thought. We separate the mind as rational from the heart as relational, but ultimately the mind and heart are

We know from neuroscientific research that “emotions organize—rather than disrupt—rational thinking.”