We Are What We Think, Beating Anxiety and Depression

Jerry Seinfeld made a great joke based on a simple observation: “I read a thing that actually says that speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. I found that amazing – number two was death! That means to the average person if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

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Early one morning a mother entered her sleeping son’s room.”Wake up, son. It’s time to go to school.” “Oh Mom, I don’t want to go to school.” “Son, give me two reasons why you don’t want to go to school.” “One, the kids all hate me. Two, the teachers all hate me.” “Come on son, you have to go to school.” “Oh Mom, give me two good reasons why I need to go to school?” “One, you are forty-four years old. Two, you are the Principal.”

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“Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.”

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What is emotion; a feeling? What then is a feeling? These terms are difficult to fully comprehend and define. For thousands of years people have been attempting to understand this phenomenon and will most likely debate it for a thousand more.

The mainstream definition of emotion refers to a state of feeling involving thoughts, physiological changes, and an outward expression or behavior. But what comes first; the thought, the physiological arousal or the behavior?

To paraphrase the question, are we the products of our emotions, or are our emotions a product of ourselves, i.e., our thoughts? This is a very important question, since it speaks to the heart of our basic human anatomy.

Most people think that emotions produce the thoughts which comprise our reality. Yet one of the most revolutionary teachings of Judaism, as elucidated in Chassidic philosophy, is that the common view is wrong. According to Judaism thoughts beget emotions which in turn beget experience.

In the third chapter of his magnum opus, Tanya – the foundation of Chabad Chassidic philosophy – Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, illustriously describes how the emotional dimension of man is the direct outgrowth of the three intellectual faculties and owes its entire existence and character to the mating of Chachma (wisdom) and Bina (understanding) two major component of the brain.

Let us use the emotion of fear as an example. The sequence according to conventional thinking would be event, fear then thought. This is to say that the emotion is a direct result of the event, thought only comes in afterwards. Chassidus, by contrast, would argue that fear, vis-à-vis a given event, is a product of our thoughts which comprise the experience.

One of the proofs that conventional thinking is erroneous is the fact that the same event does not necessarily produce the same emotion in different people. No two people are guaranteed to have the same reaction to the identical event. A roaring lion, for example, can produce fear in one person and not in another, say, a lion tamer. Similarly, heights can produce fear in one person and not in another. Moreover, the same event is not guaranteed to have the identical effect on the same person each time.

So, if it is not the lion or the heights that produce our fears, then what is it? The answer is our thoughts. It’s our very own ideas, memories, projections, concepts, apprehensions – it’s our own understandings, desires, conditioning and more – which comprise the thoughts that are responsible for our fears. Thought is then what sponsors all emotion.

Thoughts are ideas that we make up. Our thoughts often bear no resemblance to ultimate reality; in fact, they often represent or create distorted realities. While the events in our life are not things we make up, how we interpret them are.

As stated earlier, this is rather a revolutionary idea, since standard brain science claims that it’s the other way around. Neuroscientists maintain that emotion precedes thought as a product of the brain’s limbic system and that “Thought” occurs in the higher regions of the brain which analyze the given emotions.

This whole matter is in fact considerably more intricate than one might imagine. A simple Google search on the subject tends to present hundreds of entries and countless theories. Some include basic biological forces, while others seem to transcend concrete explanation. The following are a few of the major theories related to the acquisition of emotion:

James-Lange Theory:

Event – Arousal – Interpretation – Emotion.
EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster and your breathing deepens. You notice these physiological changes and interpret them as your body’s preparation for a fearful situation. You then experience fear.

Cannon-Bard Theory:

Event – Arousal/Emotion
EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens. At the same time as these physiological changes occur you also experience the emotion of fear.

Schachter-Singer Theory:

Event – Arousal – Reasoning – Emotion
EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens. Upon noticing this arousal you realize that is comes from the fact that you are walking down a dark alley by yourself. This behavior is dangerous and therefore you feel the emotion of fear.

Facial Feedback Theory:

Event – Facial changes – Emotion
EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and your eyes widen, your teeth clench and your brain interprets these facial changes as the expression of fear. Therefore you experience the emotion of fear.

Lazarus Theory:

Event – Thought – Emotion/Arousal
EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and you think it may be a mugger so you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens and at the same time experience fear.

The Lazarus theory is the only one which insists that thought must come before any emotion or physiological arousal. In other words, you must first think about your situation before you can experience an emotion. According to Lazarus, the limbic system produces a thought based-reality from which our emotions emerge. This theory is consistent with Torah.

The difference in whether thought precedes emotion or emotion precedes thought is not merely a technical nuance; it makes all the difference in the world as regards the essential character of the human species.

The fact that thoughts affect feelings is good news, because we can review our thoughts, talk about them, compare them, decide if we agree or disagree with them and most of all adjust them. We don’t have anywhere near as much access to our emotions as we have to our thoughts.

If we are to accept the conventional scientific view that emotions precede thoughts then we are in effect saying that we are mere biological machines; we lack the objectivity to decide which emotions we are going to feel. We accept that we are subject to our emotions and if we wish to overcome them we must do so post factum.

Judaism maintains that we can control the emotions that we produce in the first place; that the mind is greater and far more complex then the brain. By learning how to think right, we are able to improve our overall emotional condition.

The part of our brain that gives us the ability to think, called the prefrontal cortex, is what makes the human brain so specialized, it is what distinguishes us from animals. By refining our thoughts to guide our emotions we can maximize our human potential.

As we learn more about our thinking patterns, we realize our thoughts can trap us into strong negative emotions. Our thoughts form the verbal basis of our internal being. Should we want to improve our emotions, we must learn how to modify our own mental patterns.

Many childish notions linger into our adulthood and tend to frustrate us until we root them out and correct them. When we examine our belief structure regarding other people we sometimes realize that we expect them to place us at the center of their world. We learned to think this way from childhood when we are made to feel like we were the center of the universe; when our parents knew our every need and gave us what we wanted.

We hence believe that others should behave towards us in a certain way, and when they behave differently we feel discouraged, frustrated, or angry.

Upon consideration we may realize that we are upset because of our skewed belief structure regarding the other person’s responsibilities; that the rules we wish to hold them to is part of our own imagination. While it would be nice if everyone focused on us and pleased us, this is not the law of the land.

When we realize that other people are motivated by a range of causes, and that their behavior towards us is not subject to our rules, we can become much healthier. By learning to control our thought process we can lift our spirits and replace our negative feelings with more productive ones.

Often, we find ourselves trying to predict the future. Our mind races ahead as we fantasize about negative events with catastrophic consequences. We become paralyzed with fears about losing our job or home, or about escalating world chaos. Experiencing the upsetting emotions of our dire predictions, we become angry, disappointed, depressed, etc. All of this is based on a reality that has not yet taken place, and probably never will.

By recognizing that we make ourselves miserable when trying to predict the future, we can allow ourselves to back off of our thoughts of gloom, and focus instead on those things over which we have more control.

Similarly, in trying to relate to other people, we find ourselves at times wondering what they are thinking. Since we can’t read their mind, we must guess some of their thoughts. Sometimes our guesses take us into blind alleys.

We create unfounded tensions by assuming that they are judging us, mocking us, manipulating us, and so on, as a result we become enraged or depressed. “Anxiety,” as one man put it, “Is fear of one’s very self.” We can bring our mental state back to equilibrium by recognizing that we have jumped to conclusions about the other person’s thoughts.

Once we recognize that our emotions are based on fantasy and self projection, we can replace them with positive fantasies. Even better, we can learn to verify our fantasies by actually asking the person what he’s thinking.

By realizing that our emotions are based on unsubstantiated fantasies of the other person’s thoughts, or of what might happen in the future, we can begin to relax our grip on these thoughts; we can begin to actively refute our line of thinking.  By changing the negative filter of our own thought stream to a positive one, we become free to experience more productive and more harmonious emotions.

Given the above we can better understand the nature of the sin of the Israelites as described in our Parsha, Shlach.

The Parsha begins with the infamous story of the Meraglim. The Jewish people, on the threshold of entering the Land of Israel chose to send scouts to survey the land. Ten of the twelve spies returned with a negative report that demoralized the nation and struck fear in their hearts; causing them to question the whole enterprise.

The result of this upheaval was nothing short of catastrophic: instead of going into the Land of Israel immediately, the people were forced to wander in the desert for 40 years during which time the generation that had left Egypt died out.

The question that seems to stand out is what after all was so terrible about the sin of the Meraglim? Were they not sent by Moshe with G-d’s permission? Were they not instructed to report the facts? Is that not exactly what they did?

Even if we consider their report as deliberately slanted, why should the entire nation be punished for being misled by a small group? Based on the information they received was their no basis at all for trepidation? No one would suggest that their frantic emotions of panic and fear were disingenuous.

Furthermore, even if the people’s initial reaction was improper, immediately afterward they repented by declaring their willingness to take the challenge of conquering the Land.

It seems that the entire crime is predicated on their having become weak and overwhelmed by fear. But is fear really such a terrible crime? It is after all a legitimate emotion. Is it even possible to be in charge of our emotions, let alone accountable?

However, according to our earlier depiction of the origins of our emotions, the answer is yes, yes and yes. Given the fact that our emotions are the direct outgrowth of our thought process, we are indeed able and expected to govern and take full responsibility over them.

And that, in the end was the cardinal sin of the Meraglim and the generation of the desert. They allowed themselves to become emotionally vulnerable. Knowing all that they knew and having seen all that they saw about G-d’s miraculous abilities, they clearly had the wherewithal to take charge of their doubts and fears, yet they allowed themselves to be overcome by their emotions.

The lesson that we are meant to take away from this extraordinary episode is relevant to every Jew in all times and in every place. We are not only expected to be in control over our actions but also over our feelings and emotions. Hence we are commanded to love and fear the Lord and the many other commandments that require our emotional commitment.

Most importantly we can learn from this episode that we must never allow our emotions to take control over us and drag us into a state of fear, anxiety and depression. The fact that our emotions so decree, is never an excuse, for as stated above, our emotions are the direct product of our thought process and when we learn to control our thoughts we inherently gain the ability to control our emotions.

It has been said that: “Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.” Indeed, the opposite of anxiety is not tranquility but rather “Faith.”

May we take to heart the lesson from the episode of the Meraglim and learn to better employ the attribute of faith in our lives ‘. Our lives will hence be permeated with hope, joy and positive energy, which will in turn hasten the coming of Moshiach BBA.