Paul Conti

Among the very most in 20 years of working as a psychiatrist is how we are led by our feelings, our emotions, as if they are truth.

And then they create truth because we embrace what they're telling us as true.

And that is, I think, incredibly, I think it's how people learn prejudice.

I think it's how people learn self-hatred.

I think it's how we learn so many destructive behaviors.

And then the blinders on us come in more and more and more and more.

So separate.

We're driven by what we feel unless we understand that what we feel is different from what we know to be true or what we can decide on one way or another.

Or decide if it means anything.

If I'm mad, someone cut me off and I feel hatred and I want to destroy them, to stop and think, look, I've got that in me.

Are the stressors running too high in my life?

Is it really good?

Should I be on this road 10 minutes behind schedule?

What am I really doing?

So we can learn.

But yes, it's an observation skill.

And it's an observation skill that we can...

develop.

I often think of it, there's something called the tapestry theory, which I think initially was a theodicy of explaining, I believe this is true, I'm not sure of this, that the idea was that, oh, we don't see God's plan because we're up too close to it, right?

Like as if there was a beautiful tapestry on the wall and we're standing right up it, we're only going to see one part of it, we need to stand back from it.