We often hear conflicting advice about emotions:

• “Always trust your emotions—they are your inner compass.”
• “Never trust your emotions—they are irrational and misleading.”
  

But here’s the truth: both beliefs are oversimplified, and both are wrong.

Emotions are neither right nor wrong. They are not reliable or unreliable in themselves. Emotions are simply your body’s reaction to your thoughts—conscious or unconscious.

Where Emotions Come From

Most of the time, emotions are created by our thoughts. Sometimes our unconscious mind reacts automatically to subtle environmental cues (for example, sensing danger or reading someone’s body language). But in the majority of situations, it’s not the external event itself that causes how we feel—it’s our interpretation of it.

This process can be summed up as:

Situation → Interpretation (thought) → Emotion

This is the foundation of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), one of the most evidence-based approaches in psychology. CBT teaches us that we have the ability to change our thoughts, and therefore influence our emotions.

A Simple Example

Imagine you want something you don’t currently have. You might think you’re unhappy because you don’t have it. But that’s not true. You’re unhappy because you’re thinking about not having it.

• If you didn’t care about it, you wouldn’t feel bad.
• If you were distracted by something exciting, like riding a roller coaster, you wouldn’t feel unhappy about it in that moment.

The absence of the thing isn’t what creates the emotion—your thoughts about it do.

Thoughts → Emotions → Decisions → Actions → Results

When you change the way you think, you change how you feel. And when you change how you feel, you make different decisions, take different actions, and ultimately create different results in your life.

This chain looks like this:

Thought → Emotion → Decision → Action → Result

Everything around you—objects, jobs, relationships, technology—started as a thought in someone’s mind. The phone or computer you are using right now exists because someone first imagined it.

Taking Back Control: Meet “Jim”

One useful way to work with your thoughts is to imagine them as a character. Let’s call your stream of thoughts “Jim.”

Here’s how you can handle Jim:

• Ignore Jim – Don’t take every thought seriously. Imagine Jim in a silly costume if that helps you detach.
• Protect Jim – Be mindful of what you expose yourself to. Thoughts can be heavily influenced by external voices (parents, media, authority figures).
• Observe Jim – Watch your thoughts. If you don’t like what you notice, choose a new one.

At first, you might not notice when Jim runs wild. But over time, you’ll catch him sooner and interrupt the spiral. This is the skill of self-awareness: noticing your thoughts before they control your emotions.

Final Takeaway

Understanding that thoughts create emotions is a powerful shift. It means you are not at the mercy of your feelings. You can pause, identify the thought behind the emotion, and choose differently.

This is not about suppressing emotions—it’s about reclaiming your role as the thinker. Because when you change your thoughts, you don’t just change how you feel. You change your entire life.