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Cool to hear your guys' thoughts. After my third post yesterday I realized all of my posts were close to the character limit and was worried it might discourage people from posting.
I really agree that reflection and self-expression are extremely valuable, and it's not just an anecdotal or personal-opinion type of thing, either. I read a book a while back written by an FBI agent who specialized in negotiating with terrorists and kidnappers. He had many tactics for different situations, but one surprised me the most: he would tell the criminals what he assumed to be their worst fears.
>“It looks like you don’t want to come out,” I said repeatedly. “It seems like you worry that if you open the door, we’ll come in with guns blazing. It looks like you don’t want to go back to jail.”
>...
>Then I asked them the question that was most nagging me: Why did they come out after six hours of radio silence? Why did they finally give in? All three gave me the same answer.
>“We didn’t want to get caught or get shot, but you calmed us down,” they said. “We finally believed you wouldn’t go away, so we just came out.”
>...
>In one brain imaging study, psychology professor Matthew Lieberman of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that when people are shown photos of faces expressing strong emotion, the brain shows greater activity in the amygdala, the part that generates fear. But when they are asked to label the emotion, the activity moves to the areas that govern rational thinking.
>In other words, labeling an emotion—applying rational words to a fear—disrupts its raw intensity.
It's sort of like this coastline. It's beautiful, but if you're surrounded by trees or further back in the woods, you might feel lost or frustrated or not even know it's there. Reflection and self-expression can help get you off the ground.
