BCA Holistic Mental Health Therapy – a car analogy to explain our emotional powers

Imagine in very basic terms a car and it functions. The tires move the car. The steering wheel directs where the car goes. The gasoline powers the engine.

Now, let’s relate how a car functions to how people function. The car’s tires are like our behavior and make us move. The car’s steering is like our thinking and provides direction. The car’s gasoline is like our emotions which provides power.

Driving the analogy a little bit further we realize that the steering is under our direct control, active and engaged in our unique and individualized approach to adjusting for each driving situation and style of vehicle. We can also improve our steering skills and abilities to drive through more complex situations. Steering is very much like our own unique thinking process. 

On the other hand, gasoline isn’t under our direct control, active or engaged with the road or driving conditions. The gasoline just sits in the gas tank until it travels to the engine to be used for internal combustion, and remains unaware and uninvolved with the outside world. We cannot improve our gasoline burning skills or abilities, but we can make the gas more powerful.

Gasoline is universal and basically the same in all cars and situations. Gasoline is very similar to our basic emotional powers, such as happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised and others.[1] So, clearly the roles of gas and steering are different. Emotional gas gives us power. Intelligent steering gives us direction.

Question: What’s most helpful if a car starts heading off the road towards a cliff?

A: Change the gasoline.     B: Change the steering direction.     C: Change the tires

If you said, “B: Change the steering direction” that is effective, clear and useful advice. It redirects where you are headed and keeps you on your desired road of life. That is also viewing emotions as power. You are not trying to change the gasoline, learn from the gasoline or use gasoline as a guide. That is, you are not suddenly feeling comfortable in your gas tank perspective of driving over the cliff. Instead, you are aware of the gasoline powering the car, but are thoughtfully changing the direction you are headed.

If you picked, “C: Change the tires” that could be slightly useful if the tires or behavior are in really bad shape. However, the impact of bad tires can be easily corrected by adjusting the steering direction. This answer also recognizes emotions as power and steering as an intelligent guiding direction.  

If you answered, “A: Change the gasoline,” that is the popular, polarizing and rationalizing answer of viewing emotions as intelligence and that you can learn from emotions and they can be wise and insightful guides. That there is good or bad gasoline, and that the gasoline somehow can learn to understand situations and be taught to steer better, or at the very least, how to not power bad steering or wobbly wheels. In focusing on changing the gasoline, the steering process is ignored and skills are underdeveloped. The impact of bad wheels is unaddressed. Also ignored is the essential and complex process of how gasoline is harnessed by the engine which interacts with the transmission to move the car. The challenge of learning more effective and efficient steer abilities of the car is also unaddressed. Furthermore, thinking of emotions as intelligent is like letting go of the steering wheel, which creates drama and loss of control, as we believe we are following the insightful guidance of our gasoline. Letting go of the wheel impacts our relationships. Letting go of the wheel is like shutting down and withdrawing from dealing mindfully or intelligently with an approaching difficult situation.

To be honest, I don’t think this approach really works. I don’t understand how it could actually work – steering by gasoline – using emotions as insightful passionate guides, or learning from our emotions. But, I kind of understand how we got there. It is related to several things starting with the ease of blaming emotions. Blaming emotions is kind of fun, exciting and powerful, but misguided as it often increases drama and decreases control leading to shutting down or blowing up. Everyone at times enjoys the passion and freedom to not care or think about anyone or anything and just go with their emotional flow. Releasing our powerful emotional flow with few constraints can be highly inspirational or very destructive. With mindful planning, we can harness and enjoy the positive emotional outburst which inspires us to be “in the zone”, but more often we suffer the unintended consequences of poorly handled impulsive and thoughtless emotional explosions.

Other reasons for trying to steer by gasoline are: 1) confusing thoughts with emotions and not clearly understanding their roles and functions; 2) discomfort and avoidance of overwhelming emotions, like driving too fast, which leads to inadequate skills and structure to manage those high speeds; 3) intellectual hubris that the world should adjust to our desires or theories, such as creating gasoline that can drive; and 4) using cognitive distortions, such as catastrophizing to create drama and conflicts, or emotional reasoning that it feels good being in the gas tank while driving towards the cliff.

Thinking of emotions as guides, we often drive where we don’t mean to go by blurring the nature and function of gasoline and steering to suit our desires and then blame the crash on the gasoline. While letting go of the steering wheel may be thrilling and give us an adrenaline rush, steering by gasoline doesn’t work and often leads to unintended hurtful and destructive consequences. Especially if you like nice cars. Especially if you care about yourself or other people in the car.