When Emotions Drive Decisions: From Survival Mode to Thriving

Trish Heitz
Sep 22
3 min read

Updated: Oct 6

Understanding the Emotional Mind

We all like to think we make clear, rational choices in business, relationships, and everyday life. However, the truth is that most of us often make decisions from an emotional mind without realizing it.

When you’re emotionally charged, seeing the facts becomes challenging. Your brain struggles to utilize executive functions. Instead of responding, you react. Decisions are shaped more by survival instincts than by reason or logic. This is the trap of survival mode: everything feels urgent, personal, and heavy.

The DBT Framework: Emotional Mind vs. Logical Mind

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) explains that we operate from three states of mind:

Emotion Mind: Decisions driven by feelings, impulses, and past wounds. This is where we might overspend when stressed, lash out in anger, or shut down during conflicts.
Reasonable/Logical Mind: Decisions based purely on facts and analysis. While this is helpful for business planning and problem-solving, overusing it can dismiss emotional truths.
Wise Mind: The balance between the two, where logic and emotion integrate into grounded, intuitive clarity.

Most of us bounce between emotional mind and logical mind, rarely pausing to reach wise mind.

My Story: Living in Survival Mode

For years, I made decisions based on emotion. I didn’t know what truly served me; I just knew I had to survive. I believed my value came from proving I could rise after every crash. My pattern was simple: crash, rebuild, crash, rebuild. Even during my kidney cancer diagnosis, I thought my worth lay in showing resilience by overcoming.

If I’m honest, yes, I wanted to live for my children. But beneath that, my survival mode belief was that I had to prove my value by pushing through pain. My emotional mind drove my choices—no logic, no balance, no alignment.

Belief Transformation: From Surviving to Thriving

Things changed when I began studying the mind/body relationship. I discovered unconscious beliefs that were driving my life. Recognizing this was valuable. I created and practiced my D.A.R.E. Your Beliefs Method.

Like DBT, it recognizes emotional vs. logical states. However, it goes deeper: it transforms the root beliefs that keep us stuck in emotional reactions. Here’s how it works:

Discover (D): Notice when emotions and unconscious beliefs are driving your choices.
Assess (A): Separate facts from feelings. Ask yourself where the belief came from and whether it’s really true.
Recreate (R)/Release (R): Build a new, empowering belief that aligns with your authentic self. Once the new belief is in place, letting go of the old one becomes natural.
Expand (E): Anchor your new beliefs into daily life. Catch yourself when pulled back, and create a new comfort zone baseline of peace and clarity.

This is where the shift happens: from reacting emotionally to responding with resilience and wisdom. You move from survival mode to thriving mode. You become aware of old beliefs and can recognize when those patterns try to return, allowing you to pivot.

Business, Relationships, and Beyond

Think about how often the emotional mind shows up in everyday life:

A boss who explodes instead of calmly addressing the facts. (What beliefs are present driving that reaction?)
A partner who hears criticism through the lens of old wounds. (The belief of not being enough.)
An employee who stays silent in a meeting because a belief whispers, “You’re not enough.”

When you experience an emotional reaction, you can feel it in your body. That is your first signal. Pause and ask: Is this decision coming from emotion or from fact? Breathe through it until the energy in your body becomes silent.

Then, you start accessing clarity, resilience, and your authentic self.

From Reacting to Thriving

Emotions aren’t inherently bad. They are signals. However, when they dominate, they distort reality and keep you in survival mode. This mode will not serve you in moving forward.

The transformation occurs when you observe the emotion, assess the facts, recreate the belief, release the old one, and expand into thriving. That’s how you stop proving your worth and start living it.