Thinking about something that happened doesn’t cause an emotional reaction, but believing something should or shouldn’t have happened definitely does. Beliefs are deeply held narratives constructed about the world; when these narratives are upheld a person feels good, and when they aren’t a person feels bad. Ironically enough, a person can deeply believe one thing in a firmly held narrative, but logically think and reason the opposite. This causes a person to not be able to act on their thoughts and causes stress, a literal mental stress as the belief and the thought try to find common ground.
