This seems like an obvious idea, but I think it should be explicit, especially when it comes to thoughts in the context of emotions.
Our emotional state plays a very big role in the feelings and thoughts we have. Since our emotions are irrational, we can have thoughts and feelings that feel very true to us — true to our core — yet be inaccurate.
When experiencing strong emotions (such as those that accompany grief), it is easy to go down thought spirals that lead to dark places. While it is very valid to think these thoughts and feel the associated feelings, it would behoove us realize and keep in mind that the thoughts we have during these emotional states are necessarily irrational.
Instead, we should examine our thoughts to understand them and ultimately ourselves. This will allow us to think rationally to judge our ideas fairly rather than succumbing to emotional decision-making.
Despite emotional thoughts being irrational, it still makes sense to capture and process them. The thoughts could be weeds that need to eventually be pruned, but we don’t know that until we try to integrate the thoughts into our knowledge framework.