Stop Running From Emotions—And Start Being More Productive

A few years ago, when I attended Zen classes at the Buddhist Society in London, the abbot urged us to refrain from “picking and choosing,” in his words, which parts of our day-to-day life we welcomed and which we rejected. As he put it, the fundamental “work” of Zen is to commit to being with whatever emotional energies arise and allow them to transform you. 

Although a Zen monk might look calm on the outside, they commit to feeling all their feelings. The serene expression on their face may belie a tumultuous emotional interior, like the swan that floats gracefully on the lake while its unseen legs paddle with intense fervor. Being fully present with all the intensity of your emotions doesn’t mean you have to act them out.

For much of my life, I struggled with picking and choosing. It’s not that I don’t have access to my emotions—in fact, I can feel them pretty clearly. It’s that I really don’t like some of them. Any expression I may have had, serene or otherwise, would have come from avoiding my feelings, not by maintaining equanimity in their presence.

In professional contexts, the desire to not feel anxiety, inadequacy, or fear of judgment led me to procrastinate or kept me from putting myself forward for opportunities that would have advanced my career. The work always got done, but with a lot more suffering than was necessary. Instead of just allowing feelings to show up and be there while I went about my business, my habitual response was to distract myself from the ones I didn’t want to feel. 

Now, as a solopreneur in a world of infinitely scrolling social media, a to-do list longer than my arm, and chocolate in the cupboard, finding ways to push away those “bad” feelings isn’t hard—but it comes at a cost.

The truth is that something happens the moment you stop resisting your feelings: they start to change and move through you more freely. A stuck emotion that has been with you for years can transform in just a few minutes—if you commit to feeling it fully. 

So let’s explore why welcoming the full spectrum of emotions can be so challenging—and how your life can change for the better when you finally stop resisting.

Emotions are not thoughts

Emotions manifest as physical sensations in the body, where the different patterns of sensation map to different emotions. Since people with damage to the brain regions responsible for emotions have significantly reduced capacity to make decisions, the capacity to feel emotion is clearly critical for navigating life. (Jonny Miller already covered this in detail, so I encourage you to read that next.)

Thoughts, on the other hand, seem to show up in the head, whether in the form of inner speech, visual images, or something more abstract. If you’re someone who can hear your own voice in your head, you may be surprised to learn that not everyone does. Conversely, if you don’t experience a voice in your head, you may be surprised to learn that people who report that they do aren’t just speaking metaphorically.

However thought shows up for you, it’s still not emotion, and it’s important not to confuse the two. This is not to say that thoughts and the feelings of emotion are entirely separate things, either. Instead, it’s useful to remember that mind and body are one unified process. 

Let’s say you get an email from your manager or an investor that says, “We need to talk.” How might you respond?

You might feel a tingling in your solar plexus, which suggests excitement. At the same time, you think: maybe I’ve secured the funding round?

You might feel warmth across your head and chest with a pounding heart, which suggests anger. At the same time, you might think: how dare they be so inconsiderate and not give me more information? 

You might feel cold or numb, which suggests fear. At the same time, you might think: maybe I messed up, and I’m about to get fired?

Whatever happens, the feelings in your body are a vital part of the experience of emotion, and listening to your inner stream of consciousness and inferring an emotion from thoughts is not the same as directly experiencing the kaleidoscope of sensations in your body.