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