The Most Logical Thing You Can Do Is Feel Your Feelings
Feeling isn’t indulgent—it’s intelligent
There’s this quiet myth that floats around in our culture: that emotions are somehow irrational, inconvenient, or even dangerous. We’re taught to stay “above” our feelings, to “be logical,” as if feeling and thinking live on opposite ends of some spectrum.
But in reality? One of the most logical, practical, and useful things you can do is develop a relationship with your emotions.
That might sound counterintuitive, especially if you’ve learned to prize control, stability, and reason. But the truth is, emotions are a source of data. They’re part of your internal navigation system. And if you’re not tuned into them, you’re missing access to some of the most accurate, up-to-date information your body and mind have to offer.
Emotions are a form of intelligence
Think about it: when something’s not right in a relationship, your body often knows before your mind does. You might feel a little sick after a conversation or strangely exhausted when someone texts. That’s not random. That’s your emotional system sending signals, before your rational brain has caught up with a story.
When we learn how to listen to those feelings, without panicking or pushing them away, we’re actually making smarter, more grounded decisions. Our nervous systems are constantly scanning our environment, taking in cues we don’t even know we’re registering. Emotions are how that data starts to speak to us.
And here’s the kicker: if you try to “logic your way” through something without that emotional input, you’re basically trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.
Sometimes thinking is actually a way of not knowing
Many of us have developed a brilliant ability to think our way around emotion. We analyze. We rationalize. We debate. We explain. We tell the story a hundred different ways, but never drop into what it feels like.
That makes sense, because sometimes feeling hurts. It’s vulnerable. It might feel like too much. So our minds step in to protect us, and they do a beautiful job of that.
But when that pattern becomes rigid, we stop getting access to the deeper wisdom our emotions are holding.
Because here’s the secret: when you let yourself feel what’s happening, in your body, in your chest, in your gut. You often gain access to something entirely new. A deeper truth. A fresh perspective. A surprising knowing that you didn’t have when you were only thinking about it.
Feeling opens the door to wisdom you can't thing your way into
When I work with clients who are willing to stay with a wave of emotion, really feel it, ride it through, something often opens on the other side. They don’t just feel “better,” they know something new. Like they’ve landed somewhere they didn’t know was available.
I’ve sat with people who are in completely impossible situations, logistically unfixable circumstances that can’t be changed on the outside. But when they go inward, feel what’s true, let themselves drop in fully… something shifts. Sometimes what emerges is an entirely different kind of knowing. A quiet realization: the path to freedom is internal.
That kind of clarity doesn’t come from analyzing the problem. It comes from being present enough to let the truth find you, from inside your own emotional landscape.
Feeling isn't indulgent, It's strategic
This isn’t about wallowing or being run by your emotions. It’s about relating to them. Listening to them. Making space for what they’re trying to show you.
And often, the most surprising thing people discover is that when they finally let themselves feel something they’ve been avoiding, it passes. It shifts. It integrates. The noise quiets down. And the next step becomes clear.
That’s the paradox of emotional work: it’s not about getting stuck in feelings. It’s about getting unstuck from the avoidance of them. And that creates a kind of forward movement that no amount of thinking alone can provide.
Here’s the deal: emotions are happening whether or not you have a relationship with them. They are already moving through your body, already shaping your behavior, already guiding your reactions and instincts. The only real question is whether you want to collaborate with that system or be at its mercy.
Having a relationship with your emotions is strategic because it gives you agency. You can either work with the emotional forces that are quietly running the show, or you can pretend you’re “just being logical” and let them run things unconsciously. But either way, your emotional system is still in the room—powerfully.
So why do we avoid it? Because it’s wild. As Tara Brach (psychologist and author of Radical Acceptance) says, the body is a wilderness. It doesn’t always speak in clean sentences. It can’t be fully controlled. And depending on your early experiences, your social context, your sense of safety, you may have learned that your feelings weren’t welcome, or that they’d swallow you whole. Some parts of you might still believe that if you really felt, you’d be overrun or undone.
So the resistance makes sense. Of course it does.
And that’s exactly why therapy can be such a powerful space, not for “diving in” recklessly, but for beginning to build a relationship with your emotions. Slowly. In a titrated, attuned, safe-enough way. One wave at a time. Because learning how to feel, without getting lost, is one of the most empowering things a person can do.
It’s also worth naming that emotion gets a bad rap partly because people often confuse dysregulation with emotionality. We’ve all seen (or experienced) what it’s like when someone is overwhelmed, volatile, or flooded, and we mistakenly assume that’s what it means to be “emotional.” But that’s not the same as having a healthy relationship to your emotional life. Avoidance is dealing without feeling. Anxious attachment is often feeling without dealing. What I’m inviting here is something else entirely: feeling and dealing, the capacity to stay in contact with what’s true and hold onto yourself while you do.
So what's the practical takeaway?
If you pride yourself on being logical, thoughtful, and pragmatic, this might come as a surprise: many of the most “rational” people are being quietly driven by emotion all the time in a hidden way.
And often, the more we try to cut ourselves off from our feelings, the more those feelings run the show, just outside of awareness.
There’s nothing illogical about emotion. What’s actually illogical is trying to make major decisions, form opinions, or come to conclusions while refusing to factor in the full spectrum of your own internal reality. When you’re running from something, it shapes your thinking and cuts you off from wisdom, whether you see it or not.
Of course, it’s understandable to avoid what feels hard or painful. There’s nothing shameful about that, we all do it. But let’s be clear: avoidance may be human, but it isn’t always wise. And it’s not the same as clarity.
True clarity comes when you’re willing to face what’s actually there, including your emotional truth. And that truth isn’t just important because it’s yours. It’s important because it’s been shaped by millions of years of evolution. Your body and nervous system have been gathering nonverbal, emotional data from your environment, tracking danger, trust, resonance, misattunement, connection, and translating all of that into feeling.
But it’s not just scanning for threat. It’s also tracking what draws you in. What feels right. What brings aliveness or ease. Your emotional system is constantly orienting you, not just away from harm, but toward what matters. Toward meaning, intimacy, possibility, and yes, sometimes even joy.
That internal compass isn’t a flaw in the system. It is the system. And it exists because it serves us.
Nature doesn’t waste time on features that don’t enhance survival or adaptation. This whole system of emotional signaling is part of how we’re wired to know what’s real, what’s needed, and what’s next.
So when you ignore your emotional truth, you’re not just avoiding discomfort, you’re cutting yourself off from some of the clearest, most practical intelligence available to you.
Tuning into that intelligence isn’t indulgent. It’s one of the most strategic things you can do.