I used to believe that being stable meant keeping my intellect in charge. It turns out I was really trying to quieten the discomfort that comes when life feels unpredictable, paradoxical, or complex.

It is easier to see this pattern in others than in myself. Early in a client engagement, a senior partner described her challenges. I noticed her formidable intellect that served her clients well: she made quick connections, anticipated every risk, and out-thought everyone in the room. Yet when her husband expressed hurt that she missed family events, she replied with data: “Statistically, that’s not true”. For decades she had measured her worth by output. When her body protested with fatigue and irritability, she saw it as another challenge to overcome. As she spoke, her language precision sharpened while her body awareness faded. Silence made her uneasy because it exposed what her mind could not control.

Most of us were taught to calm down before acting. “Count to ten”. “Don’t let your mouth write a cheque your brain can’t cash”. Sensible advice, except I mistook emotional regulation for emotional suppression. Suppressed emotions are like buoys. I can hold them down for a while, but the effort drains me, and they spring back harder when I release them.

Emotion is the body’s first signal, a biochemical wave triggered by stimulus. When I suppress emotion in favour of logic, I lose access to essential data that make reasoning coherent and reliable. It is like refusing to read the sea itself — ignoring darkening clouds or shifting tides — and trusting only the weather app.

For years I tried to solve for stability by silencing emotion, then constructing a tidy narrative to defend my choices. But the effort to keep those buoys submerged drained clarity and narrowed my capacity to think coherently and reliably.

I see the same pattern in professionals trained to operate under pressure — executives, clinicians, lawyers — expected never to make mistakes while steering through unpredictable change and complexity. They confuse stabilising with suppressing, believing still waters mean safe passage. In truth, ignored emotional undercurrents create riptides that pull us off course. It can show up anywhere: a founder over-planning before meeting the board to avoid anxiety, a parent snapping after a long day.

Suppressing emotional intelligence diverts energy and reduces the number of factors I can consider. I end up handicapping my thinking and creating what I think of as syntax errors in my reasoning.

Real stability arises when body, feeling, and thought work in coherence, each informing the other.

I keep asking myself what emotions I’ve been trying to keep underwater.

And you?