The Feeling That's Stealing Your Focus

I spent years white-knuckling through difficult feelings, thinking that was strength.
It was not.
It was just exhausting.

One shift, from being your feeling to having it, changes everything.

When we are the emotion, we lose the space to respond; we can only react.
But when we have the emotion, we can feel it without fusing with it.
It becomes something within us, not something we are.

💡 Language reveals and reinforces identification.

Saying “I am sad” fuses identity and state; our whole being becomes sadness.
Saying “I have sadness” acknowledges the same emotion without surrendering authority.

We can feel the feeling, hold it, examine it, even act in alignment with our values while it is present.

⚙️ Why This Matters for Productivity

Acceptance of feelings begins here, not by controlling, erasing, or stomping on them,
but by reclaiming ownership of how we relate to them.

And that ownership is what keeps productivity frictionless.
When we resist a feeling, energy leaks into self-management, energy that could be spent creating, deciding, or finishing.

Resistance shows up in subtle ways:

• Arguing with what is: insisting things should be different than they are.

• Replaying stories: looping the same internal narrative instead of taking action.

• Tightening the body: bracing against discomfort rather than breathing through it.

Every ounce of attention spent fighting emotion is attention stolen from our work.

But when we accept what is present, I have anger, I have frustration, I have fear, our energy is freed for action.
Focus returns.
The work moves forward, not because the feeling disappeared, but because it no longer runs the show.

🌧️ How to Practice “Having” Your Feelings

Imagine standing in the middle of a storm.
Rain slants sideways. Wind howls. Branches snap.

When you are the storm, you are flung around by it.
When you have the storm, you notice the rain on your skin, the sound of the wind, the crack of branches, but your feet stay planted.
You can feel everything without being swept away.

Try this:

1. Name it out loud.
   When a feeling hits, say: “I have frustration.”
   The language matters. Feel how using “have” creates the space to experience it cleanly and clearly.

2. Locate it in the body.
   Notice if there is a physical sensation Where does it live? Heat in the chest? A tight jaw? A pulse in the hands?
   Noticing the physical sensation anchors the experience. It becomes tangible, not abstract.

3. Feel it fully.
   Let the feeling move. No resistance. No judgment. No rush to fix.
   This is not always easy; some feelings grip hard.
   What you will find though, is that when you make the momentary effort to experience it fully, it will morph and shift and resolve. You will have ‘digested’ the feeling, not simply dismissed it. Feel that lightness.

From that grounded place, productivity glides, frictionlessly.
The quality of our output depends not only on time or tools but on how we engage with and relate to our inner state.
Your system will work better when you have a clearer emotional field within yourself.

🌿 The Takeaway

The next time a feeling surges, pause before you name it.
Notice the first impulse to say I am.
Then shift it: I have.

That single word redraws the boundary between you and what you feel.
Making that shift reclaims your innate awareness.
You are not the current; you are the riverbed it runs through.

And here, quietly, lies the secret of true productivity.
Our capacity to act depends on our capacity to stay.
To stay productive, even when discomfort arises.
To keep moving through the task while the emotional weather changes overhead.

This week, try this.
Practice having your feelings instead of being them.
Let them move through like weather, gray, then bright, always changing.
Feel them fully. Stay rooted.
And keep your attention on what matters most.

Cheers,
Alessandra

 Want more like this?

The Productivity Manifesto dives deeper into the mindset behind frictionless action.
Read Directive 4 in full, or start from the beginning to rebuild your relationship with resistance, one shift at a time.
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