When Logic Fails: The Secret Dance That Turns Emotional Chaos Into Clarity

People take pride in their sharp logic. But anger can hide hurt, stoicism can cover shame, and even long-term success can fall apart during emotional storms. Decode this silent language through a five-step “tango” that transforms coaching or therapy clients.

Many of my coaching and psychology clients trust their incredible brains. I cannot blame them. Their brains helped them land great jobs and solve many problems in life. If we’re to liken them to a muscle, these brains are bulky, robust, and reliable.

Yet when it comes to feelings, these very same clients struggle.

They struggle with being able to label their emotions. They find it hard to deal with the mess of these feelings. They also struggle with the strange data set that comes from them. You see, logic makes more sense to them.

They can make sense of the data from their logical exploration of their situation. Our thoughts seem rational to us — neat, orderly and with a soothing structure. Yet feelings are tricky for many of us. Disorderly, inconvenient, and without a predictable structure. Based on their life experiences, clients may not know what their feelings are saying. Sometimes, they get it, but connecting their feelings with the strong logic in their heads can still be tricky. This logic often tries to control their thoughts and lives. Some sayings, like “name it to tame it,” can help us understand our feelings.

Sitting with uncomfortable feelings is one of the most powerful things we can do for our well-being.

Could Aussie blokes like me learn a set of skills for feeling and processing their emotions? I work with both coaching and psychology clients on this. Yes, coaching clients are less frequent. A big part of their presentation covers logical topics. These include career issues and the challenges they face. Their challenges often stem from relationship issues, insecurity, disappointment, or fear. Coaching clients may have issues above the neck, but there’s a strong emotional side. Some coaching clients are there because of how they express emotions. They struggle with being able to label their feelings. They find it hard to deal with the mess of these feelings. They also struggle with the strange data set that comes from them. You see, logic makes more sense to them.

But what happens when logic alone can’t untangle the knots of emotion?

There is a treatment modality that delves into emotions in detail. The late Dr. Sue Johnson developed Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT). This evidence-based therapy is built upon attachment theory. EFT therapists guide clients to reflect on their feelings. For many clients, the first step can be tricky. Naming their feelings is key to understanding them. Clients need to share their truth. A coach or therapist can help by encouraging discussions about deeper emotions. This creates a safe space for clients to express and label their feelings, making it a powerful start.

Being a keen tango dancer, Dr. Johnson applied her love of tango to EFT. A five-step concept called the “EFT Tango” helped break down the “dance” of making sense of our emotional landscape.

Avoidance: The Protector from Difficult Feelings. Working beneath the neck is key for both coaching and therapy. Clients can make sense of the data from their logical exploration of their situation. Rewiring thoughts might not change emotions. Skilled coaches and psychologists know the evidence and models behind thought-feeling interrelations. They also consider the way clients interpret their bodily sensations when emotions arise. Psychologists use various modalities, like emotion-focused therapies. These therapies explore the client’s emotions and how to manage them. Emotional experience can seem complicated. Some people prefer to avoid feeling their feelings.

Avoidance tactics like intellectualisation can prevent clients from feeling their feelings. What does “feeling their feelings” mean? It means a process where clients face challenging emotions and sit with them for a while.

Interventions like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy help clients accept challenging situations. This approach is better than avoiding feelings.

Avoidance is like holding a beachball underwater — exhausting and eventually futile.

For coaching and therapy clients, avoidance can happen due to intellectualisation. This is when a strong mind tries to shield the client from uncomfortable emotions. Clients have many choices beyond intellectualisation. These habits may be maladaptive, but they are the client’s choices. These choices have served them for a long time. These choices may feel like addictions, but they remain part of the client’s life. We need to help the client deal with challenging emotions.

The good news? Even deeply ingrained patterns can be rewired — with patience and the right tools.

Contraindications for “feeling the feelings”. What is one thing to consider when encouraging clients to experience their feelings? Trauma. Having clients sit with intense emotions related to a traumatic experience? Please don’t do it. You might re-traumatise the client. This is a high risk if you aren’t trained and skilled in trauma-informed interventions. How do you know you are working with a traumatised client? They either shut down or show emotions that seem too intense for the situation. Or the client tells you not to explore a particular circumstance or topic with them. The client is the one in charge, and we are there to serve them. If unsure, check your profession’s ethical guidelines on trauma work.

Instead, exploring emotions in this context is for clients without trauma histories. They can face challenging emotions and sit with them for a while. Interventions like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy help clients accept tricky situations. This approach is better than avoiding feelings. For coaching and therapy clients, avoidance can happen due to intellectualisation. This is when a strong mind tries to shield the client from uncomfortable emotions.

Step One: Reflect on Current Experiences. We now discuss the first step in the EFT Tango. Based on their life experiences, clients may not know what their feelings are saying. Sometimes, they understand, but linking their feelings to the strong logic in their heads can be tough. This logic often tries to control their thoughts and lives. Some sayings, like “name it to tame it,” can help us start to understand our feelings.

Take ‘naming’ emotions — simple in theory, but it’s like deciphering a foreign language for many clients.

Skilled therapists and coaches alike reflect the client’s feelings. They may pick up the words a client uses to describe their feelings — and the intensity or emphasis on certain words.

Emotions may not readily surface in executive coaching. Coaching clients may have problems that seem “above the neck”, but there’s a strong emotional side. Much of their presentation covers relatively sober and “logical” topics. These include career issues and the challenges executives face. Their challenges often stem from relationship issues, insecurity, disappointment, or fear.

Yet some coaching clients are there because of how they express emotions. Working beneath the neck is key for both coaching and therapy. Rewiring thoughts might not change emotions.

But emotions aren’t puzzles to solve — they’re landscapes to navigate.

Emotion-focused Therapy (EFT) therapists guide clients in reflecting on their feelings. For many clients, the first step can be tricky. Naming their feelings is key to understanding them. Let’s use the example of an executive coaching client. This client is perceived as a bully with intense emotions that push their team away. EFT therapists seek to build rapport with this client. The client may become comfortable in sharing their emotions as a first step in their coaching.

Psychologists use mood and affect as part of a client’s mental status examination. Affect is the outward expression of a client’s emotions. In contrast, mood is the client’s description of their internal emotional state. EFT therapists then move on from reflecting emotions to organising them. Making sense of — and organising — a client’s affect is the next step in the EFT Tango.

Use the client’s words to label their feelings, not yours.

Tools like feelings wheels can help clients articulate their emotions with greater clarity. Think of a child playing with paint. Children start with primary colours. They are easy to understand. As the child develops, they may play with more subtle colour shades. So, too, with adults grappling with emotions. They can learn to express their feelings better as they grow. They gradually use more shades over time. The feelings wheel starts with basic emotions at its centre. These main feelings branch out to show more subtle expressions of the “primary feelings” of “sad”, “angry” or “scared” (for example).

Step Two: Affect Assembly and Deeping Emotion. Clients need to share their truth. A coach or therapist can help by encouraging discussions about deeper emotions. This creates a safe space for clients to express and label their feelings, making it a powerful start. A skilled coach or therapist observes shame or guilt in their client. This shame or guilt (and even anger) surfaces after a client expresses particular emotions or thoughts. Especially if the clients feel vulnerable when expressing themselves. Labelling their shame or guilt with caution may be distressing yet revealing for a client. Remember that the client may want not to continue coaching or therapy after such a big reveal. Yet help them normalise their experience where you can.

Yet what happens when shame stifles even this first step?

Skilled coaches and psychologists call out the sequence of emotions experienced by clients. This is the effort of “organising” or “assembling” affect. A client may not realise the sequence of emotions they experience until we reflect it for them. Hopefully, the client will experience an “A-ha!” moment in step two of the EFT Tango.

How might this apply to our suspected bully client? Over time, the client may see that being open or realising that anger often covers hurt can be a huge step for this client. Usually, they prefer showing anger over any feelings of vulnerability. They might have been punished for being vulnerable as a child. A coach can help by encouraging clients to share their feelings. As many Aussie men might say, “It’s not weak to speak.”

Let’s praise a client who shares this vulnerability.

Sometimes, clients get stuck in endless thoughts about their problems. Reflecting on the client’s emotions and how they land in sequence may seem helpful. Yet clients may still be “stuck”. How do we move forward? EFT is an experiential therapy. Thus, we must deepen our clients’ emotional experiences (in a safe place). How do we do this? By replaying or role-playing tricky encounters that our clients have experienced. Again, if you suspect your client has experienced trauma, then stop here. Instead, let trauma-informed therapists handle the deepening of emotional experiences for your client.

Step “Two Point Five”: Selling Experiments. OK, so I made step “two point five” up. We try to move to step three of the EFT Tango — doing some experiential work with the client. This is where the client might baulk. The client might not be entirely sure why they don’t want to move ahead. You might ask a question like:

“Out of ten, with a score of ten, meaning you are keen to move ahead, and zero is not keen. Where are you?”

You might find the client says six, and you might ask, well, what would need to be in place to move the dial to a seven? And you still might not get a clear answer. The client might feel unsure or scared about trying something new.

Change isn’t a destination — it’s a practice, one emotion at a time.

I learned from emotion-focused therapy to break the intervention into smaller steps. Dr. Sue Johnson, the founder of EFT, called it “slicing the risk thinner.” This way, I don’t have to try a big, scary experiment. Instead of suggesting everything, propose a more minor experiment.

“If a new experiment in coaching or therapy takes 100% effort and risk, what would a 10% version look like? How can we make this risk smaller?”

You might feel like a salesperson trying to sell an intervention. Sales is a noble profession. Salespeople often excel at managing objections. Slicing the risk thinner is a beautiful way to handle objections from the client. We make decisions based on our emotions. Right now, we are discussing how to process these feelings. We’re also discussing how to facilitate change, which is the heart of coaching and therapy. And so emotions aren’t the obstacle. They are, in fact, the driver of big decisions. If we discuss emotions like fear or uncertainty in decision-making, we can reduce the risk. We can do this by making the decision smaller. This helps our client manage their feelings and move forward with us.

How can you craft your sales pitch like a skilful salesperson? Focus on selling the whole intervention. Help the client understand why they feel stuck and why moving forward is essential. You can help the client reduce your intervention. This way, it stays effective but requires less effort or feels smaller. It also gives the client time to process the risk in smaller parts. They might adopt the risk that someone has sliced thinner.

Step Three: Choreographing Engaged Encounters. The next step in this graded experience can help the client tackle challenging emotions in therapy or coaching. This savvy approach can be practical. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be discomforting emotions. It could be emotions with a positive side, but the key is to role-play or create a scenario. This helps clients feel strong emotions. They might fear these feelings or need to deal with them outside of coaching or therapy.

For executives, this might mean confronting darker emotions that mask vulnerability.

As clients face these feelings more, they see that the emotions or their after-effects aren’t as intense as they first thought. Then, they can apply this in the wider world and start new experiments. This way, they can feel and reframe strong emotions, no matter the method used.

Step Four: Processing the Encounter. You can help the client make sense of their experience of the role-play or scenario revisit.

When clients feel strong emotions, they might feel shame or think others are judging them. A therapist can help their client with tough feelings. They talk together to reframe thoughts after strong emotions arise. Clients might worry that their therapist or coach judges them for feeling vulnerable. Challenging this assumption helps them feel and rethink their intense emotions and thoughts. Graded exposure to strong feelings can be a type of exposure therapy.

The executive “bully” client’s example may reveal a twist to their story. They might feel incredible vulnerability when asking for help. They learned that anger was valued and respected during their career. Yet vulnerability was mocked. Role-playing a more vulnerable approach may seem painful and distressing to this client. Yet, in a safe space, they can “don a new hat” and see how it works. They are safe to explore new ways of being. They may also explore assumptions, learned defences, shame and guilt. As a coach or psychologist, you should reflect and challenge respectfully here. Step four is about reframing their interpretation of their emotional data. We move to step five of the EFT Tango — a consolidation of learning.

Step Five: Integrate, Validate, and Reflect the Process. This last step consolidates the client’s insights. What have they learned? How can they make their progress in working with emotional data sustainable?

I see a similar (yet blurry) pattern in many intervention models. Reflecting, organising, experiencing, reframing, and sustaining.

We start by drawing out and reflecting on the client experience. We then help the client make sense of it. Once “organised” into themes, we have a foundation for experimentation. The next step is encouraging this experimentation and getting into that zone of a point where some graded exposure may help. We then reframe the painful or difficult aspects of this experience. This is where some personal change is made. Lastly, how do we acknowledge relapse and build a realistic and sustainable new way of being? In this final step, we remind ourselves of how relapse is normal. We recognise the role of self-compassion in sustaining a hopeful and sincere step towards a better life.

A tricky question, especially in therapy, is, “Do you love yourself?” This question may bring tears to the client’s eyes. Our role is to gently uncover why.

How might our executive coaching clients respond to this question? What steps would you expect them to take to sustain kinder, gentler versions of themselves?

Emotions are indeed a tricky cocktail to manoeuvre with clients. Yet your safe space for clients to explore emotions builds the therapeutic or coaching alliance. They also guide the logical parts of your work with the client. This includes treatment plans and steps to help the client change. But uplift their performance and shape their worldview for the better.

Working with the client’s emotional landscape is tricky and rewarding. This powerful approach can help clients become better leaders and family members. When you connect with your client’s emotions, the ripple effects can be huge.