why listening to your body beats a pros and cons list

stop thinking, start scanning

I stand at the ice cream shop, torn between choices. A part of me wants novelty, another part fears disappointment. Coconut-curry flavor whispers exotic possibilities; chocolate radiates quiet confidence. The cashier is becoming visibly impatient. Screw it, I’ll just go with chocolate. 

I spend a lot of time standing at the crossroads. Careers, relationships, health, children, finances, ice cream. The small ones add up. The big ones build the most inner confusion and turmoil. Solution? Just make a pros and cons list! Simple. 

But the hardest decisions can’t be reduced to a few lines on a notepad. They call for listening to your intuition. Tuning into your deepest intentions. And an integration of what our mind and our body know.

Pondering over a list of variables, we still feel uneasy. Even after the decision, there can be a lingering feeling of not-okayness mixed in with a bit of doubt or FOMO. To get unstuck we need to move beyond the list. 

Where does stuckness come from?

I had been thinking about quitting my full-time job. I made a pros and cons list. The pros far outweighed the cons. However, I stayed, going through the motions. Then one day the CEO sat me down and asked me what my career plan was. I paused. “I don’t see myself staying here for much longer,” I said, both of us a little surprised. 

Intellectually, I knew that I should’ve quit, but an emotion kept me stuck. That day I was able to name a feeling that had been building up inside of me. It was felt, expressed and acknowledged. No longer feeling bottled up and stuck, the feeling of fear dissolved into something more action-oriented: courage. 

Stuckness comes from feelings that have been unfelt and unprocessed. When feelings are felt, they naturally and spontaneously change. When they are not fully felt – blocked by defense mechanisms like suppression, repression or distraction – then we remain stuck in that feeling. The feeling needs to be fully felt in order for us to move forward.

Eugene Gendlin explains this idea:

“What is split off, not felt, remains the same. When it is felt, it changes. Most people don't know this! A few moments of feeling it in your body allows it to change. That's the only way it can evolve and change into the form it needs.”

Decision-making isn’t purely logical

The big decisions in life are often emotional, not purely logical. People with damage to areas of their brain responsible for emotional processing have a hard time deciding. That’s because we are not robots.

The good news: emotions are short-lived when felt fully. Research shows that the physiological response of an emotion lasts about 90 seconds. If you allow yourself to really sit with it (your difficult decision), the feeling evolves naturally, and clarity follows.

The even better news: Releasing feelings generally brings in another one at a higher vibration. In my story about quitting my job, my fear turned to courage. This is what Rumi meant when he said, “treat each guest [your emotions or challenge] honorably, he may be clearing you out for some new delight.”

The power of the body scan

Making a pros and cons list comes from a problem-solving mindset. Our emotions, however, are not problems to be solved. We can only find emotional freedom through allowing emotions to be just as they are. When you feel tangled knots and like you’re being pulled apart, these are feelings inside of you that are begging you to pay closer attention. 

Your ability to sense your internal bodily sensations (heartbeat, tension, temperature, etc.) is correlated to clearer decision-making. Your stomach and heart even have neurons—mini-brains helping you process and decide. To access this wisdom, you need to tune into your body’s signals. A body scan is the simplest way to do this.

Here’s how:

1. Find a quiet space and sit or lie down

2. Slowly scan your body from head to toe, noticing sensations like warmth, tension, or tingling

3. If certain areas feel numb or unclear, that’s okay—keep scanning

4. Allow any emotions to surface without judgment

5. You can alternate scanning slowly and quickly

This practice creates space to fully feel your feelings without adding mental stories or pressure to “fix” them. Zero agenda here. That might prompt you to express your feeling in some way — maybe you want to make a facial expression or scream into a pillow – that’s fine. Allow it to come out.

What happens next is that the feeling starts to soften and you can circle back to the decision with a greater sense of ease/clarity, and from a new embodied and resourced emotional state.

What this looks like practically speaking

Growing up I never got a guidebook on emotions from parents or teachers that I can remember. They only let me know what behaviors were okay/not okay, and I absorbed whatever beliefs they had about emotions. Not to mention trauma that came from childhood. It has taken unlearning and relearning to get in touch with my body and inner compass. 

Nowadays when I have a big decision to make, I pause before going into problem-solving mode. Instead I make space for the challenge to unfold. I allow myself to name what I am feeling and notice it in my body.

For example, the other day my wife and I had an argument. “So what should we do?” she asked. I told her I don’t know, but let’s understand what’s underneath it first. I allowed myself to stay in touch with my body as we spoke. After talking, feeling and more expression, the problem solved itself. 

I am always checking in with myself. Throughout the day and before, during, after a meeting, I am constantly scanning my body. This is how one stays embodied. Practicing this makes it automatic. So instead of scrolling your phone, scan your body. Game-changer.

Don’t forget compassion

None of this works if you take a critical or forceful approach. Sometimes I get impatient and just want to “be better” or rush to find out the right solution. This doesn’t work, and it’s like a Chinese finger trap – it only gets tighter. 

In Buddhism there’s the idea of the Two Arrows. The first arrow is the inevitable pain in life. The second is our reaction to it. But the second arrow is optional. We make things worse by reacting. 

The antidote to ‘second-arrowing’ our life is to pay close attention to our experience, no matter how uncomfortable, and let things be. However, this is easier said than done. What is often needed to let things be is more love. This could simply mean finding gratitude for the situation, naming the feelings with empathy, fostering patience and giving yourself words of kindness during a challenging time. This will then allow you to soften. 

Balancing heart and mind 

Lastly, in the spirit of Buddhism I think it’s wise to take the Middle Path. In a recent retreat I guided, I experimented with only listening to the heart. My mind freaked out and I woke up with a crazy fast heartbeat (“pay attention!”). So I paid attention to heart and mind, and the issue softened. The rest of the retreat flowed smoothly. 

In balancing heart and mind, or Heartmind as they say in Daoism, it means we don’t need to throw out the pros and cons list. It’s not either/or. That could be going to one extreme. Your mind has some great ideas and is a compass, too. Make room for both the heart’s desire and the mind's consideration.

So next time you’re stuck, tune into your body closely and listen with compassion. Take your time. And by all means make a pros/cons list. By doing both, you’ll find decisions don’t just happen—they arise naturally, with more clarity and ease.