I grew up in a corporate culture where expressing emotions was seen as a career limiting move. Frustrated because I couldn't properly express myself and constantly being coached by HR advisors, I began to suppress my emotions and with that my thoughts too...I was assimilating and soon I had become someone I didn't recognize: successful (depending on your definition of success) stressed out and burnt out.
You see, as organization, we lose valuable thinking when we don't allow people to express their emotions. "E"motion: Energy in Motion, is the energy that allows us to move our thoughts forward to action, out of our minds and into the conscious world to be shared. Emotion also helps our thinking stick. I am not saying allow for raving lunatics, but create a safe environment for emotions to be expressed. When I work with teams we look at how the team, as a system, is allowing for the expression of emotions. Then we come up with strategies that support an inclusive environment for the sharing of emotive thinking. Design thinking is another framework that facilities the expression of emotion through play, drawing and writing on post-it notes with Sharpies... who doesn't like playing with Sharpies? Most of our innovative insights are expressed through emotion... kind of like Archimedes shouting "Eureka" as he leapt out of his bath and ran through the town of Syracuse naked when he discovered that the volume of water displaced was equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged... let the movement begin!
Most importantly, expressing (letting go of) our thoughts with emotion allows for our thoughts to leave our very full minds and affords the space for new thinking and insights. For that moment in time, we are extremely present. So, conclusion: Thoughts + Emotions = Movement x Action Now my mind is full!