How do you feel? How do you feel feelings? Do you embrace your emotions? When you feel a wave of sad or anger coming your way — do you think, “Woooooo, I feel a good cry coming on…sweet!”
When you are walking into a potentially uncomfortable and awkward situation like a first date or a tough situation like visiting a dying relative do you think, “Better not drink today — I need to be really clear headed for this!”
I walk my life living in positivity. I’ve gone to therapy when needed. I ride the rollercoaster of this parenthesis of eternity and live with passion.
While I do express myself, I was raised with a family that want people to be happy. So I was never one to encourage confrontation and preferred to hang out in fairly steady water, even if that required walking on eggshells with a partner or family member just to keep the peace.
Towards the end of my married life, a therapist I was working with had just started to teach me the benefits of not walking on eggshells. I was beginning to speak my truth and find courage to walk in the angry emotion, which didn’t exactly come easy to express. I was growing. That’s when my world as I knew it came crashing down all around me burying my in the rubble.
When my marriage blew up 6 years ago I found myself walking through new emotions I didn’t even know existed. I had absolutely zero control of what emotion would bubble up next. Not when. Not where. Not for how long. I was tossed up onto the roller coaster ride of my life and I was pretty convinced it would never end.
I experienced RAGE.
I never met rage before but ohhhhh did I meet RAGE. I wanted more then anything to break things such as glass art frames on the wall. I remember the feelings with such strength still I’m actually surprised that I didn’t do it. We had tile floor too — talk about millions of shattered pieces on the ground. What a mess. That’s how my life felt at the time. Millions of shattered pieces of my world flying around in a chaos.
I also cried like never before. Tsunamis that would overcome me and knock me down with no warning. Hard hitting early stages of grief (there are 7 stages of grief and I was sitting in the first ones — shock, denial, anger, sadness) would wash over me in completely uncontrollable ways. I’d literally collapse on the floor, snot coming out of my nose, red eyes filled with tears, and wisps of my hair stuck to my face — they were legitimate total meltdowns worse then any that my toddlers had experienced. I’d scream into my pillow as if I was out alone in the forest, yet my family was right downstairs. And oh how I screamed loud!
I knew I needed help. With time, therapy, and a lot of self-awareness and growth, including some incredible body yoga healing therapy I worked through those hard emotions. I had to! I knew if I didn’t, that they would be embedded in my cell tissues and 20 years later I’d wind up in a therapist room spending a fortune so I figured I might as well deal with this shit right then and there.
The key here is I allowed myself this gift of feeling and feeling big! I have so much gratitude to my inner healer and guide for giving me courage and showing me the way without fear, and I got through it.
What’s in the way, is the way.
After I walked through hell and rose like a Phoenix rising, I was so over that “emotional stuff”. I was completely spent — drained and exhausted. That’s when I found myself numbing out. I was over it. I became more neutral, more indifferent, more distracted, and more high. Being a single mother with three kids and a full time career is a lot of pressure. The feeling of being overwhelmed was… well, totally overwhelming — as was the burden of feeling scared or lonely. I knew deep- deep down that my inner healer had my back, and I that I would get through it one day at a time, but it was hard as fuk to wake up, if I even slept as all, and face the reality of my world.
It was such a burden that I found it incredibly easy to numb out with social media scrolling, tinder flirting, sugar, butter, flour, drugs and alcohol. I envisioned my life if I went deeper into the rabbit hole of not feeling. I knew that was a place I didn’t want to visit or move to. I could have easily ended up on path that spiraled downwards fast, but thankfully I caught myself — thank you inner healer, inner teacher, goddess — for holding space for me.
Luckily I found a pen and put it to paper for the first time ever with an intention of sharing my truth and embraced healing. With that I embraced my “me time”; discovering the sacred gift of self-love with yoga retreats, stillness, self-awareness, and self-honesty. I let go of fear and allowed myself to feel…
— All of It
Now I embrace my emotions again. Post emerging from the hell and having crawled and clawed my way out of it; I have so much awareness and sensitivity I realize not only do I feel, I feel BIG. I certainly do not walk on eggshells. I speak my truth even if the consequence is someone will get angry. If they do, so what? I am the boss of my feelings and I can’t guide or fix anyone else’s, and other people certainly can’t fix mine. Sometimes we just need a good cry right? We walk through what’s in the way, get through it, and grow past it.
It’s ok to feel bad, it’s ok to feel angry, it’s ok to feel depressed, it’s ok to feel sorrow. It’s actually our job to go to those places! We can walk there for a limited capacity, for a period of time, we can process, and by doing this we actually propel and enable ourselves to move forward…….how cool is that?
How do you feel?
You have permission to be fragile and vulnerable. Vulnerability is the deepest way to show strength. It’s the most authentic way to show up for yourself. You have permission to go through it and grow through it, moving forward with presence and self awareness, fabulous and shining!
Embracing all emotions.
I’m back at it- in a much stronger space. So bring it.