I used to skip over what was going on in my life. I was always the one that looked like I was fine, and just moved on without truly feeling what was happening. I remember being in a fender-bender fall of 2020 that was not my fault, but all I wanted to do was move on from it. I was comforting the person who hit me. I refused to be angry. I went to work that day, and though I was a little rattled and shaken, I didn’t act any different. I didn’t morn the loss of my car. But it also was not something I wanted to deal with. I didn’t want to talk to the insurance company about what happened, and I didn’t want to look for another car. I was just numb to it all. Does any of this sound familiar?

It becomes so easy for us to just move on and not to feel. Because let’s be honest, feelings are scary. They are uncontrollable, unpredictable, and can sometimes get out of hand. So it is easier to stuff them down, put a happy face on, and pretend they are not there. But then you can’t feel anything. And how will your heart guide you if you can’t feel?

I remember another time applying for so many jobs after I graduated from college in 2020 and I would get a call for an interview here and there, but nothing panned out. I remember how personally I took it. The pain of it. Noticing how it felt to be looked over. Seeing my friends get jobs and I still didn’t have one. I finally was able to get some subbing jobs and that was nice. And my professor helped me find a small part time job in an elementary school. For which I was so grateful. But Pain. This was not part of the plan. I was supposed to be a full time choir teacher. And why? What was this teaching me?

I remember one day, sitting in my life coaches office and he asked me about my heart. And I said, “It is broken. Everything I have tried hasn’t worked and I don’t know what to do.” And then he had me go through a meditation. I was to close my eyes and imagine myself in a beautiful place. I decided we were in a garden. I was to think of an object, a gift even, that I could unwrap. He had me decide what the gift was and as we were in a garden I decided it was a plant. And as I unwrapped the gift this gift, this plant was sadness. And where would I like to put sadness in my garden? I wanted to hide it under a willow tree. This little hosta plant. I noticed I wanted to hide it, cover it even. I wanted it to be in the shade where no one would see it. And yet, I could nurture it here, and water and allow it to flourish and grow. By honoring this feeling, and staying with it even as a friend, I could even love it. And as I did I noticed, the sadness pass through me and transform into this nurturing love and relief. That all the hurt and anger and frustration were just sadness. And to sit with and allow this pain made me into who I am.

I had a new appreciation that day of how emotions could be a way to honor myself. To truly feel, allows for so much love to pass through. And creates movement into a new life. Emotions are there to teach, and guide us to who we truly are. To be vulnerable and exposed is actually a more powerful position because you just are you. No one can argue with it. And no one can take that away from you. It is freedom of expression in its highest form. It is your essence that gets to be seen and people see that and are drawn to it. To love and nurture our feelings is a beautiful process of self knowing and source connecting that cannot happen in any other way but through.

As time went on I realized I was given a gift of NOT working full time. I was meant to do other things and if I was working full time I would not have had the space to create music, and life coach clients. So it was a blessing in disguise that I got to witness things were at work for me to enjoy the gifts I had been given as well as pursue those I wanted to enliven and bring to life. It isn’t all or nothing. And tapping into my emotions brought forth peace, and contentment I would not have realized had I not paid attention and allowed those feelings to come to the surface and be honored.