Reminder: It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to welcome whatever is arising—physically, intellectually, emotionally—and hold space for it, good, bad or neutral.

I’m sending this reminder because I’ve had several conversations about this recently with clients and colleagues and I have personally been appreciative of the reminder.

Our emotions and our thoughts are held in our body. And the more we ignore them, the more they get stuck internally, the more havoc they wreck upon the body and mind, and the harder they become to release.

It’s important that we allow our emotions to come, to acknowledge them with compassion, so they can leave us. But this isn’t always easy. I’m the type of person who goes first to create walls around difficult emotions, push them down and away, and hope they’ll just disappear.

But the reality, what I’ve learned from personal experience, is building walls and pushing the emotions down doesn’t make them disappear. Weeks or months down the road I start feeling the effects. And boy, let me tell you that is when it gets UGLY.

A former client of mine and a good friend called me recently with an update about her life and two things she said, which she gave me permission to share, really stuck out to me.

One: She told me that she realized how important it was to check-in and notice what was arising internally so she could take the steps she needed to take to find joy and balance (physical, mental, and emotional) in her life, something she had learned from our time together but hadn’t fully internalized until recently. Recently she decided to fully listen and allow her emotions, through which she was able to to make difficult decisions that, while at the beginning were painful, in the end it lead her to a lighter and more empowered place.

Two: She said, “What is the point of living if we don’t allow ourselves to feel.”

Mic drop. 🎤

This is such a good reminder. Living IS feeling.

But it’s also important to remember that while it is imperative to feel, it’s also important to stay within our window of tolerance and work through them little by little. We don’t need to—and honestly shouldn’t—bring up everything at once. It’s all about taking small steps.

When we start working through these emotions, it’s important to have an inner resource we can turn back to so we can ground and center ourselves again. You might be thinking: what the heck is an inner resource? An inner resource is an image, memory, or sensation in the body that allows us to feel comforted, at ease and safe that we can use whenever we’re feeling a little overwhelmed.

One of my inner resources that I go to is the memory of a stunning forest my husband and I walked through it when we did part of the Camino Primitivo (the original Saint James’ Way pilgrimage from Oviedo to Santiago de Campostella). The forest was so incredibly magical. Honestly it seemed as though I walked into land of the fairies. Luscious green, with butterflies flitting from bush to tree and dappling sunlight lighting up emerald patches of moss and pretty little purple flowers. I go back to that place and feelings of ease, contentment and pure joy flow through my body.

When I work with private clients, especially when we are working with somatic healing and release work, I always start with having them to connect with an inner resource and building it into their practice so it becomes easier to return to when the big feels come along. We need to feel, but we also need to feel supported and safe in that feeling.

And please, don’t forget that it’s also okay to reach out for support when it feels like too much to handle on your own or when you don’t know how or where to start.

I am currently accepting a couple new clients into my schedule, so if you’re feeling like extra support is needed, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Either hit reply and send me an email or book a free consultation.