Just feel it

Though we may understand the importance of acknowledging our feelings, we don't always feel them.

We believe we are doing so, but we might just be thinking things through, intellectalizing our hurt, wallowing in it, rationalising our emotions, chasing good feelings, or simply worrying - constantly replaying trauma in our minds.

This exacerbates suffering.

Healing requires us to suspend all mental strategies to escape pain or discomfort. It is an invitation to really feel what is burning inside, to sit with what is - without taking anything out nor adding something on top.

Healing is our capacity to become naked to ourselves, to feel the rawness of an emotion all the way through until we discover what exists at the bottom of it all that remains untouched, that simply cannot crumble or be destroyed - even as we go through some of our worst moments.

In the end, healing is the courage to face our primal fear of death; a willingness to die without dying; to embrace our deepest shadow in the here and the now; to take in the totality of life and hold it in our hearts.

Letting go then becomes natural. Surrender, effortless. Healing is no longer something we chase, but something that begins to follow us.

Take good care and be gentle with yourselves. This doesn't have to be overwhelming.

Little by little. Day by day.