On Permission to Feel
Fighting your feelings is like holding your breath.
We learned to ignore one of the most sacred tools we have to self-knowing and healing: our emotions.
And even when we notice them, we pick up on the “acceptable” emotions and use them as masks and suppressants for the other, less comfortable ones.
We especially do this during moments where we are supposed to be happy, not realizing that we are making it more challenging to experience joy by hiding our pain.
Enter: The western-centered Holiday season. This stretch of holidays at the end of the year is not always happy, and if this is a season that is historically challenging for you, I see you. But even when the holidays bring you joy, some years are just hard.
Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate relationships if we’ve lost ones that mattered to us.
Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate your possessions when there’s fear of not having enough to keep them.
Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate this season when we’re worried about the state of the world.
Sometimes, gratitude is only a matter of guilt.
We only feel grateful because we feel guilty for having something when others don’t. We take on the weight of what others need, almost like taking on their grief.
Some of this is healthy empathy. Some of this is trauma. All of it deserves space.
No matter where you are this season, I hope you give yourself permission to feel.
listen to ep. 8: SAFE WITH YOUR FEELINGS
Feel the joy and the pain.
Feel the rage and the respite.
Feel the calm and the chaos.
Feel the gratitude and the grief.
Our feelings are here to tell us something, to move our experience through us and invite healing to us.
To deny them is to deny yourself.
To deny your feelings is to deny yourself of being seen.
This holiday, give yourself the gift of permission—permission to have, feel, and be.
You deserve it.
Take some time to listen to this week’s brief episode: Safe with Your Feelings & Unlearning Toxic Gratitude. It’s an invitation to reflect on where you can begin to give yourself what you need this season. And always, remember to subscribe to the Seen Sunday newsletter.
Even in the face of feeling my own mixed emotions this season, I feel deeply grateful for all of you. Thank you for seeing me & being here. It is an honor to heal alongside you. You are seen and you are appreciated.
