Today, friends, I want to share something that I have learned about feeling the feels. About letting yourself feel your feelings fully. I am spontaneously writing from my heart today…  I had other things planned, and then nothing planned, and this may not be my best writing, but sometimes the message just needs to get out.  

So, if you need to hear this today, or know of anyone that does, if you’re feeling some tough feelings, you will be ok.

In my past, this would be a bit too personal a thing for me to share with the interwebs, but I have grown and evolved.  I preach authenticity.  I preach being the person you were meant to be.  I am committed to creating a community of humans who want that for themselves too.

My dream is to create a community of individuals who are ok showing up as the person they truly are – with their talents, their flaws, their emotions – no matter how messy they might be.

Everyone is messy sometimes

Yes, my life has been messy.  

Everyone’s life can be messy at times though.  I don’t think it’s something anyone can escape.  We are just all bound to be a mess at one time or another (or multiple times!) in our lives.

You probably know the story of how, six years ago, I discovered my husband of seventeen years was cheating on me with another man. If you read my blog regularly, you’ve read the story of my struggle with grief and acceptance and of rebuilding my life. My story of resilience and of my path back to putting the pieces of my life back together.

So, yesterday, I got a text from my ex-husband, who has been on vacation with my kids for 2 weeks. I’ve been desperately missing them. Two weeks is a long time to be away from your kiddos.

Anyway, he got married to his partner over the weekend.

Gulp.

I knew they were engaged.  But I didn’t know when it was happening.

Grief is a funny thing.  I felt like I had grieved the loss of my husband, my family, my previous life sufficiently.  I thought I had moved on.  

And then, that text.  

My feelings around my ex-husband and his partner are very mixed.  On one hand, he is a good father to my kids.  His partner is nice and seems to be a fairly benign influence on them.  And even though my ex can be a royal asshole without even trying, I still believe he is a good person underneath it all.

But, on the other hand, he kicked me out of his fancy life and dropped in someone else in my place.  He owns a nice house and is able to do things like big home improvement projects and have a garden while I am still renting a townhouse with no yard.  He’s a lawyer, so he makes substantially more money than I do.  He can go on fancy vacations frequently, and I can’t.

Sometimes I get angry at him for taking the life that I knew – the one that was so comfortable for me – away from me.

Emotional fruit salad

Today, I am sitting in an emotional fruit salad of feelings.  My best self tells me (and I do believe my best self in my bones) that things happen for a reason and that I am on to better things.  

That I wasn’t entirely happy in that comfortable life anyway and this is my chance to create the life that I want, HOW I want it.  

But, I’m also sitting with feelings like this:

I had to start from scratch.

I’ll never reach my goals and dreams. I’m running out of time.

I hate him for doing this to me.

I’m jealous.

I hate seeing my kids in photos with him and his partner, looking all happy.

I just want him to suffer. I don’t want him to be happy.

After what he did to me, it’s not fair that he’s put his life together so much faster than I have.

I am not proud to admit I am feeling these things. If I were not committed to being real and brave, I wouldn’t have shared them. But these thoughts “hooked” me after his text.  And they have me feeling a lot of feelings that are very uncomfortable.  

Yes, I know better. And what does this have to do with this article?

My point in telling you about this today – why I’m getting super vulnerable today (and sharing feelings that I am not necessarily proud to admit I am having) – is to talk about discomfort.

My Greatest Teacher

My ex-husband has been, hands-down, the greatest source of pain and suffering in my life.

Without question.

But he is also my greatest teacher.

Six years ago, I didn’t know how to sit with discomfort.  I was honestly not capable of sitting with uncomfortable feelings.  I would turn to my eating disorder, or why I didn’t want to be alive anymore, or drink, or exercise until the point of exhaustion, or sleep to avoid feeling the pain.  

And the discomfort would spiral.  By resisting those feelings, they actually got worse.

My ex was my greatest teacher because today, I actually can sit with these awful, painful, uncomfortable feelings.  I’m sitting with them and actually feeling them. Sitting with them and not spiraling into a hopeless depression.

I may be a little scattered and distracted, but I’m going about my day. I’m doing the things, and I’m moving through it.

As I type this, I am on the verge of tears with a pit in my stomach. But I am going about my day. And I am leaning into these feelings and actually feeling them – really feeling them – fully. I have NEVER been able to do that before.  

As I lean in, I have waves of feeling like I can’t breathe.  I look for my feelings in my body. I locate them in my throat and in my chest. I feel tight and constricted.

But I lean in and feel them.  I breathe them in, I breathe into them. I feel the pain but I also send joy and light and peace to them.

I’m getting curious about them.  As I sit here typing with tears rolling down my face, I am finding this tremendous freedom in my tears because they are not only sad tears, they are also happy tears.  

They are tears of relief because I have finally learned how to do the thing that no one wants to do.

And that is to just BE and feel everything.  Not only the good, but the bad too.

I find tremendous peace and relief in that.

Feeling the uncomfortable feelings

My invitation to you is, next time you feel some uncomfortable emotions – sadness, anger, frustration, despair – stop.  Don’t fight them.  Try to locate the emotion in your body.  

Where do you feel it?

Where is it coming from?  

Where do you feel the tightness or contraction?  Really feel that bodily sensation.

Then, breathe into it.  Breathe love and joy and light into that feeling.  And observe it.  Watch the feeling come and go in waves.  

It’s fascinating.  

Now as I type, I’m not crying anymore. I’m smiling.

Life goes on, even with uncomfortable feelings

One of the great joys in life is when you can finally be free of being “hooked” by your emotions.   When you can experience a “negative” emotion and just sit with it, knowing it’s not the end of the world.

Life goes on.  It really does.

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If you’re looking for some resources to help you through this sort of thing, I highly recommend the following books:

(full transparency – these are Amazon affiliate links so I will get a tiny commission if you purchase by clicking below. I truly have found these books amazingly helpful and would never recommend anything I didn’t believe in!)

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron

The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron

Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World by Pema Chodron

A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow