Embracing Our Delicate and Sensitive Emotions

"Throughout our lives, we may experience emotions that disturb or distress us. Often, our first reaction is to push our feelings away. We may say, "I don't want to think about that right now, I'll think about it later" and we bury our emotions, deny the validity of our feelings, or distract ourselves with other concerns. But the diverse emotions you experience are neither good nor bad-they are simply a part being human. Choosing not to experience pain, anger, or other intense feelings could cause those feelings to become buried deep into your physical body. There, they may linger unresolved and unable to emerge, even as they affect the way you experience the world. Allowing yourself to experience all of your emotions rather than push the more painful ones away can help you come to terms with your feelings so you can experience them and then move on."

Instead of pushing away our delicate and sensitive emotions, may we cradle them with love, holding them close to our heart, accepting their human desire to be alive and listening as sweet chirps of hope echo (sometimes silently) throughout our being.

Painting: a detail from With Sturdy Shoes: Mother of One by Barbara Roden
Quote: from Permission To Feel: Pushing Away Emotions at the DailyOm

Your Existence Gives Me Hope

"A clear and powerful observation emitted from one's loving heart is magnetic, compelling, difficult to brush aside and beautiful to behold."

"After people become fascinated with themselves by feeling both heard and seen through the eyes and ears of another, they will usually consider changing their behavior."

"Psychotherapy... the study and healing of the soul."

~ Joseph Zinker

Photograph from Superhero Designs
Quotes from In Search of Good Form

A Synchronicity

A beautiful sunny spring day in Seattle. The wind blows a page of my notebook open. The words arrest my attention, perfectly complementing and communicating an essence in this moment. I get excited realizing this wants to be shared at easily amazed. Walking inside to retrieve the referenced book, my heart melts as I recognize the photo which will accompany the words... the photo that Christy sent my way last week which originally appeared in the journal at SuperheroDesigns, a new site I'm in love with! I remembered Christy telling me about that site a long time ago, but somehow it fell off my radar.

Gathering my computer and thinking about this webl post, I remembered an old conversation between Andy and Christy about notebooks that took place in the comments of somebody's blog. A google search of Andy Christy haloscan notebook got me directly to the comments I was looking for. And wouldn't you know it, it was that comment box in which Christy had told me about superherodesigns. Life sure is fun!