Giving My Heart Space to Feel
WOOOOOF. Y’all, it has been quite a few months. I am just exhausted and I kind of don’t even know why. Do you ever feel like life is just too much? Some of this I do to myself and some of it is beyond my control, but it has been a hot minute since I’ve written anything. Over here, it’s been good, messy, ugly, beautiful, joyful, sad, painful, and all of the other things in between. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my own healing journey, which I continue to walk through (and we keep seeing wins), and where I’m at now. Although I feel like I’ve made huge progress, I still recognize that there is a lot more work to do.
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the fact that I just don’t ever give myself enough space to FEEL. If you’re in my real life, you know I keep my schedule packed, pretty much booked hour to hour to hour, inside and outside of work. That’s how I’ve always lived — I like to say that I work best under pressure and honestly this space is comfortable for me because it is how I’ve always operated. I’ve been realizing lately that I deeply crave and simultaneously resist some time and space that is unscheduled, open and free to feel. As a go-go-go person, I find my stride when my day is packed, leaving me less than 5 minutes to sit with how I feel about anything. I know I have work to do in this area. Over the last few years, I’ve built myself a beautiful morning routine where I actually take time to quiet down, tune in and get in touch with what is going on inside of me but now I see how as soon as that morning routine shuts off, I quickly shift to the other end of the spectrum and get sucked into my day and all of the doing. I want to spend this season of my life focused on more being and less doing.
I’m trying to introduce new rhythms into my daily life where I have more time and space. This summer, I’m going on a 2.5 day silent retreat - I am equal parts scared, excited, hesitant, looking forward to and freaked out by this idea. If you know me, you know I am rarely silent (probably not even 2.5 hours LOL). I am trying to make you laugh here, but a part of this is really sad. I have not focused much of my life on creating time and space, and frankly, I’m just really wiped out. I don’t want to live the rest of my life burned out and spaced out. I want to be present and to be present to what is happening inside of me. For me, when I slow down and allow myself some space, I actually get to feel the feelings. This is both a beautiful invitation for me but also something I resist. It is not often a place I want to go or allow myself to go, but I realize more and more each day that allowing myself this space to feel all the things is so good for my soul. It’s often hard and messy and full of tears, but it can bear a lot of good fruit to actually get in touch with your own feelings. I want to be a person who feels my feelings; doesn’t push them aside, try to power through them or move them into my head. I really think that feeling all of our feelings is the key that can unlock so much of what is inside of us. But I know now that I can’t feel all the feelings unless I give myself time, space and care to do it. That’s my priority this summer. Here we go, little heart of mine ❤️
