I am writing today from my back porch where the richness of transition is all around me. The sun is still warm, but the air is cool. The leaves on the luscious green maple beside me are just starting to turn red. And I’m sitting in the quiet of being alone, with one child back in high school and the other happily launched to her first year in college. It’s truly a time of transition.
This time of change has been reminding me of the richness of our emotional tapestry. Our hearts can hold so much at one time: grief and joy, fear and excitement, inspiration and confusion. The trick is to allow it all to flow at the same time. For most of us, that’s harder than it sounds.
We live in a culture that privileges happiness.
We are often taught that the goal is to be happy, and that something has gone wrong if we are not. As a result, we may try not to feel the hard stuff. We may judge ourselves for being in pain, and we may hide away with our worries and our sadness. I have worked with many clients on releasing the idea that feeling sadness means they are “ungrateful,” and that sharing their worries with friends is “a burden.”
Hard feelings are not our enemies, they are part of the complex human experience.
We cannot shave off challenging feelings and still be our richest, deepest, truest selves. If we try to shrink our emotional range we don’t end up happy, we end up flat.
Right now we all have much to feel about. Think of feeling your feelings as an important task. We need to feel about the unrest in the world. We need to feel the uncertainties Covid continues to bring. And we need to feel about our latest personal and family transitions. Allowing in your feelings, letting them roll through you without judgment, and sharing them with loving people in your life is a key ingredient of resilience. Rather than resisting your feelings, practice staying open to them and allowing them to flow.
Be a conduit for your own rich emotional experience. Allow yourself to feel.
I wrote more about what I have learned through my own personal transition of launching a child to college in my latest Psychology Today article.
In honor of the fact that we all have much to feel about in this transition season, I am also sharing one episode from my Resilience e-course with you here. This episode focuses on allowing in and learning to embrace your feelings..the whole complex beautiful tapestry of it all.
Thanks for being part of this community.
Yours in transition ~
Lindsay
Lindsay B. Jernigan, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist – Doctorate
Eastern View Integrative Medicine
185 Tilley Dr. #14
South Burlington, VT 05403
802-229-8270
drlindsayjernigan.com
instagram.com/dr.lindsayjernigan