When was the last time you felt true joy?

So many of us feel stuck, melancholic or slightly removed from the world.

Hardly ever feeling the child-like sense of wonder, joy, and excitement.

I’ve found that you can only feel intense happiness though when you allow yourself to feel intense sadness. Life is not all about feeling positive emotions. It’s the allowance and acceptance of the full range of the human experience.

I learned early on that in order to not feel bad, I should shut my feelings down completely. I was a professional at it. It helped me get by some really terrible years in life. Living a life equal to: 😐. For YEARS. I didn’t trust myself to allow negative feelings because I feared I’d open the flood gates and be so overwhelmed by them. I feared I wouldn’t be able to find the light again. That I wouldn’t be able to control myself and my thoughts if I started to allow the negative feelings in.

Little by little though, I opened and accepted some of the negative feelings coming through. I made peace with the inevitability of not being happy all of the time. I reassured myself this is what’s supposed to happen. There is nothing wrong here. I am not out of control but I am acknowledging I cannot push down these negative feelings either. The more we do the more they bubble up and get larger and larger.

As soon as I allowed myself to start experiencing all of the negative feelings that I was preventing myself from feeling, the sooner I got into my true heartfelt joy. I began to live a FULLER life.

It is an amazing thing to truly live and feel all of the experiences in life and I want that for you all too. I am not always happy. I am not perfect. But I intend to live a full-hearted human experience.

💋💜 LD