Speaking kindly isn’t easy on days when everything feels heavy inside. Is it better to be quiet then? On certain days, it would be simpler (safer?) to only move my body, gesture, smile, frown or crease my brow. Sometimes I can say to my lover, friend or family member, “I’m having a bad day, so I might not have much to say.” But that is a form of denial, of shutting down; I have not spoken the full truth. It’s not bad to feel heavy emotions. It’s normal. Still, the patterned, perfectionist part of me judges those emotions and can’t see past their ruse of all-encompassing control.

The words we speak vibrate the air around us, tuning it to different frequencies, shifting the dynamics of a situation, a conversation, a moment in time. What am I to do if what vibrates inside me, moves the air outside in a way that could pass on the hurt, negativity or pain? How do I stop this extenuation of heaviness? 

I sit. I quiet myself. I open into the feeling while asking my heart to flow beyond words into being, and I listen to my breath. The in and out. I name what I feel. Today it is loneliness, longing, sadness, irritation, disappointment. I breathe in and out. I observe the thoughts and beliefs that surround the feelings. I wait. I keep breathing. In the clear moments, the millimeters of freedom before a feeling rises again, I remember that the observer inside me does not identify with, believe or judge these feelings. I remember that I am not the heaviness, the grief, disappointment or longing. I repeat this process, until I’m able to resume interactions and actions again.

I’ll use this formula for feeling until I leave Earth. Heavy emotions are intricately linked to this human journey. We cannot escape them, and they often come when we least expect them. Yet we can continually remember that they do not control, define or confine us. When we let them, emotions find their way, effortlessly, through our bodies and away. Like the breath - in and out, forever.