Feel Your Feelings...Yes, Even Those

The only certainty in life is the promise of uncertainty. Death, the end of a relationship, and job loss all happen in our lifetimes.

I’ve experienced all three in a short period; honestly, it’s been a bit shocking.

Death happens from natural and unnatural causes, and, in my experience, losing people to both, it never gets easier. Last month, one of my high school boyfriends died of a fentanyl overdose. Two years ago, I lost my dad and my step-mom eleven months apart. So much loss. I learned from Addison Brasil that grief is love with nowhere to go….and that helps me honor its immensity when I grieve.

Similar to death, relationships can end naturally— graduate students moving on and losing touch, relocating to another part of the country, or even losing common interests with one another. Those aren’t so hard. But it takes real adulting to choose to end a relationship when it does not align with your values or honor your needs. I took this road at the beginning of 2024 by ending my relationship with my boyfriend, who I loved. I’ll keep the details private, but it needed to happen. And that didn’t make it any easier.

Job loss is especially devastating when it comes from out of nowhere. One month after ending my relationship with my boyfriend, the company I was contracted with suddenly ended my contract with zero notice. I had received positive reviews of my work, and my supervisor even told me he’d hire me as a full-time employee if he had the budget. He had no complaints. Imagine how my head spun and my heart ached when I got the call from my recruiter that tomorrow morning, I’d be unemployed. There was no way to rationalize it (and, I spent a few sleepless nights trying).

What does a person do with sudden loss?

We can cry (I did), scream (I’m not much of a screamer), or play the victim (that’s not me).

I have chosen another avenue— I have taken on the terrifying work of feeling my feelings. Full on.

Pema Chodron shares this process in her amazing you-must-add-this-book-to-your-library When Things Fall Apart. I read this book while navigating divorce in 2019 and found it profoundly grounding and helpful.

One practice she teaches is to sit with the immensity of your feelings and imagine it is a being. For me (and I have no reason why), it was a massive pink fuzzy monster (I know, I have no idea why). I sat with my enormous fear and uncertainty one morning, and the monster showed herself. I felt the monster hovering over me and screaming so loudly that its voice reverberated through my bones and hollowed my guts. Yes, this was my fear.

I sat and took it. I let that incredible feeling of fear sit in my guts and rattle me. The monster noticed I was not recoiling. She screamed again. I sat there, cowering but not fleeing. She stopped and looked at me. I looked up at her face— she had big eyes. I asked her, “What do you want to tell me?” She lowered her arms and said, “I’m scared and lonely. I don’t know how to do this.” “Me, too,” I shared. Then the big pink fuzzy monster sat beside me, and we shared space. At that time in my meditation, my guts felt normal again, and I did not have immense fear pulsing through me because I had identified what was at the root of it.

I have since found a more immediate strategy for getting to the heart of my feelings so they can move through me— releasing my jaw and feeling Structural NRG from the embodied voice work I live and teach.

Structural NRG is a vocal tenet of Arthur Lessac’s bodyvoice practice and is where we connect with the elasticity and flexibility of the oral cavity as we breathe and communicate. It’s releasing the jaw muscles. It’s creating space between the side teeth to help the jaw stay relaxed. It’s feeling a slight yawn in the back of the mouth at the soft palate so the tongue and tissues in the throat can release tension. Within this space, our inner ears open up. We become receptive.

When massive emotions slam onto us and need to move through, we can tighten up everything we have to resist. “No,” we say, “I need to keep it together!” or “No, I need to stay positive!” In this moment, the emotions get stuffed down and compounded. They get bigger and can even become an illness or energetic block if not managed.

We need to stay porous and pliable.

When we become receptive by softening the jaw and releasing the inner ears, we must receive whatever needs to come. In these moments, it’s the sadness that comes with the end of a relationship I cared about; the feelings of grief, betrayal, and shock that come at the sudden end of a job that I truly enjoyed; and the melancholy and ache I feel when I recall my parents, who I so desperately want to talk to, share a glass of wine, and hug.

I soften my jaw and feel the slow ache. It creeps over and through me like a shadow. I shall not be scared because I know this is teaching me how to be more vibrant in the human experience.

I breathe, cry, feel all the feelings, and identify where they show up in my body. I honor them.

Before you know it, they have passed. I am left with a sense of clarity because this process de-clutters my heartmind.

I believe in being clear, productive, and influential— you’ve heard me say this.

When I honor my feelings and let them pass through with the tool of Structural NRG, I get clear with myself. I become productive and action-oriented on how to take care of myself. With that renewed sense of purpose and meaning, I can be influential towards the highest good because I am living with integrity, kindness towards myself, and radical honesty.

Soften your jaw, soften your heart.

Feel your feelings….yes, even those.

I promise you’ll come out more resilient on the other side of the storm.