Today’s quote is actually the ending of a longer quote:
Allow beauty to shatter you regularly. The loveliest people are the ones who have been burnt and broken and torn at the seams, yet still send their open hearts into the world to mend with love again, and again, and again.
You must allow yourself to feel your life while you’re in it. – Victoria Erickson
That last part of the quote really spoke to me.
I always get annoyed when people tell me I feel too much. Too strongly.
I believe that if we don’t let things get to us and we don’t let ourselves experience the feelings we’re having, we’re not really doing them justice. They won’t disappear just because we’re not expressing them (worse, they sit dormant and explode at the most inopportune times). And Brené Brown has said many times that if we numb the bad, we also numb the good. So, yet, another reason to let ourselves feel it all.
I look at my kids and they experience life with so much more acuteness than I do. When something bad happens, it’s a huge disaster. Big tears. Super sadness. It’s like the world is over. This person is no longer my friend. On and on. But then when the good stuff happens it’s just as strong. I LOVE this. It’s the best EVER. I am so HAPPY. And on and on.
But you know the best part?
Because they let themselves experience it fully, step into it and own it, it doesn’t drag on. They feel it and then they move on to the next moment. And it’s over. The expressed whatever it was they were feeling and it’s not in their system anymore.
That’s what I love the most.
I believe we all could learn so much from the little kids in our lives. I want to allow myself to fully feel my life while i am in it. I want to live all of it. Feel all of it. Let it out.
And then make space for the next thing.
A doctor I worked with would tell his patients, who were teenagers, that feelings aren’t good or bad. They just are. He didn’t mean things don’t feel bad or good. Just that we shouldn’t judge our feelings. They just are. Feel them. Move on. It’s ok to be mad. It’s ok to be whatever you are. That was helpful for me. I’m less judgemental of myself now. Even if I’m crying. Which makes some of the people in my life uncomfortable.