Feeling stuck, anxious, or overwhelmed? It's okay. This article offers compassionate guidance on embracing your current experience, finding peace in the messiness of life, and allowing healing to unfold naturally. You're not alone in this journey

For too long you’ve been told that you’re too sensitive, too emotional, too shy, too weird, too deep, too complex, too quiet, too different, too much of the vibrant living qualities that make you you and unique.

You might have heard it from your parents or caregivers or siblings when you were growing up. And even now you’re all grown up, you might still hear it from them. Maybe you heard it from friends, colleagues or bosses. You’ve most likely absorbed it from media, advertising and collective messaging.

“Grief is the price of love” is a quote attributed to English psychiatrist Colin Murray Parkes and one that I often see shared on social media, usually by those who have lost someone they love and are in a long and deep grief process; it gives some solace, explanation and justification for the pain they are experiencing and it’s longevity.

However, this perspective offers a limited understanding of the complex nature of both grief and love. And it can cause you to diminish, invalidate or ignore grief that arises that isn’t associated with love. This disenfranchisement of grief can lead to loneliness and isolation and exacerbate the pain you are experiencing as well as the longevity of your grief.

Continue to blog to watch my Youtube video below or keep reading the written article….

Some members of my community have been telling me that they’re in various states of freeze that they've been in for quite some time, or that they’re really challenged by going into a freeze response in certain situations such as being criticised by a loved one or having anger directed towards them.

So in this helpful article, I explain:

• what a freeze state is

• why you can get stuck in a freeze response

• the typical approaches people react to a freeze and why they don’t work

• how radical self-compassion can help yourself get out of a freeze state; and

• I take you through Tara Brach’s RAIN process combined with somatic touch to help you through a freeze/shutdown response or any challenge you may be experiencing

• BONUS audio recording of me taking you through the RAIN and somatic touch process for radical self-compassion

Sometimes when I’m working a big growth edge in my life, I wake up feeling fear and dread in my stomach, mostly fear. When I feel intense feelings that I don’t like my old pattern is to get rid of it by pushing it away, ignoring it or dissociating from it. This was how I survived some overwhelming felt experiences in my childhood.

The problem is that these strategies may bring some temporary relief but they aren’t very effective in the long-term. Resisting any unwanted feeling tends to amplify it and can lock it in, especially if the feeling is coming from a young part of you that needs your holding and care and another part of you is pushing it away. Trying to ignore it on the other hand can lead to reactive behavior or disconnecting from the body you are here to inhabit and fully live through.

In this article I will explain:

1. the role your feelings play in your life and why they matter

2. what you need to know about tending to your feelings (and what not to do)

3. and how to become a safe space for you feelings so that you don’t get stuck in them and can discover the wisdom they may hold