Making Space for our Challenging Emotions

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Because they point us to our Freedom

Yesterday, I had the great privilege of sitting with a gathering of women as they shared their deepest sorrows. 

Tears flowed. Pain softened. I was profoundly moved by the grace and beauty of the moment and the trust these women placed in each other.

Women's capacity for transparency and vulnerability never fails to blow me away.

We were exploring challenging emotions as part of my new coaching program, the Inner Monologue Method. 

In this program, I'm creating space for the full spectrum of emotional experience and I'm creating space where we can share these emotions - out loud - with other people.

Many of us have not experienced this kind of space. We've been taught to stuff our "bad" emotions down and only show the "good" ones. We've been taught that showing our pain is a great way to be ostracized and shamed. We've been taught that we're not supposed to burden other people with what feels heavy. We've been taught that if we're sufficiently spiritual or enlightened or right with God, we only feel love and light. 

I am blowing the B.S. whistle on all of that. 

The loneliness epidemic inflicting so many communities is not a result of people being too transparent, too bold in their sharing but in not being transparent and bold enough.

This epidemic is not a result of us embracing our deep pain but in pushing it aside or using it as a reason to declare ourselves broken, unloveable, unfit for the embrace of genuine community.

But here's the thing - emotions are not "bad" or "good." Some may bring us pain, some may bring us joy, but they all have a role to play in helping us create and inhabit our authentic lives.

And, spoiler alert, the emotions that cause us the greatest distress have some of the most potent wisdom. 

These challenging emotions can point us to what really matters to us. They can reveal the worlds we long for.

They help us find our lines in the sand, the places where we declare, "No More!" 

And in helping us find our "no," they point us to our "yes."

I got divorced in my early thirties. It was a pretty short marriage, only six years. My ex and I were trying to work things out but we weren't making much progress. 

I was sitting with this, exploring, and a message came through loud and clear, "You don't love him." It hit me like a ton of bricks. In fact, I fell to my knees sobbing. The pain and fear were overwhelming. In that moment, I felt doomed. What if I couldn't find the strength to move forward? 

Except I did. 

I leaned into my pain. I explored it. I let it tell me what felt out of balance and what I craved instead. I examined my beliefs and behaviors that had contributed to a marriage that wasn't meeting my needs. I ultimately decided parting ways was in my best interest.

The path to divorce was painful. It was also illuminating. It helped me see what I wanted instead. 

It caused me to look at so much programming that was running in my subconscious. It presented me with choices about which of my beliefs to embrace and which to jettison. 

It helped me begin to rewrite the script of my life. And while it has turned out much differently than I expected, it is a far more authentic and gratifying expression of my soul.

If we lean into painful places, if we really let the intensity have its say, we discover two things.

One, there is simply no emotion that will actually destroy us if we give it space to speak. We are strong enough to hold on through even the deepest anger, the deepest sorrow. We can reconnect to hope even in the midst of hopelessness.

Two, we hurt not because we are damaged beyond repair but because we are innately whole. Our challenging emotions reveal a gap between two worlds - our experience of who our sabotaging voices tell us we are and who we really are - compassionate, capable, worthy, loved.

Each of us can take this journey. We can make space to fully experience our challenging emotions. We can sob. We can scream. We can curse our existence. And then, we can listen.

We can sit in stillness and allow these emotions to whisper to us what we long for, what we love. We can make space for other voices, our knowings, our hope of a new tomorrow and we can begin our journey - one step at a time - towards it..

Your pain is not poison but promise. Give yourself the gift of really listening to it. Allow for its full expression. 

What is it revealing that isn't serving you? How is it pointing you towards what you really want? What is it telling you about why you can't have it? Are you willing to let go of that being "truth" and to write a new story where you are wildly deserving of all your heart's desires?

Because I assure you, it's worth it. You're worth it.

If you'd like to know more about the exploring your deepest emotions with the Inner Monologue Method, you can read about it here: Inner Monologue Method | The Fertile Voice.

If this speaks to you and you'd like to read more, subscribe to my substack, Janice Creneti | Substack.