Choose to Feel

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned the importance of processing emotions as they come. I don’t stress about them for days, and I don’t ignore them either.

When I was younger, I was a stuffer—an overachieving doer, trying to escape the hurt, anger, or embarrassment of the moment. I’d shove my feelings down as far as I could. Picture me piling my emotions into a giant garbage can and then jumping in, packing it all down to make room for more.

I always hid my feelings behind doing. If I stayed busy, I didn’t have to feel. Hands held high, “Me! Me! Me!”—I’d volunteer for everything, trying to prove I was enough.

Lately, though, I’ve been learning to let myself simply be.

Be sad. Be happy. Be tired. Be angry. Be hurt. Be overwhelmed.

Be real.

Be me.

And as I sit with my authentic feelings for the first time, I notice how many people around me are stuck.

Stuck in grief.

Stuck in anger.

Stuck in shame.

Eventually, we have to get up and move through the mess, don’t we? How else do we find relief? Isn’t there always some possibility, even in the hardest places?

Not to sound like a Pollyanna, but April showers really do bring May flowers, eventually.

Life on this earth is hard.

We can’t pick the weather.

We can’t choose the diagnosis.

We can’t answer our own prayers.

We don’t write our own stories, friend—but we can influence how they unfold. Our greatest power is choosing how we respond to the things we cannot control.

Now that I’m feeling instead of stuffing, my first response is prayer.

Are some of my prayers still unanswered? Maybe.

But just like I’ve learned I can’t bury my emotions, I’ve also learned I can’t force outcomes.

Instead, I surrender.

I thank God for this life—messy, beautiful, unfinished—and I trust Him to do what I can’t.

I don’t have to force the answers.

I don’t have to stuff the feelings.

I just have to stay open, stay willing, and keep moving forward.

Healing takes time.

Hope takes courage.

But both are possible when we let go of what we can’t control and trust the One who holds it all.

So today, I choose to feel.

I choose to trust.

I choose to keep going.

And that’s enough.