One of the biggest obstacles to work-life harmony and balance is avoiding and denying our feelings, pretending that they don’t exist, pushing them away, and distracting ourselves with social media, sex, food, movies, mind-altering substances, and more.

It’s amazing how housework and spring cleaning become attractive when we don’t want to feel what we have decided are bad or painful feelings.

There are no bad feelings.

Feelings are simply something that we can allow to move through us and be replaced with more love.

The problem is we judge our feelings and make them wrong.  We judge ourselves for having these feelings.  There’s this myth that there must be something wrong with us if we’re not happy.

Happiness is an elusive goal.

When we strive to be happy, we look outside of ourselves for validation and love. 

And that’s a recipe for disaster. 

Most people are chasing happiness, so their life is like a roller coaster, with lots of highs and lows, lots of drama, and unfulfilled desires and expectations.

When we don’t feel our unresolved painful feelings and make new choices that support us moving forward and experiencing more love, they don’t go away. 

Feelings can be pushed into our bodies and cause disease.  They can be pushed into the energy field surrounding our bodies and cause mental disturbances like anxiety and depression.

Believe it or not, it’s easier to feel and stay with our difficult feelings, holding them in our compassion and love and allowing them to return to where they belong in time and space, than to push them away or try and avoid them.  When we don’t deal with them, they build up and boomerang back bigger and stronger. 

So, if feeling is healing, how do we do that? 

How do we feel our painful feelings without falling into a deep, dark hole with them? 

How do we stay conscious and in our hearts when our feelings are filled with anxiety, overwhelm, grief, and fear?

As you ponder these questions, notice how you are feeling.  On a scale of one to ten, with one being very anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed and ten being very relaxed, open, calm, and peaceful, where are you now? 

Write down that number and any words that describe how you are feeling.

Now let’s focus on the first key to Feeling is Healing, which is being aligned to love and centered in our hearts.  One way to experience this is through circular breathing.

Close your eyes.  Sit with your spine straight and your feet flat on the floor.

Start by breathing in through the nose and out of the nose with no pause between the in-breath and the out-breath.  This is circular breathing.

Breathe like this for three to ten minutes until you feel yourself deepening into your breath, your busy mind stilled and relaxed, and feeling fully present in your body.

Continuing to breathe this way, only now breathe in and out of your high heart or heart chakra deep within your chest.  Notice how this feels, focusing on and energizing your high heart.

Return to comfortable breathing. Still breathing more deeply, feeling your chest and abdomen rise and fall with each breath, and notice how you feel.

We are calming the busy mind, oxygenating our bodies, aligning to love, and centering in our heart of hearts.

Revisit the one-to-ten scale. Where are you now? How are you feeling?  Make a note of this.

Notice how simple it is to change your experience by oxygenating the body, and taking it from fight or flight mode to rest and relax mode.

From this space, we are more expanded and at peace.  We are more able to feel as we feel without judgment.  We are more able to be grateful for our feelings and flood ourselves with love.

This is the transformational space that we hold to feel our feelings.