This morning, I noticed I had a tummy ache.

I guessed it was some combination of grief I was processing the day before, nerves about upcoming happenings, and all-around heaviness around hard stuff in the world.

But I didn’t try to figure it out.

I just sat with the feelings.

And with the impulse to push them away.

And with the old stories that often rise up in moments like these: that something is wrong or that I would never have to have feelings like this again if I were just more evolved so I should probably work on that.

I slowed down + made room.

Because this is how we build trust with ourselves over time.

By not making our feelings a problem.

By allowing the realness inside to simply exist.

By not treating our pain, lostness, or emotion as an equation to solve or a dilemma to figure out.

By not making ourselves wrong for having real + complex + uncomfortable human emotions.

After 20 minutes of this, I noticed the feelings beginning to change as the energy opened, deepened, and expanded to become something else.

Which is usually what happens.

But the best thing that happens, no matter how the energy moves or not, is that I create a moment of telling the truth + building trust + showing up for myself in a hard moment.

What might such a moment look like for you?