The Art of Feeling It All — It’s OK to Be Human

What if, when life changes and fear rises,
we didn’t resist the discomfort?
What if we allowed it to surface,
to be felt fully—without judgement—
and chose instead to be curious?

What is this “alarm clock” trying to tell me?

What if fear wasn’t a stop sign,
but a doorway—
an invitation to return to peace,
to safety,
to ease in the now?

Would you allow yourself to become aware
of the choices you have?
Would you be brave enough to sit with the part of you
that’s been begging to be seen and heard?

You see, we inherit beliefs as children—
beliefs that were never ours to carry.
The gift of adulthood is this:
we are no longer that child.
We are adults now,
with the power to choose.

That parent, that situation,
that memory we think is causing pain in the now—
it’s not happening anymore.
It’s a movie on replay.
And while we honour that it happened,
our suffering continues
when we unconsciously press play again and again.

We forget:
we have the power to change the movie.

But here’s the truth I’ve lived—
even when I knew I could change the story,
my body wasn’t ready to let go.
It clung to flight, to freeze.
It sent alarms:
a tight chest, a lump in the throat,
the urge to run.

This is the Protector.
The part of us that learned to survive.
And it’s not wrong.
It just needs reassurance.

We can rewire the thoughts.
We can soothe the body.
We can whisper to the Protector:
“I am safe here in the now.”

Using gentle Havening techniques—
stroking the hands, the face—
we can calm the nervous system
and release what no longer serves.

But first, we must do the hardest thing:
to feel.
To confront the fear, the pain—
not with force,
but with love.

These parts of us don’t want to be fixed.
They want to be seen.
Heard.
Accepted.

We’ve been rejecting and abandoning ourselves
because someone once told us
we were too much,
not enough,
unacceptable.

But they, too, were disconnected from their wholeness.

This cycle of self-rejection has echoed for centuries—
until someone chooses to break it.
To become aware.
To sit with the fear.
To offer it love.
To say:
“You belong here, too.”

So today,
could you allow yourself to feel it all—
without harsh judgement,
without rejection?

Could you be curious?

Ask:
How am I rejecting myself?
Abandoning myself?
Hurting myself
when I don’t allow all of me to belong?

The choice is yours.

Nathalie Le Riche