There’s this quiet idea that lives beneath a lot of our coping: If I can just get past this feeling, I’ll be okay. We don’t usually say it out loud. But it shows up in how we talk to ourselves. Why am I still feeling this? This again? I need to move on. I should be over this by now.
It’s like we think the feeling is the problem, or that it’s blocking us from healing. As if pain is the wall we have to break through to reach peace. But what if—stay with me here—the pain isn’t the wall? What if it’s the doorway?
Not one to rush through, but one to sit beside. To listen at. To open gently. To meet whoever’s waiting on the other side.
Because more often than not, that sharp pang in your chest, that heat rising behind your eye, that ache in your stomach that makes no logical sense-it’s not just a feeling. It’s someone. A part of you.
Maybe a younger version. Maybe the you from two years ago. Or maybe the you from yesterday who was holding it together when they really needed to cry. And they don’t want to be fixed, or told it’s going to be okay, or reasoned out of what they’re feeling. They want to be held in it. Seen in it. Given the dignity of their experience.
Think about that for a second. How different would your inner world feel
if every emotion was treated not like a problem, but like a person in need of kindness? If sadness wasn’t something to push past—but someone to sit with. If anger wasn’t something to calm down—but someone trying to protect you. If shame wasn’t something to overcome—but someone who’s still learning they’re not unlovable.
This isn’t about getting lost in our feelings. It’s about making space for the part of us that already is. When you stop trying to outrun what you feel, you can finally hear what it’s trying to say. And more often than not, what it wants to say is something simple, like: That hurt. I was scared. I need you to stay.
Not forever-just long enough to know you won’t disappear when it gets hard.
So maybe we stop trying to push feelings away. Maybe we start walking toward them—the way we would a child who’s crying in the corner of the room. Not with a plan.
Not with a solution. Just with presence. Because some parts of us don’t need to be changed. They just need to be loved through.
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Invitation:
Next time something rises up in you—grief, fear, anger, whatever—don’t ask how to get rid of it. Ask instead: What part of me is feeling this? And what would it be like to sit beside them for a moment, instead of trying to make them go away?
It might not feel magical. But it might feel human. And sometimes, that’s the beginning of everything.
Embracing Shadows, Illuminating Hope,
Chelsey Fjeldheim, LCSW
Empowering Souls on the Path of Healing
Copyright © 2025 Chelsey Fjeldheim, Courage Speaks Counseling
