When You Don’t Know What To Do, Sit With It.

The biggest thing I’ve learned recently has been this: sit with it. Whatever you might be feeling, experiencing, whatever’s running through your mind… sit with it.

When you’re experiencing heartache, sit with it. Put a hand to your chest, or your stomach, or wherever your pain is manifesting. Don’t try to change it, just allow it to be. Open yourself up to the messages it’s sending. You’re not here to problem-solve, you’re here to listen with compassion and grace and understanding. Allow yourself to be the friend you most desire when you’re in need of comfort.

Sit with it.

When anxiety rises in your chest, sit with it. Put a hand where you’re activated, and notice what happens in your body. If it helps, you may offer reassuring words. “You’re safe.” “You’re right here.” “I am with you.” Perhaps there’s something your anxiety wishes to share with you — stay open to its messages. Often, our emotions just want to be heard.

Sit with them.

When fear, great and alarming, stakes you to the ground, sit with it. What is your fear trying to tell you? Where in your body do you feel it? What stories are you believing right now that’s fueling its fire? Can you begin to shift them, tell yourself different ones? When you don’t know whether a story should be believed, ask yourself, “What would Love say?” Take five deep breaths: inhale for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for six. Allow your nervous system to calm, and while it does, remind yourself you are not alone.

Sit with it.

When you experience a victory, big or small, sit with it. Don’t just breeze past, brush off the compliment, or immediately start planning your next move. Allow yourself to be filled with the joy of success, whatever that looks like for you. Sit or stand where you are, let the energy fill your body. Close your eyes, smile. Run, dance, spin, shuffle, plop down on the bed and hug a pillow and laugh! Allow yourself to truly relish the experience of all these beautiful feelings —they help remind you of just how good life can be.

Sit with it.

When you feel lost or confused, sit with it. We can’t hear the call of our soul when the rest of the world drowns out its voice. Find silence, if only for three minutes at a time. If something is swirling in your head, get it onto a piece of paper, and then for the next three minutes, choose to let it go. Breathe into the space you’ve created for yourself, right here, right now. Pressure from within or without has never given me clarity, personally — it only serves to increase my anxiety as I wonder which way I’m supposed to go. Give yourself the gift of trust — the answers will come. But they cannot come if you don’t first acknowledge that you don’t know what to do without the pressure of having to figure it all out.

Instead, sit with it.

Whatever you’re feeling, try not to disregard it. Our emotions are little messengers pointing us towards important things in our life, things that could use our attention; a shift; an opportunity. Often, they just want to be heard, seen, and understood — without any shifting at all.

The more I sit with my emotions, the less control they have over my life. I feel freer, more balanced, and more integrated than I can remember feeling in a very, very long time. Every time you sit with your emotions without trying to change them, you’re proving that you’ll show up for yourself, every, single, time. You’re proving that there’s no part of you that is too ugly, too painful, or too complicated to love. You’re proving that you’re WORTHY of showing up for… and you DESERVE to feel that kind of self worth every. single. day.