What are you feeling?
When words collect and speak wisdom to your heart, you must collect them, reflect on them, and share them with others.
Listening to the radio, the announcer said these words her husband spoke to her when she was having a teary moment.
“What are you feeling?”
Not why are you crying. (Laden with annoyance)
There are a myriad of reasons why you might be teary or engaged in a full blown snotty mess of a cry.
Asking “What are you feeling?’ is a deeper dive into an empowering conversation. Without blame or shame or discounting reasons. An acknowledgement of what you are feeling is real.
And as I embrace this thinking, it will take intentionality to undo years of the “why” and embrace the going forward with “what”.
Catch myself.
Try again.
Flip the switch.
Embrace the emotional beauty in each moment.
Towards the end of my mom’s life,
after announcing I was pregnant,
she cried.
Later she wrote me a letter, (which I hope to rediscover) in which is etched in my memory,
“Cry when you are happy, and cry when you are sad.”
A student asked me “Do you ever cry?”
I replied “When I fall down”
Now to a first grader, my words mean scraping a knee on the blacktop.
Rereading “When I fall down”,
I hear, “when I fail”
She cries when her brother is mean to her.
Crying is a voice to be heard and honored.
What are you feeling?
