Give Them a Seat

because unprocessed feelings are the ones hindering your healing

I was listening to a podcast and the guest on the show was annoying me for all the right reasons. It appears that those who either offer me a clear reflection, or hold tools for my growth, frustrate me the most (unfortunately).

I listened and wanted to roll my eyes—but I took mental notes.

The notes I took have been transforming me.

He said something along the lines of “Give the feelings a seat at the table”.

I watch my thoughts all day, and I’ve learned to feel my feelings more in the past 7 months than my entire life before that—but this concept unlocked something for me.

And today, something shifted.

I was triggered by a conversation—it was the same “trigger” that I’ve been trying to understand, control, and heal from for years.

It wasn’t—nor is it ever—the actual event, but the feelings that surface around it. It’s what it represents for you, not the person or the words.

I wanted to project—to blurt out my feelings—to give my best effort at being met in my emotions.

Because now will be the time that things change—my curious and hopeful inner child claims.

That’s an illusion unless it’s you making the change.

You are the change.

I am the change.

I didn’t send a message. I didn’t punch through the phone.

I typed out what I wanted to say, and then I took it to my journal.

I wrote out my feelings, and that was an invitation for more to surface.

By this point, I felt angry.

If there’s anything that I’ve learned, it’s that feelings must be moved through the body.

In any fashion—just moved, or they collect.

So I went for a walk. It was simple, just me, my dog, and the trees.

The feelings continued to fester—I felt claustrophobic.

And then I remembered what I learned and I gave the feelings a seat. I brought them in with open arms—an open heart.

I spoke to them lovingly just like I would talk to myself as a child—where those feelings first learned to hide, behind the stories I believed were true.

I put on a simple breathwork session to help me move them and I softened into the part of my body where they felt the most dense.

I felt the bubbling of emotions—the feelings that used to be visceral “oh no’s”.

I softened. I continued to speak to them. I listened.

I reframed all of the doubts that placed me in that position and embraced the sweet, innocent little girl who once didn’t have the support to navigate these big feelings.

All the times I didn’t know how to feel, or wasn’t properly held in my process, I shoved the feelings deeper and deeper. I remember numerous times where these same feelings were triggered, and then poof—gone.

They went right back in to collect until the next event.

I tried for years to be the courageous one who cries and processes feelings actively in the moment, but I was numb. I tried—but nothing came.

The past 7 months broke me open, but I am not broken. I am new and discovering the parts of me that I longed for.

I hold the wisdom of healed awareness in the same heart as little baby Ari’s unprocessed grief.

And I give them both a voice.

I let the wisdom hold the space for the feelings.

I continued to soften, to breathe big belly breaths, and to feel love and be loved by me.

Did you know that the greatest, most profound love you’ve ever felt from someone was never actually from them? They provoke the feelings, but they cannot insert love into you.

YOU feel that. It’s always been right there.

Probably hiding behind the stuck, unprocessed emotions from early on, from your lineage, or past lives.

But it is all right there—sometimes you have to manually feel through the trenches to access your own true love.

I gave myself a seat at my own table today.

Sometimes you learn things that stick, and you discover later on why they were lit up.

The tool box keeps filling—but you don’t stop when it’s full—you get a bigger box.

You change perspectives.

You’re reading this, and now this tool is yours, too.

Your little you deserves a seat and the feelings are so so worthy of being felt—there is so much love holding them.

You lighten. You transform.

Processing on my own without projecting is one of the most empowering tools I’ve learned. It brought me right here.

Keep on keeping on.

Lots of love,

Ari