Stop bottling up your feelings for family togetherness sake

Today's togetherness tip is a little different from the norm. But after 125+ weeks of togetherness tips, I can't believe we haven't talked about this yet, so I wanted to bring it up.

It's about bottling up our feelings. Here's my story. ⤵

While out for a walk the other day, Ed Sheeran’s song Visiting Hours popped up on my Spotify playlist, and I spent the next hour with tears streaming down my face. A few days later, my sweet husband asked me to dance with him in the basement and I spent the next 47 minutes crying in his arms. Then, a friend shared a story about the crisis in Afghanistan and the tears came immediately, and I even cried over a really special wink-from-heaven publication date iMOM gave me for my newest article with them.

I'm not usually a very emotional or crying person, so all of this felt weird. I wondered if something was wrong with me. (Was I going crazy? Trying to do too much? Having a hormone crisis?) Then I realized I was just doing something I hadn’t let myself do in way too long – feeling.
 
It’s been an unprecedented couple of years (says everyone these days), so who has time to feel all the feelings, right?
 
Wrong.

Bottling it up is for jam and Grandma's green beans – not feelings. 

Wednesday would have been my mom’s 60th birthday. If she was still here on earth, I would have begged her to come see the leaves starting to change at my house in Maine. I would have sent her a cheesy card, a new coffee mug, or a pair of earrings she didn’t need. I would have called her first thing in the morning and told her happy birthday. I would have sent her a video of the kids fake-smiling and saying “happy birthday” too. Instead, I didn’t get to do any of that because she’s not here. I hate it.
 
We didn’t have a perfect relationship. But even when we disagreed about my high school boyfriend, my weird approach to education and career, Hillary Clinton, and various other things over the years, she loved me fiercely and deeply. And when I was back home in Georgia, she always wanted me to settle down in the mornings with her and have coffee and a chat.
 
If I would have known how much I would miss those chats, how suddenly and sadly those would be taken away from me, I would’ve tried to be more present for them. I would’ve scheduled more of them. I would’ve taken more time away from my email inbox and Instagram feed to look her in the eye and just talk. But I didn’t. And now I can’t. I hate it.

Why am I telling you this today, dear reader, when I realize you probably have your own heavy stuff you’re dealing with right now?

When I realize my words might cause tears to stream down your face for an hour too?

Because I think we suffer when we don’t let ourselves feel our feelings.

We miss out on the really good stuff when we don’t let ourselves feel the really good and the really bad.

We miss out on the deep relationships we want when we’re always bottling up our feelings.
 
Loads of other people who have done far more research than me think so, too. One of them is Brene Brown. She says:“When we numb hard feelings, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.”
 
We have to let ourselves feel – the good and the bad, the happy and the sad. When we do, we get to a new level of knowing ourselves, knowing our people, and really being there with them. When we don’t, we miss those chances.

And I don't want you missing any chances with your people, so go on and feel it all today.

Hug her extra tight.

Kiss him longer.

Linger over coffee on the porch another few minutes.

Ask that extra question.

Take the extra long way home.

I hope it brings you all the good stuff.

So thankful to be doing this family-loving life with you.

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I’d love to see you there.