High achievers who love personal growth often have a very sophisticated blind spot.
They are good at recognising their emotions and have lots of tools to regulate themselves. When an emotion comes up, they get to work processing and regulating, but if you really pay attention, there is often a very subtle energy of, “I need to get rid of this.”
Let me know if you see yourself in this story…
Sometimes our desire to regulate an emotion is really a refusal to experience it.
A few months ago, I’d just finished a long day of work. I’d been sitting in front of my screen all day, and was tempted to keep going and bang out a few more tasks while I was on a roll, but my intuition whispered…
”Go outside, take a walk, breathe some fresh air.”
I resist before I oblige. With a grunt, I drag my body outside and start walking down the beautiful cobbled streets of Rome, my birth city.
I walk a few blocks, chitchat with one of the restaurant owners I’ve known for over fifteen years.
Keep walking across the bridge to Piazza Navona. I look around, and the crowds are buzzing... I’m aware of diners nearby, utensils clinking, tourists eagerly taking photos, vendors walking around with their plastic toys and their scarves.
There’s so much here, and as I look around, appreciating my surroundings…
My stomach clenches and I feel the urge to cry…
Because I feel so lonely.
As the feeling overcomes me, almost immediately I hear the subtle mental chatter:
“But your life is so beautiful,”
“You’re doing so good,”
“Come on, use your tools. You can shift your state!”
I know this strategy well. And often I can turn to one of my favourite distraction tactics...Like calling a friend, finding more work to do, getting dessert, going shopping…
But this time, instead of reaching for one of my usual distractions, I decided to stay exactly where I was, right there in the middle of Rome and just notice what was there without needing to change it.
As I resisted the impulse to distract or regulate myself, I really felt what was there.
Yes, I was lonely.
But I wasn’t just experiencing loneliness.
I was experiencing loneliness and trying to get rid of it at the same time.
Here is the kicker:
We can’t actually fully “feel” an emotion while simultaneously wanting to get rid of it.
Because to really be with an emotion, it requires our full presence. The energy of “it’s ok for you to be here, I’ll stay with you, and witness you until you are fully expressed”
While the energy of “let me process this” “i need to move this to improve and become better” actually means we’re not present, because we’re imagining a future version of ourselves where this emotion has already been dealt with, and we’re improved because of it.
You cannot be present AND wanting to be in the future at the same time.
So what I want to surface most in this email is this:
It’s not the actual emotion bubbling up that’s creating the pain.
It’s what you DO when that emotion arises and the meaning that you assign to it.
For me, in that moment, when I let myself be lonely without making it a problem to solve, I got to reconnect with something much deeper.
The truth wasn’t that something was wrong with my life.
The truth was that I value intimacy and connection.
And in that moment, in the middle of Rome...I wanted more connection than my life actually contained.
Instead of overriding that desire by doing more work, eating an ice cream or going shopping, I’m so grateful that I let that truth emerge.
If loneliness visits you this week, before you reach for your phone, another task, or anything that promises to make the feeling disappear, try asking yourself one question instead.
If I didn’t have to fix this feeling... what might it be trying to show me?
What if the emotion isn’t the problem? It’s the messenger for a deeper soul desire.
I’m curious to hear how this touches you.
Feel free to comment or reply. I’ll read each one.
With love & courage,
Celinne 🤍
p.s. The question at the end of this email—”If I didn’t have to fix this feeling, what might it be trying to show me?”—is really the question that gave birth to The Burning Ground
Every chapter is an invitation to listen more deeply to yourself, I’d love for you to read it.
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