My youngest son is a lot like me—he pretty much organizes his life around avoiding physical pain and discomfort.
So, when he got pink eye, and the doctor ordered us to put antibiotic drops in his eye, I wondered if we could just lock him in his room for a week until the pink eye resolved on its own. Don’t judge me. I only wondered for a minute.
Or two.
I was put in charge of the drops, because I can empathize a little better with his hysteria. As he lay on the couch, writhing, eyes clamped shut and screaming, it was clear his feelings were preventing him from receiving a healing balm. The drops were medicine—they would be soothing and they would cure him—but his feelings were lying to him, telling him he wouldn’t be able to handle the discomfort.
And there was nothing I could do to change his feelings…
Our feelings are important—we need to listen to them, to become intimately familiar with them, to learn their depths. But that doesn’t mean they’re always honest with us. Sometimes, our feelings lie.
Anxiety is a sincere and good feeling when you hear footsteps behind you in a dark parking garage. It’s a horrible, life-ruining lie when you are walking down the street and scared to death of what everyone thinks of the size of your waist or the size of your wallet.
My feelings lie to me every time a new blog post goes live. I get terrified of what people will think. My feelings tell me it’s not worth it. They tell me to forget about this whole writing thing.
Many of us have gotten used to listening to the lies our feelings whisper to us, and it’s shutting down our lives, because we are missing out on the healing elixir of love and grace and creativity and wonder…
My son rocked to and fro on the couch, and I could relate to it. So I asked him to listen to my whisper and when he had stilled, I asked, “Can you find the place inside of your heart where you can do anything?”
One eye peaked open. “Huh?” he asked.
So I said it again, “Can you close your eyes and find the still, quiet place inside of you where you know you can do anything?”
He closed his eyes. I watched his face get placid and his chest begin to slowly rise and fall. Then his eyes opened, and he looked at me, and he said, “I’m ready, Daddy.”
And I dropped the healing medicine into his eye…
We have a still, quiet place inside of us. I could confidently encourage my son to find his still, quiet center, because as a therapist, I’ve learned we all have it. And when we call upon it, our fears lose their power to limit us, our anger loses its power to devastate us, and our sadness loses its power to devour us.
Our feelings lose their control over us.
We trade in our resentment for the quiet whisper of, “Go apologize.” We trade in our fear of condemnation for the quiet whisper of, “Go create.” We trade in our regrets about the past for the quiet whisper of, “Live this. Now.” We trade in our surge of shame for, “Be vulnerable, make yourself known.” We trade in years of “You’re a mess, you should be embarrassed,” for the quiet whisper of, “You’re a mess, join the club and start to live.”
My feelings tell me to scrap a post like this. My feelings tell me people will think I’m arrogant to speak so boldly. My feelings tell me people will think it’s all a bunch of psychobabble. Or even worse, people won’t care about it at all.
But the quiet whisper from the still place says, “Schedule it, put it out there, your words matter, Kelly, and even if you get it all wrong, you are still worthy.”
The whisper is like a drop of medicine.
So I schedule it. I put it out there.
Our feelings are keeping us captive. Killing our creativity. Stifling our love. Undermining our redemption. But what if we all stopped listening to them, and started listening to the still, quiet place inside? I think it would be like a balm. And I think we’d all start to see our lives for what they are.
Life is a gift in terrifying disguise, and we are here to open it, until we find the still-quiet place in the center of it, where fear no longer decides.
—————
Artisan is thrilled to announce the addition of a new therapist! Mandy Hughes joined us in May, and we are so grateful for the skill, experience, and goodness of heart she is already adding to our office. To find out more about Mandy, you can CLICK HERE to read her bio.
If you’re interested in receiving future Artisan blog posts by email, you can CLICK HERE to subscribe. We’ll post approximately two times per month, and we’ll never try to sell something to you. Therapy is the one space in the world you get to receive without feeling compelled to give in return. We want the Artisan blog to feel the same way.
If you would like to schedule an appointment with one of our therapists, you can do so on our "make an appointment" page. We respect the privacy and confidentiality of our clientele, so we write about ourselves, not our clients.
- Full-Time Therapist Opening at Artisan Clinical Associates - July 3, 2023
- Updates about Artisan’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic - March 18, 2023
- This Is How to Find Your Place in the Family of Things - November 11, 2023
I think that needs to be a poster:
Trade in resentment for the quiet whisper of, “Go apologize.”
Trade in fear for the quiet whisper of, “Go create.”
Trade in regrets for the quiet whisper of, “Live this. Now.”
Trade in shame for, “Be vulnerable, make yourself known.”
Trade in “You’re a mess, you should be embarrassed,”
for the quiet whisper of, “You’re a mess, join the club and start to live.”
Thank you for this post. Your words DO matter.
David and I have been wrestling with something. Initially, we decided that, unlike my personal blog, we would not engage with readers on the Artisan blog. In the last several months, David has been challenging me to reconsider this decision, and your comments here may be the straw that broke this camel’s back. We’re so grateful for your reading and engaging with our posts, and we want to honor that and you by responding to your comments. So, you may be hearing more from us soon here at Artisan, but for now, suffice it to say, we feel fortunate to be in this online community with each of you!
A lesson that my husband and I learned in therapy years ago was on point with what you’ve said..and we have tried to hold on to it as well as pass it along to other couples: Your feelings do not necessarily mean the truth. MY FEELINGS DO NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THE TRUTH. Fact is, they usually do not. (: Thank you for this reminder in another really wonderful way…it’s the little reminders that have big impact sometimes.
Thank you so much for the reminder. Blessings from across the pond! XXX
Thank you for sharing your gifts of prose, tenderness, and humanity, something our world needs more of. Please don’t stop writing and posting. You and your words matter immensely and affect me profoundly. Thank you for illuminating the path to inner peace. Not always easy to stay focused on this message so I come back to your posts frequently to fill my tank again with positive, uplifting messages, something I especially need in this season of my life. Touched by your grace.
“Schedule it, put it out there, your words matter,..”
I’m pretty sure I’ve already said this before, but your words DO matter. There are few people who address the things you address, and do so in a way that is helpful and accessible in the way that you do.
YES I second that to no end. You truly do have an excellent way of talking about things that are VERY difficult to verbalize, which helps us understand things better and then we also learn the language (the vocab) necessary to speak about such things to our therapists, families/loved ones in ways EVERYONE can understand. I HATE physchobabble, especially when people say things like “being enlightened” (that’s a bunch of bull) and this is not that at all.
I absolutely loved this. I am a writer who, after being in a cave for a loooong time, is emerging once again to be vulnerable. Think you for reminding me that being fully alive means being fully present. And seen.
Thank you so very much. Keep putting yourself out there.
Kelly, thank you for your life giving, dream affirming and shame vanquishing words. Yes, your words accomplished all of that for me today. I’m grateful you didn’t give in to your feelings but were vulnerable and shared what so many need to hear. God bless you!
Bulls eye! This morning my feeling of fear that I’m the first guy to comment needs to be quieted. Your posts have been gifts to me and the friends that I encourage to subscribe. Thank you.
Yay! I LOVE it when men reply. Nothing against us women. It’s just nice to get the perspective of humans with a bit less emotion involved?…don’t know maybe mens emotions are just as involved…but there’s def something different about the way men respond that to me can sometimes be a little more CLEAR!
Kelly…You write from the only place anyone can truly be reached…an open heart. Makes me cry every time because it is such a sight to behold. Of course when I first found your writings on GMP I thought ‘now here is a soul who speaks and thinks and writes like I do…why don’t I write an incredible blog like this one’? Now that is a far cry from some of the imagined thoughts from your readers. I am on Long Island NY and can only hope I stumble upon a therapeutic creative open hearted team to join with, as your newest employee just did. Good luck to her. Being in private practice can be so solitary…
Thanks for another beautiful display of humanity. 🙂
My feelings lie to me? What an amazing thought…I don’t need to believe them when they tell me I’m unimportant? This feeling goes way back to a little girl who was made to feel like that, and it isn’t true now? I can comfort her, but in that quiet place inside I must remind her of the truth-I am dearly loved by many others and important to them and most of all loved by my Abba Father and important to Him.
Thank you for illuminating this truth in a new way that truly spoke to me.
Your words helped me alot today, because you reminded me that there is a place inside of me where I can choose to have faith and take the power away from fear.
Furrealz? That’s maolverusly good to know.
I appreciate your vulnerability, I too needed this today. I need you to be brave, so I can be brave. I need you to shine the light . To Illuminate the path to that quiet, fearless place so I know how to get there. Thanks again for the encouragement.
For me: Keep looking for that still, quiet place.
For you: Please don’t stop writing.
Yes, well said. It’s a really calm and inquisitive place. There is so much going on which distracts us from that place for so much of our lives if we let it. It’s so clear in my kids somewhere between their IT and school pressures. They’ll be ones who need it most in their years to come I suspect!
Thank you. This is something I really needed to hear today.
Powerful…praying for that place inside of each of us to have Peace and Love and Grace…. And be able to live from those truths and from that place … Thankful for your truth telling this morning to engage my heart and mind… Bless you, kelly