I have known longing in my bones for places I’ve never been and people I’ve never met.

I have fallen in love with strangers, in the split second that our eyes met, as we passed each other by. I have felt my heart break into a million tiny shards, sent skyward, scattered by the wind of unspoken words, and I have stitched it softly back together, over and over again.

I have let passion bring me to my knees, its hungry fire burning and ravaging the forests of my heart. I have stared deep into the abyss of my own emptiness, and filled it with wine and scribbled notes, written in the ink of my soul.

I have let oceans cascade down my cheeks, cleansing and healing me with their warm, salty tidal waves of release. I have been lit up with an iridescence that has shone from every pore, and I’ve discovered dark, sacred corners of myself, piled high with old fears and wounds, like dusty bones.

I’ve danced all night with my shadows, and I’ve set the world on fire with the determination of my spirit. I’ve felt the collective suffering of every being that has ever lived, and I have known the silent peace found in the stillness of old forests.

I’ve held the world to my chest and cried for it; loved it, laughed with it, and felt lost within it, all at once.

I have felt the burning stab of rejection by not being seen or heard, and I have responded by expanding my heart to embrace the universe and all the stars. I have known infinite freedom beyond fear, and I have wrestled wolves of self-doubt to the death.

I’ve danced all night with my shadows. Image: Ahmad Odeh.

I have breathed in the world and all its innocent magic, with delicate tenderness. I have swum in seas of love, so deep and so wild that I nearly drowned.

No Day Passes Without my Heart Being Stretched

I feel everything. All the time. No day passes without my heart being stretched to its capacity for one reason or another.

It sounds exhausting, and it can be, but it’s all I’ve ever known. To me, feeling is the truest of my experiences because it is a physical expression of being alive. To be constantly pulsating with stimuli, vibrating at various frequencies, is to experience the proof of your own existence.

I believe that life is measured in our ability to feel; the deeper and the more raw the feelings, the more authentically we’re living. Tears will flow and hearts will break; sadness will swamp us and stomachs will knot; rages will burn and passion will overcome us. That is how we are built; maybe it is our body’s way of reminding us we are alive.

If Walt Whitman contains multitudes, then I contain infinite galaxies; supernovas and nebulas; dying stars and black holes. I contain the lives of all my ancestors; I am made of every person I’ve ever known and loved for millions of years since human hearts existed.

My mind is a wide ocean; moods rise and shrink away like tides with the cycle of the moon. My heart is a mysterious guide—dark, loud and full.

No day passes without my heart being stretched to its capacity. Image: Giulia Bertelli.

Sometimes I cry when I pass someone on the street because of the sadness in their eyes. Sometimes I want to reach out and embrace every person who has ever felt the way I do, and give them a piece of me, so that they can feel less alone.

Feelings Can be Our Trusty Guides

Life is challenging, yet beautiful.

Blessed are those who have known love and conquered fear in equal measures; who have offered a piece of their soul to the world and had it accepted and rejected simultaneously. Or those who have stood at the foot of their own dreams and trembled at the sheer sight of them.

Feelings contain lessons. We learn how to decipher each one that arises in different parts of the body; by distinguishing the acidic sting in the gut from the yearning pang of the heart, the quick-as-lightning flashes of the mind from the slow and steady call of the soul.

Feelings can be our trusty guides, if we allow them to be. They whisper to us to follow them; they can lead us astray if we misunderstand them, but if we learn to translate them, they will lead us to our heart’s calling.

If doubted, they can deceive us, yet they have the power to help us find our passions and lead us to our purpose.

Blessed are those who have offered a piece of their soul to the world. Image: Mariam Soliman.

Feelings open us up to our darkness and our light; they expose us and shake us, they destroy us and make us, but ultimately they release us.

By shutting our hearts down, we deny ourselves the chance to experience life in all its messy glory; we halt our evolution by pretending that we are small and that we don’t care. When, really, we do care. We care a lot, but we’re so afraid of admitting it.

I’m not in search of sanctity, sacredness, purity; these things are found after this life, not in this life; but in this life I search to be completely human: to feel, to give, to take, to laugh, to get lost, to be found, to dance, to love and to lust, to be so human. – C. Joybell C.

Get to Know Yourself from the Inside Out

When we resist our own depths, we let our life force wither and die inside of us; our creativity suffers, our relationships suffer, we wilt.

By opening our hearts wide and listening to their truth, we can, and will, set ourselves free. Our bodies are our greatest guides; they show us things we never knew about ourselves and about others. They explain important messages in ways we could never articulate with words.

The truth that sits in your gut in the form of intuition is the most powerful messenger you will ever know.

To feel so deeply and so often, means to get to know yourself from the inside out. How well do we really know ourselves? How much do we truly love ourselves?

Feelings are what make life worth living. Image: mohsen shenavari.

Feelings are what make life worth living; what inspire us to keep seeking, keep moving and keep creating. They are what drive us to keep loving even when we lose everything. Feelings decorate our souls and birth our dreams.

These feelings accompany the humble wonders of nature and the power and comfort of finding kindred connections.

Deep Feelings are a Gift

These feelings are what we are made of, beneath this skin and bone; these feelings were first created inside stars and passed down to us through the bloodlines of ancient sages. They connect us to each other with the invisible threads of our shared experiences.

When we let ourselves feel unapologetically and share the experience, we allow others to have the courage to sink into their feelings in a more authentic way and express themselves without shame.

Deep feelings are a gift; they have the capacity to transform us if we follow their wisdom. Allow yourself to feel from your core, with your heart, and let yourself be moved.

The feelings we feel so often, are our connection to the divine, and ultimately to ourself. Let them wash over you like waves; let them heal you. Let them break you and build you.

Let them show you who you are and then let them set you free.