Last week I read, “Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” – Henri Nouwen

I think I can come across as “just think positive, on God’s Truth, and all will be well” sometimes, which I do believe. But I also believe that we must allow what we feel. We must learn to be okay with and accept that life is hard and sometimes we are sad or angry or confused or frustrated or any number of emotions and that is all part of it.

We do not need to be scared of our emotions, of our humanness. Our emotions come and go as we think thoughts that create our feelings. We feel our feelings in our bodies. We must learn to recognize and allow our emotions and as we do, they will pass through us.

We recognize how we feel, we allow ourselves to feel that way, remembering, we are human, and part of being human is having feelings.

We practice self-compassion. We don’t expect ourselves to be different or further along, we just accept that “this is where we are right now,” and this too shall pass.

We take some deep breaths. We recite some encouraging scriptures. We repeat a Truth mantra in our head. We sing a worship song. We ground ourselves in Truth, in God’s perspective, and His help.

From this place of centeredness, we can investigate our feelings, get curious about them and what caused them. Then we nurture ourselves by practicing self-compassion, holding space for ourselves as we navigate forward. We treat ourselves the way we would treat a friend who was going through a similar situation or set of circumstances.

We trust God. We claim His Truth over our lives. Practicing believing that God is with us and for us and loves us and will help us through whatever we face. We practice faith! Remembering He gave us our emotions! He made us strong and resilient and capable.

We practice being patient with ourselves. Reminding ourselves, nothing has gone wrong. All shall be well, eventually.

And the more we practice recognizing our feelings and processing our emotions the easier it will get with time. We build resilience. We begin to realize the power we have to move through our feelings. And with time we will realize the power we have to move through the “tough” emotions and the power we have to cultivate the feelings we want.

We accept all our humanness, the condition of being human.

I have found that as I practice self-compassion, and accept my humanness, it enables me to more readily offer compassion to others.

Keep practicing belief and processing emotions!