The feelings issue

Breaking down the wall between me and my heart. Plus: Upping my at-home latte game.

The other night, I signed off from the weekly virtual meditation session that I’ve been doing this winter and immediately picked up my phone, which was lying next to me on the bed.

It’s such a modern reflex, isn’t it? For that matter, I guess participating in a guided group meditation class while lying on my bed in the dark is also pretty 2025.

When I swiped into my phone, it immediately took me to Instagram and a video started to play. It showed a little boy decked out in Eagles swag standing in a Dollar Tree store while someone off camera asked him about his love for the football team and we learn that the boy had never seen them play live.

Over the course of the video, we learn that the kid, who’s maybe 10-ish, had been hospitalized with some type of chronic arthritis and that he was still experiencing pain. Things pick up when he’s handed tickets to go see the big Eagles championship game and also, cash, which he hands out to fellow Dollar Tree shoppers, including an older gentlemen who seems so taken aback that the cash was given out of kindness.

Cue the montage of the kid standing on the sidelines at the Eagles game. He’s getting high-fived by players and he shouts hello to Bradley Cooper, who’s walking by and gives him a wave. And then you hear this little boy say, “This is the best day of my life,” and I burst into tears on my bed and said, “I am all that is.”

When I told the story to someone later in the week, I explained that the wave of emotion took me by surprise. It came seemingly from nowhere and I didn’t have to conjure it, as I often feel like I have to do to tap into my emotions. Like I’m Cameron Diaz in The Holiday trying to get myself to cry. Squeezing my eyes shut and hoping when they open that some semblance of tears start rolling down my face.

Feeling feelings for some of us is hard. I mean, I just found out I actually had feelings last year.

That night’s mediation class included some chanting, and I have discovered that I connect most with the more visceral types of meditating. Give me some tapping or vibrational sound bowls, and I can feel my body start to hum.

Before we began, our teacher explained that our mantra would be “So-Hum,” which is loosely translated to mean, “I am all that is” or “I am that” in Sanskrit. The class went off camera as our teacher helped guide us to a quiet place and then she began to intone the mantra, which I repeated in my bedroom, for about five minutes. I kind of sang the phrase “So Hum” over and over, my voice rising in the darkness and joining with the woman’s voice coming from my laptop. I could feel the humming build inside my chest. The vibrations of the mantra filling me with a warm swirl of sound.

After about five minutes, the chanting ended and I laid on my bed in the dark and listened to a recording of the mantra accompanied by some New Age-y sounds. And even though I was no longer chanting myself, I could still feel the vibrations fluttering in my chest.

Before the class ended, we came back on camera and the teacher went around and checked in on each one of us. I listened as one woman reported feeling “peaceful” and when it was my turn to say how I felt, that’s what I said. I told her I could still feel the vibrations inside me and that it made me feel relaxed.

That’s when we all said good night, and I picked up my phone and was crying within about 90 seconds.

I reported to the person I was sharing this story with, who — okay— was my therapist, which I was trying to spare you from and not be so, like, that girl — but I told her that when I cried, it was not for that little Eagles fan. God knows, his story was sad and deserved real tears. But I really felt, deep within the scrum of all those feelings swirling inside my chest after all that chanting, that who I was crying for was me.

I mean, I wasn’t crying for “me” as much as maybe another version of myself. A younger version who didn’t have the resources, or emotional tools, that I have now. Who still had a giant fence erected around her heart and couldn’t let anything in or out.

I’ve been working really hard to knock that wall down. I’ve been tearing it apart, brick by heavy brick. I can still feel super walled off from how I’m really feeling deep down, but every once in a while, a strong emotion comes flying out and I’m gobsmacked when it shows itself. Like, “Oh, I didn’t have to work to conjure you. You were there the whole time.”

It’s the letting myself sit with the feelings that’s the thing. Breathing quietly and allowing them to move through me — without compulsively picking up a phone or glass of wine or salty snack to help soften the discomfort. Acknowledging the feeling to better understand the icky feelings I get in my gut. Connect those to other times I’ve felt the emotional ick and be like, “Oh, it’s that.” Then I can adjust and move on.

I mean, LOL, I don’t even know if I have that last part right. I think that’ll be in my Emotions 201 class, which maybe I’ll be ready for in the coming months. But right now, I’m still working through the intro-level course. Much like when I tested into an 010-level math class when I went to college because, numbers, I think life served me up my own version of Emotions for Dummies class. And much like my experience taking math in college, I may have failed the life class about emotions the first time I tried it.

But now, I’m really getting after it. I am studying hard. All the word problems that life posed are starting to seem more clear. All the fractions and decimals of my life are coming together, adding and multiplying, to create a whole. Me.

how to get unstuck

Here are some of the resources that have been really helping me in that department:

Meditation: My friend and teacher, Judy, has a few spots open for the virtual mediation offerings she has in February. You can email her in the link.

The Language of Letting Go: I have both the book and the app, which I read first thing every morning.

Insight Timer: This app you can get on your phone is a portal to a grillion guided meditation offerings. I am obsessed with this teacher in particular. Her voice. Gah.

Digital sunset: My therapist is hot for this I’ve really been trying to put my phone in another room an hour before I plan on going to sleep. I am not always amazing at this. Last night, I picked up my phone to check the weather and ended up in a TikTok hole until bedtime. It’s a WIP.

3 things i’m obsessed with this week

1. It’s official: I’m a morning person

I am obsessed with this (much-younger) woman’s Substack newsletter. Everything about it is super relatable and I love all her curated recommendations so much, I’ve become a paid subscriber. Plus, the vibe is super vibey. I love how she describes her Substack as the newsletter she always wanted in her inbox.

2. Wrap it up

Like every other girlie on the planet, according to the internet, I am trying to find ways to increase my protein intake and build some muscle. What a slog. I grabbed a package of egg wraps at Trader Joe’s and turned to the internet (again) to figure out what to do with them. I heated and filled with scrambled egg whites + spinach + hot sauce, but my fave that I put on repeat was a schmear of avocado, grilled chicken strips + shredded kale with some tahini dressing (LOCAL: GET SEED TO SPROUT’S. GAH.) Also in case you (like my daughter) are wondering, they are odorless.

3. Upping my latte game

You guys know I love my coworkers and the text thread between me and the other two women on my team is named “Latte ladies.” In it, we share about a million pics of lattes we’ve purchased on our wfh days. One of the girls got a Nespresso for Christmas, so now the feed is mostly of the lattes we’ve been making from home. The kids are always inspiring me. Lately, I’ve really stepped up my own afternoon treat with this Chobani creamer, glass jars from Target’s dollar area and baby ice cubes trays. Honestly, I hate ice — please serve me all drinks lukewarm — but these cubes MAKE my day. Makes my daughters crazy.

(Please note: the text thread with the full team, including our one male coworker, is called SIMPLY THE BEST because, duh, that guy. )

Thanks for reading!

As always, thank you for taking the time to read this post. I’m truly so glad you’re here. If you like what you’re reading, please consider sharing this newsletter. (And if you have the time to like it or even better — comment — that would mean a lot to me!)