“Numb the dark and you numb the light.” ~ Brené Brown

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When the pain of your heart feels unbearable, running away isn’t your best option—but it’s (my) most tempting.

Being sensitive in this chaotic world and in touch with and deep feeling of the armor around our hearts is no pain-free feat. We live in a world where the logic of the head is at odds with the emotion of the heart. Out of fear of being well-liked and proving ourselves, head sadly seems to be the victor in a battle over the heart.

Being sensitive also means carrying emotion a little more intensely—not being able to just “shake it off.” And when life hurts, and the pain of being human seems unbearable, working within these sensitive ways means connecting with that inner strength we all carry—even when it feels faint and just barely visible.

It’s through my yoga practice that I negotiate my own sensitivity and how I relate to the world. My yoga mat is my safe space. It’s my sacred space. I’m humbled to be in healing work that empowers building strength internally (partly through yoga) in order to stay a little more present within the chaos of life.

When the deep pain of feeling the chaos of the world rises, it can be our inclination to make sense of it, to make it go away, to put a story around it—to do anything to make it stop.

But sometimes you just need to let it be, to stop fighting it, and to surrender.

When I was in a similar place of surrender this week, I found this quote:

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” ~ Louise Erdrich

May this quote remind you that in those spaces and depths emotion, in the deepest pains of being human, the important stuff will stick around, and you will be supported and make it through to the other side.