Feeling feelings and talking about those feelings

Telling the truth, even when it’s unpopular

Breaking toxic relational cycles (like intergenerational trauma as it is passed down from parent to child.)

Breaking toxic systemic cycles (like the cycles of fear that have allowed faulty power dynamics to harm communities of color, to turn poverty into a crime, and to cause the LGBTQIA and gender-non-conforming community to fear for their safety and well-being.)

Being our most authentic, truth-telling selves, no matter how inconvenient

Living in alignment with our values

Boundaries: setting them and respecting them

Letting what’s real be okay; not shining life up just make it prettier

Learning to sit in the discomfort that is naturally born from living life as a human

You’re a deeply feeling, highly-sensitive person. You can feel it when someone in your presence is feeling off, even if it has nothing to do with you

You have a strong intuition. The strength of your intuition might freak you out

You swing like a pendulum — complete self-assurance to paralyzing self-doubt

You feel like you’re here on earth to do something big. and often feel like an imposter for having that thought

Sitting with uncomfortable feelings makes you squirm. You hate it, and might avoid these feelings by over-using substances, diving head-first into work, or taking advantage of some other form of avoidant distraction

You look to others to tell you who you are

You consistently feel like you have something important to say, and you’re either terrified to say it or you shove it so far down other people’s throats they struggle to breathe in the face of your relentless amazing-and-overwhelming passion

The pain and injustice in the world often leaves you feeling paralyzed. You want to make a difference and you don’t know how.

Because stifling feelings creates emotional dams that don’t allow good things in or out

Because our kids don’t deserve to take on our unmet pain

Because living from a place of alignment means living with integrity

Because boundaries tell people what behaviors we allow, and adhering to the boundaries others set shows we respect them

Because the truth is almost always unpopular, until it isn’t — and it needs to be spoken anyway

Because discomfort has gotten a bad rap

Because life is messy and hard and full of disappointment. It’s also full of gorgeous joy and excitement — and when we only acknowledge the latter because the former makes us sad, we’re missing out on a lot of what life has to show us

Because we deserve to thrive in this one life we’ve lucked into

Because injustices like racism, xenophobia, and transphobia will never go away —

not until we do this work.