A love letter+++ from JC

Hello, Beautiful Human <3 

Happy Valentine’s Day!  Thank you for being here and for your interest in this project.  I appreciate you very much.  With all my heart, I want you to know that you are beautiful and multifaceted, more than enough and never too much.  Your people are out there and surrounding you and within you and maybe right here.  I open this chapter and my heart to you all.  Let the feeling begin (again) - in community.

XOXO,

Jess

+++

In essence, this chapter is created with belief in the power of love and human connection.  At this time, it is so difficult to navigate around the intricate webs of society, social media, and news outlets without getting entangled and ensnared in hateful, divisive language and mind-numbing content.  Recently, and held within our bodies through centuries, we have felt and witnessed so much pain, anger, grief, rage, ignorance, injustice, helplessness, hopelessness, despair, disparities, violence.  But these feelings and actions have not existed alone.  

In this world, and the intricate webs within each of us, there is also so much love and life.  And while acknowledging that love and life have been threatened and under attack for various groups of humans, it is important to embrace these moments and sentiments as they come up for us.  Love and joy can and must exist simultaneously with hatred and devastation.  Choosing love is an act of resistance against systems that seek to divide, confuse, alienate, and silence us for their own gain.  Experiencing joy is maintaining hope and practicing creativity, which is necessary for dreaming of a better world and moving towards a better future.  Continuing to exist and hope and feel through life is an act of resistance towards those who choose hate.

Feeling through life exists in depressions and plateaus and peaks and troughs.  It is a journey with unpredictable topography.  And it can feel so isolating at times.  

As many of you know, I currently live in New York City as a mental health therapist.  Here, as I have felt and witnessed, it is a somewhat universal experience to feel constantly overstimulated by everything and everyone around you and simultaneously feel soul-crushingly alone.  Individuality is so championed that no one cares what you do or what you wear or what you say.  And time moves rapidly.  Which can all be so freeing!  And also so tiring, disheartening, hardening.

No wonder why it is so easy to feel alone… to feel, alone —

I am a firm believer that you are never alone when you have yourself, and being your own best company can get you really far in life and in adventures.  But feeling alone can be harmful, unnecessary, and wasteful.  And not just for you but for those around you.  

When we keep our feelings to ourselves as an act of selflessness, I think more often than we may admit, it is actually selfish and inauthentic.  Feeling in isolation robs people of an opportunity to feel connected, to know what’s going on, to express care, to share the gravity of a feeling, to exist in a space of understanding, to be on the same plane of the universe for a moment, to feel close to you.  

Yes, processing one’s own feelings is an important skill to learn and to practice.  But it also has the potential to build into an unfavorable habit with limited awareness.

I acknowledge there are many valid reasons not to share one’s feelings or to be closed off to feeling, and it is important to know and to honor the boundaries of ourselves and others. 

As a therapist who works specifically with people of intersecting marginalized identities, I witness so much hardening to this world. And so many convincing reasons to affirm this form of protection. But what I am more constantly reminded of is that there is no greater protective force than to be in community. As humans, we are never really alone.  And in community, we never have to feel alone.  In community, we can be stronger than ourselves, so much stronger. We can rest and take care of each other, we can explore and make mistakes, we can have conflict and love and uncertainty and understanding all at once.

Sometimes the dreamer wants to dig their feet in the dirt for a bit and the jester is due for a good sad cry.  And as a community, we continue to dream and to jest so they may feel the earth and cry.  And they are no less of a dreamer or jester, but perhaps all the more.  As a community, we rest, we receive care, we feel anew, and we re-inspire.  We witness, we care, we fight, we challenge. We sustain.

It is natural to want to protect one’s heart.  But that can only get us so far.

When did you last share in a feeling? Share in joy, in sadness, in rage; in nostalgia, grief, disgust? Share in love?

To allow softness, to allow yourself to be seen, to allow others to see you, can be terrifying and painful. But it has the potential to be healing and blissful. Sharing in feeling with others is not just a defense, but an offense - a force that is amplified by those around you, that can lift you up and energize you to go where you want to be.

Maybe hardening to the world has been and continues to be necessary. Maybe there is room now for more than just what is necessary. Maybe there is room for softness. Maybe softness is necessary, too.

Perhaps hardening is necessary for surviving, and softness is necessary for living.

May this page be a space where you can give yourself permission to be soft.  Slow down.  Open your heart - allow yourself to feel - deeply, openly, fiercely, unashamedly, and un-alone.

Community relies on showing up genuinely and authentically, because what is “correctly”?  So please, come as you are.  Remember you are more than enough and never too much. You are beautiful and multifaceted, and I hope you will return to share in these feelings of our collective Heart.  As always, thank you for being here, and thank you for being you.

Love Always.,

JC