Weekly Newsletter: Experience Your Feelings

​      Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that our feelings can be easily dismissed—or that they should be. Yes, Stone Eight encourages us to release any feelings we deem harmful, but only after we have experienced them. It is not healthy to hold onto these experiences beyond a certain point, but it is also not healthy to dismiss them too soon.
      Grief provides an example of an emotion that can be held for too long or for too short. Modern society seems to have lost the art of grieving. We expect those in grief to experience the emotions that go along with grief—anger, rage, denial, and so on—and then to release them and go on with life. Past cultures allowed months and even a year or more for someone to release those feelings. Who is to say how long is too long, and how short is too short? Only the individual can make that decision. Our part is simply to love those in pain and allow them to heal in their own time without judging whether it is too long, too short, or just right.