How to welcome the Big Feelings

Hi Loves,

This has been a tough week, with a lot of feelings that need a lot of care.

A little before the election, I found myself stuck in an incredibly painful cycle of dysregulation that lasted over a week. It was one of those cruel mental traps where I was judging my own feelings as too much, too inconvenient, and too unacceptable... and this created a self-amplifying fear spiral that made them SO much bigger, and SO much harder to navigate.

(Fun fact: rejecting feelings doesn't actually make them not exist.)

Once I recognized this was happening, someone close to me asked me a really useful question: "What do you most want to hear?"

I started rattling off expressions of reassurance, and they encouraged me to write it down.

I ended up turning that text into a video.

I'll be honest: I didn't end up receiving this message directly from anyone.

But I did receive it from myself. And that made a real difference for me.

Maybe you know someone who's afraid right now that their feelings are too big, and they need to hear something like this from you today.

Maybe there's someone who wants to support you in your feels, and is hoping you'll tell them what you most want to hear.

Maybe there's a message you want to give to yourself.

What do you most want to hear?

All your feelings are welcome right now. And always.

xo,
Sarah

Welcome, Feelings

(Video available on TikTok & Instagram)

Hey, I just wanna remind you that
ALL of your feelings are completely welcome right now.
They can be as big as they need to be.
They can last as long as they need to last.

I love you, and I love all your feelings.
I love how rich and intense they are,
and I love how much information they give us.
I wanna learn from them with you.

I also know—because you've told me—
that when you have really intense feelings,
you get worried
that they'll be too much for people
and could hurt your relationships.

I'm not gonna let that happen.

Keeping myself safe is gonna be my job, and I'll take that seriously.
I'll pay attention to my boundaries and I'll take care of my needs.
If I need a break, I'll let you know, and we'll choose a time to come back later.

But I also know
this isn't gonna be over
until your body is sure that it's over,
so even if i need to step away for parts of it,
I know that you're still in this process.
I won't rush it.

I want this to have whatever time it needs.

I know you get worried about hurting people when you're in pain.
I love how fair and kind you're always trying to be,
but if you say something that doesn't match your values,
we have space for that.
We're really good at clearing things up.
I promise not to leave anything hanging that's hurting me.

I also know that
you have a LOT of skills for taking care of yourself and listening to your needs.
You've had to work SO hard for those skills,
because you've had to do so much of this kind of work on your own.
You are really good at taking care of yourself.
Even when you feel stuck, I see how much you're doing.

I want you to stay in charge of listening to your needs
and deciding what's best for you,
so I can have enough information to help.

I want you to bring your whole self right now.

I want you to let go of trying to make your feelings smaller.
Let's make lots of space for them.
How big can they get?
Let's make so much space
that they start wondering if they should apologize
for not being bigger.

All of your feelings
are gonna make perfect sense once we understand them.
If they're asking for something that's hard to resolve,
there's probably more messages we can find underneath.
We can get curious.
We can thank them for communicating.
We can thank them for protecting you.

I am so honored that I get to be this close to you.
Thank you for trusting me
with what you're really experiencing.

We have a strong foundation,
and our relationship is safe.
I've met your feelings,
and they could never scare me away.

You could never be too much for me.

—Sarah Dopp
@sarahdoppify