I cry and unexpected money shows up. I scream and my relationship has a breakthrough. I sing and dance and feel healthier.

I show my “imperfect” feelings and my daughter learns to trust me more. Even better, she learns to feel safe with her own feelings.

It’s the opposite of what most of us are taught. Especially when we’re stressed, wondering “Is my relationship/ money/ health/ ______ going to be ok?,” our knee-jerk reaction is to clamp down. Hold on for dear life.

In those moments, we feel “I can’t afford to mess up here.” We try harder, we pretend more, and we push and tense up because it takes energy to shove our feelings down.

And I can tell you after decades of observing myself and the people around me doing it, it doesn’t even work. Flat out. It doesn’t work.

And of course we have to consider where and when and how to express our feelings. It’s not appropriate to scream in the middle of a restaurant, it’s not helpful to call someone names or let emotions take over our lives completely.

There’s an art to feeling them fully and honoring others and the rest of our lives. It’s worth mastering, and contrary to our fears, it makes us more mature and successful in life, not less.

By feeling more, we can live more fully. Our creativity turns on. We allow more good into our lives. And we cannot avoid the “bad” and still expect the good to come.

I interviewed a couple of tantra experts for the Empowered Living Podcast, and both talked about this. For example, Michaela Boehm shared that we can only feel as much orgasmic pleasure as we can feel anger. And that goes for all our emotions– by feeling the “negative” ones we allow more of the “positive” ones.

People think tantra is all about sex, but it’s not. That’s a great way to get people’s attention and yet tantra is a much bigger concept.

Loosely translated, it means “weaving” and “expansion”, and refers to embracing both body and spirit, that our spirituality can include the body and everything “worldly”. In a sense, it’s an “advanced” concept, because it’s easier to meditate in a cave than it is to find bliss in the midst of work, marriage, children and modern life. These days, it’s rare to find a cave or set aside such time, and so tantra is becoming popular.

Ever since I was a teenager, it’s pissed me off when people lived with their volumes “turned down”. It’s challenged me when someone’s words or actions didn’t match their energy. I could feel these things, and I felt confused and sad. Sad, because I knew more was possible. I didn’t know there were teachings about this and I certainly didn’t have it modeled to me.

In big and little ways, we all “hold back” at times. For example, many of us overstep our own boundaries because we’re afraid to disappoint someone. Or, we say we’re “good” when we’re furious and “fine” when we’re bursting with joy. We rush by flowers that smell sweeter than the best perfume.

I felt alone with my sensitivity as a kid, but now I realize how sensitive we all are. Some of us can see it more clearly than others, perhaps, but everyone gets confused when people’s actions don’t match their words!

I see how many relationship problems are caused by someone not speaking their truth (or even knowing what they really feel), acting out and then triggering the other. It’s much, much harder to unravel these things if we aren’t willing to look at what’s really going on.

I see people getting stuck in their health and money and career challenges when they aren’t willing to feel. Simply put, if one kind of energy can’t flow, then no energy can flow.

And emotional energy is incredibly powerful. Tapping into it is the key to manifesting anything.

If you’re not sure how to access your feelings, or what to do with them when you do, hit me up for a reading and let’s take a look together! This Sunday, 10/16, you can get a *free* mini-reading in the Empowered Living Psychic Lounge. Tantra is one of our themes and I’ll take these questions first!

Thanks for reading, and as always, feel free to post your comments and questions below.