Instructions for Feeling

First—

remove your armor slowly.

Do not rip it off.

Grief startles easy.

Hope does too.

Unbuckle the lies you learned early:

Be strong.

Be useful.

Don’t make it heavy.

Set them down like loaded weapons

and step back before they go off.

Next, find a quiet place.

Not peaceful—quiet.

Peace is a myth on most days.

Quiet just means no one is watching you break.

Sit with your spine curved,

your hands empty,

your breath unperformed.

If your chest shakes, let it.

That’s not weakness—

that’s the body remembering how to speak.

To feel love,

do not chase it.

Love hates pursuit.

Instead, stay still long enough

for it to find you breathing honestly.

It arrives barefoot,

usually when you’re unprepared

and already tired of pretending you’re fine.

To feel grief,

do not summarize it.

Do not say “It was for the best”

or “At least I learned something.”

Grief will leave if you try to make it useful.

Let it be wasteful.

Let it ruin a whole afternoon.

Let it spill onto the floor

and stain the hours you thought you’d saved.

If you want to avoid numbness,

stop swallowing your words.

Unsaid things calcify in the throat.

They harden.

They block joy on the way up

and sorrow on the way out

until all you feel is pressure

and call it normal.

To create courage,

do not wait for confidence.

Confidence is a liar with good posture.

Courage is quieter.

It sounds like

“I’m terrified, but I’m still here.”

Say that aloud.

Say it again tomorrow.

If you need to feel anger,

do not aim it at yourself.

That’s how it turns into shame

and starts eating the walls from the inside.

Anger is a guard dog—

chain it too tight and it will bite you instead.

Teach it what actually deserves its teeth.

To experience joy,

lower your expectations.

Joy hates pressure.

It prefers cracks—

coffee gone cold but still good,

a laugh that escapes before permission,

the relief of being understood

for half a sentence.

Let that be enough.

Enough is a miracle we overlook daily.

When the feeling becomes too much—

and it will—

do not escape it.

Anchor.

Name five things you can touch.

Name the ache without apologizing for it.

Pain calms down when it’s believed.

If tears come,

do not wipe them away too fast.

Tears are the body’s way

of washing the truth back to the surface.

Let them finish their work.

Finally—

when you are tempted to shut it all down,

to go flat and functional and safe,

remember this:

You were not made to be untouched.

You were made to be moved.

To ache, to hope, to risk being seen

and still choose to stay soft.

So feel it.

Even when it burns.

Especially when it burns.

Because numbness is easy—

but feeling

is how you prove

you’re still alive.