At Peace Therapeutic Massage

One of the things I've learned over the years is that sorrow and joy are perfectly capable of keeping each other company.

You can be going through one of the hardest periods of your life and still find yourself laughing at something ridiculous. You can carry an enormous amount of grief and still be stopped in your tracks by a beautiful sunset.

I hope you notice something lovely today, whatever you may be carrying.

꩜ Ella

What’s goes around comes around ♥️

“Jesus wept.” — John 11:35

There’s a myth that women are driven by their emotions while men somehow aren’t.

Men have emotions just as deeply as women do. The difference is often in how we were taught to express them.

Girls have traditionally been given permission to cry, talk about their feelings and show vulnerability. Boys have often been told, “Toughen up. Don’t cry. Be a man.”

But emotions don’t disappear simply because we hide them.

Sometimes they come out as anger, frustration, fear, withdrawal or even a fear of failure.

And let’s not forget Jesus wept.

Jesus experienced grief. He experienced compassion. He experienced joy. He knew sorrow.

Emotion is not weakness. It is part of being human.

We do need to learn to control our emotions, particularly anger. But controlling an emotion is not the same as pretending we don’t have it.

We should be free to laugh.
Free to rejoice.
Free to cry.
Free to say, “I’m hurting.”

Perhaps we need to stop teaching people—especially boys and men—that showing emotion makes them weak.

God gave us emotions for a reason.

There is strength in being honest about how we feel, and wisdom in learning how to respond to those feelings well.

💜✨

Safety in a relationship is often felt before it is ever explained. It is being around someone and realizing there is nothing to manage. No need to read the room, rehearse a response, anticipate a reaction, or wonder which version of them will show up today.

That kind of presence changes people. When someone consistently feels safe with you, they get to put down all the emotional work they have learned to carry around other people. And sometimes, being able to simply exist beside another person without bracing for anything is one of the deepest forms of love there is.