Reader,
I'm returning from a deep, potent tree diet with my brother Jordan Mockingbird. There were 9 people in total, and I'm still integrating back into society. I'll share more about that journey as I integrate that more. I wanted to share today about emotions, and the importance of feeling it, and also moving through it.
I hope you enjoy.
I am a deeply emotional man, and it's taken me a while to understand the underlying message behind my emotions.
Emotions are initiations. Each one a doorway into a deeper truth about who you are in that moment.
The Lie We've Been Sold
If you grew up ion a household similar to mine, then you were taught that vulnerability is weakness. That feeling deeply is dangerous.
This is the armor that's killing us.
And then if you started healing path like me, you learned the art of feeling and tending to your emotions. You probably attended rage ceremonies and grief circles, so you could feel better.
But here's the other trap - the one the "feel your feelings" crowd won't tell you: Wallowing isn't healing. Collapsing into your pain and making it your identity is just another form of avoidance.
I've watched too many people I work with swing from one extreme to the other. From the stoic warrior who feels nothing to the perpetual victim who drowns in everything.
Both are refusing the real invitation.
The Third Way: Emotional Alchemy
Now, there is another way.
It's learning to move with your emotions instead of against them or into them.
Think about it like surfing. You don't fight the wave - it'll crush you. You don't become the wave - you'll drown. You ride it. You use its power to carry you somewhere you couldn't get on your own.
The Practice: From Resistance to Flow
Here's what this looks like in real time:
1. Recognition Without Judgment When grief rises, when rage burns, when fear grips - notice it. Name it. "Ah, here's sadness. Here's anger. Here's terror."
Don't make it wrong. Don't make it right. Just acknowledge its arrival like you would a storm rolling in.
2. Full Permission to Feel Let it move through your body. Cry the tears. Shake with the rage. Tremble with the fear.
But - and this is crucial - stay conscious. You're not becoming the emotion. You're experiencing it. There's a you that remains sovereign even as the feeling moves through.
3. Follow the Thread Every emotion carries intelligence. Grief shows you what you love. Anger shows you where your boundaries have been crossed. Fear shows you where you're being called to grow.
Ask: "What is this emotion trying to show me? Where is it leading me?"
4. Take the Aligned Action This is where most of us get stuck. They feel the feeling but don't follow through with what it's asking of them.
Your sadness might be asking you to finally have that conversation. Your anger might be demanding you set that boundary. Your fear might be inviting you to take that leap.
The emotion isn't complete until you act on its wisdom.
Trusting the Mystery
During my two-year feminine cleanse after my separation, I spent three months in a Vipassana center and two months in ceremony in Peru. Not to escape my emotions, but to learn their language.
What I discovered changed everything: Our emotions aren't problems to solve. They're not even experiences to process. They're initiations into deeper layers of our truth.
But here's what nobody tells you about taking emotional risks: You have to trust the mystery before you can see where it leads.
That cliff jump that almost killed me? I couldn't see the landing from the top. But something in me knew I had to leap.
Moving to Canada, knowing I'd be banned from the US for a decade? Pure trust in what my fear was pointing toward.
Every time I've followed an emotion all the way through - not stopping at the feeling but following it into action - I've discovered a version of myself I didn't know existed.
The Edge of Transformation
Right now, there's an emotion you've been avoiding. Maybe it's the grief of who you used to be. The rage at what was taken from you. The terror of who you might become if you really let go.
Whatever it is, it's not asking you to drown in it.
It's asking you to trust it.
To take the chance that on the other side of fully feeling and moving through this emotion is a truth you need to discover. A part of yourself you've been waiting to meet.
The Invitation
The folks who come to work with me don't arrive because they've figured it out. They come because they're finally ready to stop pretending they have.
They're ready to trade their armor for aliveness. Their numbness for depth. Their control for trust.
They're ready to discover that their emotions - the very things they've been running from - are actually the compass pointing them home.
Your Move
What emotion have you been treating as an enemy that might actually be an ally?
What feeling have you been resisting that's trying to initiate you into your next evolution?
What would happen if, instead of bracing for impact or collapsing into the wave, you dove straight through it?
The mystery isn't waiting for you to be ready.
It's waiting for you to trust that you already are.
In fierce love and unwavering truth,
Ish
P.S. - I've got a couple of cool group work opportunities in the horizon, one for men only and one is co-ed. I'll share more about the latter soon, but here's a sneak peek: Salt. Solitude. Silence. Vision. Spirit.
And I've got two spots for 1:1 work , for men and women. These are deep, personal mentorship opportunities to work through deep kinks and unwind somatically, psychologically, and spiritually. You can send me a message if you're interested.
