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To live a romantic life means not numbing feelings.

How to remember your beating heart in your chest and let its thundering echo shake the frost from your bones.

An essay by Lauren Aldridge

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MAKE WAY FOR THE SENSITIVE CHILD

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I have always been a hopeless romantic, even before I was aware of the term.

I was a what-you-might-call-sensitive child (sigh), raised in the era of 90s Disney princesses and pre-internet innocence. I would sit in the bathtub for hours and refuse to get out because I was convinced I was a mermaid. I used to cry watching the discovery channel with my parents when the cheetah caught and ate the gazelle. However I would feel equally devastated if the gazelle escaped the cheetah, wailing “what are her cubs going to eat now??” – precocious little thing.

Ah, the 90s bangs. I probably cried when I touched that fish.

I spent hours making up fantasy worlds and personalities for my stuffed animals, living much more in my imaginary world than in the realm of playgrounds and kindergarten. I was described by my family as “Lauren is so… creative” which is really code for “that one over there is weird”. My closest friend and confidant ages 3-8 was a stuffed bear. I gave homeschooled kid energy as someone who was not homeschooled.

*Let me be clear- I write all of this with so much love and humor about myself. I think it’s hilarious that my favorite memory from the age of 9 is seeing Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in a movie theater ALONE because my dad was like, yeah, I’m not doing that with you for 3 and a half hours. Former weird loner kids to the front, please! And why yes, I did go to a Harry Potter- themed theater camp why do you ask? *

It should, then, come as a surprise to absolutely no one that I now make my living exploring the world of feelings and relationships. As a licensed therapist, I guide fellow kindred spirits in making sense of why things feel so, so… feely sometimes.

Maybe you know what I’m talking about. Have you ever seen a sunset so stunningly beautiful, so knock-your-socks-off in its glowy, warm radiance that it made your heart physically ache in your chest? How about the sensation when a small child runs into your arms for a hug, or a kitten climbs clumsily in your lap and starts purring?

I mean, come on! Incredible. Are you a sunrise or a sunset person?

Does a handwritten birthday card, a trinket that says, “this made me think of you”, or the kindness of strangers render you a wobbly little puddle?

Good! Me too. Glad to know I’m not the only lunatic deep feeler here.

If you’ve ever been around a fellow DF (deep feeler), you’ve seen it firsthand. They are rocked by seemingly small things. Witnessing this, you may feel an impulse to roll your eyes with impatience and say “Why are you crying? It’s not that serious! It’s just a ladybug sitting on a leaf” (an image that would certainly ruin me). And I understand- it feels like there just isn’t time for all that frivolous whimsy. We have a schedule to keep! Deadlines! And the worst of all- grow up and join the real world with the rest of us!

Why are we so impatient with each other?

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Old Souls, Western Minds

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I was a dreamy, creative child. The best kind to be, in my opinion. But like most of us, I received the loud and clear message from early on that my feelings were too much. They were inconvenient, exhausting, and ohmygod messy- hurry up and put those away before someone sees!

This message- to pipe down and get to work– is packaged and sold by western culture. Capitalism preaches the “suck it up and move on” mentality. We admire those who can compartmentalize their feelings and soldier on- usually to their own detriment. Do you feel guilty for resting? Does the word should ring in your vocabulary constantly as “I should be working harder right now. I should be doing more.”? Is being lazy the worst possible thing that someone could see you as?

I hear this feedback a lot from clients in my private practice. We take the exploration of our inner worlds and feelings as a frivolous luxury. And on many levels, I actually agree. Past generations were literally going to war and battling the great depression- not exactly a space to reflect on where do you feel that in your body?? However, it has exposed our lack of insight and coping skills as a culture now that most of us don’t have to go fight in combat. Instead of jumping out of airplanes all day or working on farms like our ancestors, we are stuck at desks, measuring out how much precious PTO we can take and dreading the next MTSHBAE (meeting that should have been an email). Our internal worlds have become the metaphorical battlefields for many of us. But we have no idea how to navigate the anxiety, disconnection, or burnout- so we get upset with ourselves for not “playing the game” better. We punish ourselves for having feelings instead!

Where, may I ask, is there room for curiosity, playfulness, and connection under these conditions? Oh right- there isn’t any. Profits and whimsy are rarely (if ever) mentioned in the same sentence.

How’s that locking in coming?

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The average person is not David Goggins, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or one of the judges on Shark Tank. Not even close. So why are we comparing ourselves to the top of the most elite, and berating ourselves when we don’t measure up?

Let me be clear- discipline is important. Work is important. Feeling productive and purposeful is a huge part of healthy self-esteem. But we have to allow some room for our humanness, too.

We all have a red, beating heart in our chest- do you remember what that feels like?

Do you miss it?

Nowadays it seems it’s become fashionable to feel nothing at all. Safer, surely. But certainly not alive. The deadpan, soulless eyes of one influencer after the next. Why is that lifeless, monotone person on a screen making bread, and even more curious- why am I still watching?

A keychain I saw one afternoon while writing this piece. I hate that I felt tempted to buy it.

We are all so overstimulated and exhausted that we have become numb. “The horrors persist, but so do I” – sound familiar? It feels like every day we are weathered down by “playing the game”, going through the motions and continuing to prop up an outdated system that is killing us all slowly.

I am here to propose an alternative.

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Bend, but don’t break: To swim in the ocean of life without becoming water

How to remember the magic

If you’re reading this, hi Allison! <3

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To find strength in channeling one’s sensitivity is no simple task. Especially when we are actively conditioned every single day to silence that which makes us most human- our spirit. To feel not just survival, but joy, longing, sadness, grief, jealousy, playfulness, love… all of it. Every single bit. If we choose joy, we also open ourselves up to all the rest. We cannot cherry pick which feelings we want to feel. It’s a package deal, baby (bummer, I know).

Please go watch Alyssa Liu’s gold medal-winning figure skating performance from the recent winter Olympics if you have not seen it already. The unbridled joy with which she flows on that ice is a flash of a reminder that despite everything the news, the 1%, the politicians and the elite want us to believe- there is life here. There is something worth remembering. And it’s not as far off as we think.

You can wake up. You can remember what it feels like to be soft. To recall the sweetness of heartache; the burning in one’s chest as if it might burst open with the splintering depth of so much feeling.

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What if we started to see everything as romantic? Not as naïve fools, but with wisdom and a conscious choice to remain human?

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To be alive- fully alive. Feeding life and creation instead of fear; the small and precious tethers of connection that remind us we are mostly all here for the same reason- to love and be loved. To swim once more in the ever-present, buzzing undercurrent of life. To feel inspired, laugh until our abs hurt and cry to your favorite song. The energy that is always, always there if we allow ourselves to remember.

To live a romantic life means not numbing oneself to the sensation of feeling. To lead with one’s heart even if it may get bruised. To rise with the sun of a new day and begin again, even when you feel broken and battered from the long dark night. To not retreat into the safety of despair and cynicism. To bend but not break. To keep going, even when you cannot remember the feeling of light; even when the fear rattles and shakes you, you will not stop.

Remember your beating heart in your chest and let its thundering echo shake the frost from your bones. Allow yourself to be warmed by the gentle touch of another, allowing another living soul to see yours- even (and especially) the gnarled parts you thought you had discarded long ago. Those parts, once left to die in the cold, are in fact your deepest sources of power. Do not forget this. There is romance in pain, but even more so in the decision to rise above it. To live. The greatest love story of a thousand generations is the one we forge with ourselves in the fires of our own pain.

Pain is the most honest teacher you will ever have. When embraced, pain becomes light.

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You didn’t think I was going to miss an opportunity to force include some LOTR content, did you??? The famous quote by the elf Galadriel to Frodo when she gifts him the light of Eärendil is “May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out”.

So what if you work up the courage to ask that person out, and they say no? So what if that job/ relationship/ whatever falls through? I know there are awful things on the news. I know things feel unimaginably heavy sometimes. Please keep going. You’re still alive- I promise.

How lucky I am to behold such a sunset. What a gleaming gift from God, sneakily revealing itself to me in its luxury. A treat, presented in ruffled crinkly-soft wrapping paper. The decadent bite of dark chocolate, seeping as it melts. I am a martyr for the saccharine. I am bowled over by the beauty of birds singing in the trees. My heart set ablaze by a ripe, juicy poem.  And of course, I am a glutton for love. I am brought to my knees by it.

Existing in this world as a soft-hearted romantic is the greatest act of rebellion. I will not let bitterness take me. I will not numb out. I will not be quiet.

I will feel it all.

There is romance in the frivolous. There is romance in the fleeting; in fact, I think that is exactly the point. The only constant in this lifetime is change. It is the sweetest feeling of liberation to remember that, like everything, this too shall pass.

Everything is romantic.