Eleanor Rouse

As you can imagine, I’m a big believer in the potential of aches and pains to reveal more than physical ailments. It’s no surprise that my sister thinks I do a lot of navel gazing. I’m trying to figure out what’s in there! What am I storing in that tight, lower left back of mine? I’m quite sure my body is trying to speak (sometimes scream!) some fabulously useful information to my heart and mind. I, for one, think it’s imperative (and fascinating) to listen. 
 
And let me tell you, my hips have been doing some talking lately. Despite regular yoga classes, I haven’t been able to discern on my own what they were saying. So yesterday I had the great fortune to experience the gifts of Bev Johnson, a practitioner-in-training of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy (PRYT). “Through assisted yoga postures and non-directive dialogue, PRYT guides clients to experience the connection of their physical and emotional selves.” (Contact Bev this month for a half-priced session!)
 
Boy did that little right hip flexor have a lot to say! In 90 minutes, out came pouring a virtual storehouse of vision, emotion and deep knowledge about who I am, what I’m becoming, and what I need to leave behind.
 
I’m sure you know by now that I’m also a big believer in the transformative power of tears. Let that river flow, I say! So many women try to tamp down their sensitivity. They apologize for their emotions. Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps you believe your God-given, feminine, feeling self is an unwelcome burden on loved ones, colleagues, and pets (I’m no dog expert, but the few I’ve come to know are pretty amazing in the face of a crying human.)
 
You may believe that others are not interested in the depths of your heart. Well, I am! Your body is! And I’m quite sure God is. I’d venture to guess that those who love you most are too – even if they’re unsure of their own capacity to be your witness.
 
In the online dating world, there are some men who profess rather loudly that they want “NO DRAMA” (and they usually capitalize it!) To that, I respond with a DELETE! I believe these men would be better off dating their own kind for a while. In my opinion, an evolved man has grown his ability to hold space for a woman’s emotions. While he might not understand or even like her in that state, he honors the part of her that feels deeply, the same part that has the capacity to love him without end. Stuff one; you stuff the other.
 
I’m not advocating reckless wielding of the emotional torch; yet, I am encouraging all women to feel. It is just fine to do so. Really, you were made this way. Who cares if it is PMS induced? Open the flood gates! We can do our best to consciously minimize the impact of our darker emotions on others, yet by some means, we must let them out. Otherwise, they get stored. We’re going to feel them one way or another.
 
I used to cry a lot more. My Colorado friends lasted through many a tear-streamed hike up and down Arbaney Kittle Trail. There are pews across America soaked because I was moved by words, ritual, and the coaxing open of my heart by a power greater than I. Nowadays, I can predictably count on at least one massive bawl-my-eyes-out session per month. It usually happens in the car. Sometimes mildly prompted by the day’s events; more often brought on by a good country song like Keith Urban’s “Thank You“. Sometimes I think I’m losing it; until two days later when I remember it is part of the territory of me as a woman. Part of the territory of me as woman.
 
Being a woman is not something to be contained, altered, fixed, or managed. In the words of our esteemed 43rd President, bring ’em on! Bring on the PMS tears, the church tears, the weeping at family goodbyes and the moving realizations of greater truth. Trust their capacity to cleanse and inform. Trust that your rawest self is a grace and power to behold.