šæ A poem a day keeps the blues away…Ā
REAL
š» Iāve cried when Iām happy
And cried when Iām sad
Iāve smiled through the good times
And smiled through the bad
Iāve screamed in excitement
Iāve screamed out in pain
Iāve gasped at the sunshine
And gasped at the rain
Iāve laughed when Iām nervous
And when Iām elated
Iāve sighed with contentment
And when Iām deflated
Iāve sung when Iām lonely
And sung in a crowd
Iāve shouted when angry
And when Iāve been proud
āCause whether weāre up
Or weāre riding a low
Our feelings are desperate
For somewhere to go
We canāt keep them trapped
And locked up in a cage –
They force their way out
āCause they need to escape
And sometimes weāre told
That emotions are weakness
That feeling is flawed
If we let it defeat us
But how can this be?
Surely this must be wrong
For what could be weak
About something so strong
Cannot be tamed
Canāt be kept down
And cannot be contained
So when you next shout
Or you laugh or you cry
You scream or you smile
Or let out a sigh
Whatever the reason
Just let yourself feel
Weāre not here to be quiet –
Weāre here to be real š»
āBecky Hemsley
published in “Letters from life”
šŖ“ Feelings want their rightful place
This week I had the pleasure of supporting John Leary-Joyce on his Gestalt Coaching foundation course, with a remarkably gifted group of participants.
The focus was on the coach’s use of selfāshowing up fully, bringing their own present-moment experience into the room as live data to facilitate the clientās own embodied experience. In other words: to feel alongside. To be real, together.
Becky’s poem captures something the Gestalt tradition has always known: that feelings want and deserve their rightful placeābe it in a coaching relationship, at home, or at work.
šŖ“ Neither tidy nor optional
The poem is a great reminder of the power of feelings and their versatility.
I cry when I’m happy and when Iām sad.
I scream out of excitement or pain.
I sing when Iām lonely or overjoyed.
Whatever the context or reason, and however they show up, feelings allow us to be real.
Our emotions are neither tidy nor optional. They are relentlessly looking for a way out. And perhaps the most radical thing we can doāespecially at workāis to stop pretending otherwise.
Which raises the question: how much space do we actually create at work for people to feelāand to be realāwithout panic?
For most companies I know, the answer is āvery little spaceā, because emotions are messy, can be scary, and we donāt always know how to deal with them in ourselves, let alone in othersā¦
Youād be surprised at the number of times Iāve had a manager come to me, in panic, because their employee cried during a check-in or a team meetingā¦
šŖ“ The paradox at the heart of it
The poem holds a paradox at its heart
āthat the very thing we’re told makes us weak is the thing that makes us real;
āthat the very thing we perceive as weak is in fact āso strongā it ācannot be tamedā, ābe kept downā, or ābe containedā.
Sometimes feelings arrive uninvited; they often refuse to be reasoned with; and they will inevitably find a way outāone way or another.
And yet we spend so much energy at work building walls around them.
I understand whyāI really do.
But I wonder if those walls are the best way to create a healthy productive environmentā¦ or if theyāre actually making things worse.
Because hereās the deeper paradox:
šŖ“ When feelings burst
The more an environment values āheadā over āheartā, the more it encourages the stifling of feelings, and the more those feelings will eventually burst through in ways that are far more disruptive than if theyād been given space in the first place.
Unaddressed emotions don’t disappear. They calcify into disengagement, fear, absenteeism, and sickness.
Thatās when managers start yelling at employees; employees burst out of meetings, punching a wall; colleagues stab each other in the backāand the rest burn out.
And, because we are ever so polite with one another
āeither no one names what’s happening and the cycle quietly poisons the whole environment,
āor someone gets fired for ‘inappropriate behaviour’, only for the pattern to repeat somewhere else, with someone else.
This is the paradox Becky namesāand one I work with companies to navigate every day.
It’s messy. And yet, putting our heads in the sand won’t make feelings go away.
(A note on context: I’m not suggesting every workplace becomes a therapy room, or that a surgeon pauses mid-operation to process their anger at their boss. There’s a meaningful difference between expressing feelings responsibly and being overwhelmed by them. What I am suggesting is that many workplaces seem to be allergic to emotion altogether.)
šŖ“ āHow are you?ā; āHow do you feel?ā
One of the things John challenges us on is finding different ways to ask someoneāa client, a colleagueā”How do you feel?” In fact, he bans the phrase from his foundation course. š
On the one hand, a question like āHow are you?ā has become a wall in itselfāpolite, well-meaning, and very easy to deflect.
But even a genuine āHow do you feel?ā is often met with āIām not sure.ā Why?
Because weāve lost our connection to our body, and without that connection it becomes much more difficult to name our feelingsāuntil suddenly one day, someone bursts into tears in a meeting or loses their temper with a direct reportā¦
And this is precisely why learning to do better than “How are you?” or “How do you feel?” mattersābecause the first step to creating space for feelings is learning how to reach them.
šŖ“ So what might it look like in practice?
It starts with leaders who are willing to go firstāwho model what it looks like to be real, responsibly. When a leader normalises emotion, they give everyone around them permission to do the same.
And it starts small: a team meeting that opens with something other than the agenda; a culture that treats someone crying not as a crisis to manage, but as an opportunity to demonstrate curiosity and compassion; a colleague who says “You seem a bit down today” instead of “How are you?”.
None of this requires a therapist on staff. It requires a change in what we allow ourselves to notice, and what we choose to do with it.
šŖ“ So, two questions for you this Sunday:
š When was the last time you allowed yourself to express your true feelingsāto be real?
š How else could you ask someone “How do you feel?” without using those words? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below šš½.
And Iāll reveal some of Johnās and my favourites in the comments once youāve had your turn!
š¦ Happy Sunday everyone! š¦
With love,
Dina š«¶š½
Picture of Balthazar: my new friend at SurVojo.ch and teacher of healthy emotional expression
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