Let Your Feelings Flow: A Two-Minute Reset for Your Day

Find a place where you can be for a few moments. Seated, if that feels right. Or standing. Just notice the ground beneath you… the air on your skin. Take one slow breath in… and let it go. Neuroscientist Doctor Jill Bolte Taylor says an emotion has a chemical lifespan in the body of only ninety seconds. We talked last time about the relief of knowing you are enough, of stepping off that treadmill of having to prove your worth. And so much of that treadmill is powered by what we do after those ninety seconds are up.

It’s powered by the stories we tell ourselves about the feelings, long after the initial chemistry has faded. Here’s what that means if you’re someone who feels things deeply. It means the initial wave of anger, or sadness, or fear… that is a purely physical event. A flush of hormones. A change in your nervous system. It’s information. It is NOT a character flaw. It’s just a signal, a messenger arriving at your door. But we don’t treat it that way, do we? Most of the time, we see the messenger and we panic. We either slam the door in its face, pretending no one is there… or we chase it down the street, demanding to know why it came, what it wants, and when it will leave for good.

We try to push the feeling away. We tell ourselves, “I shouldn’t be sad about this,” or “I have no right to be angry.” And trying to push a feeling down is like trying to hold a big, inflatable beach ball underwater. It takes a huge amount of energy. Your muscles are tense, you’re straining… and the moment you lose focus, the ball doesn’t just surface. It erupts. It shoots into the air with all the force you used to hold it down. This is the anxiety attack in the middle of the grocery store. The sudden burst of tears over something small.

The anger that feels way out of proportion. It’s the beach ball, finally breaking free. So what if the work isn’t to become stronger, to hold the ball down more effectively? What if the work is just… to let go of the ball? To let it float on the surface beside you. Here’s what that means if you’re tired of fighting with yourself. It means the next time a feeling arrives, you can try an experiment. Instead of resisting it, just… notice it. Instead of judging it, just get curious. You can say to yourself, silently, “Ah.

Sadness is here.” Or, “I recognize this. This is fear.” You don’t have to approve of it. You don’t have to like it. You just have to ACKNOWLEDGE that it is present. Then, see if you can feel it in your body. Not the story about it, but the physical sensation itself. Is it a tightness in your throat? A hollowness in your chest? A heat in your stomach? Just notice. Breathe with it. Not to make it go away, but just to be with it. To offer it a little space. When you do this, something remarkable happens. You realize the feeling is not YOU.

You are the one who is noticing the feeling. You are the space in which the sadness or the anger is happening. And that space is vast. It’s calm. It’s unbreakable. The feeling is just a visitor passing through. Ninety seconds. Your feelings are not a problem to be solved. They are a part of you to be held.