Learning to Welcome Our Full Range of Emotion as Guides
We live in a world that teaches us to chase joy and hide grief.
Joy is celebrated, photographed, and shared.
Grief is often tucked away into quiet corners, spoken about in whispers, or avoided altogether.
But what if both are sacred? What if both are teachers?
Grief strips us bare. It demands our presence, pulling us into the raw truth of impermanence. It reminds us of love’s depth, because we cannot grieve what we have not loved. It calls us to slow down, to listen to the unspoken, to sit at the altar of what has been lost and honour it.
Joy, too, is a truth-teller. It reminds us that we are alive — that even after heartbreak, our hearts are capable of opening again. It hums in the background of our ordinary days, in laughter shared with a friend, in a child’s curiosity, in the way sunlight falls on your face after a storm.
The danger comes when we try to choose one over the other. When we cling to joy while pushing grief aside, we deny ourselves the full richness of being human. And when we sink so deeply into grief that we forget joy exists, we lose sight of hope.
My ancestors understood this balance. They sang songs for mourning and songs for celebration — sometimes on the very same day. They knew that life’s river carries both rain and sunshine, and that to reject one is to block the other.
To live truthfully is to welcome both.
To see grief as a companion, not a punishment.
To see joy as a gift, not a distraction.
So today, I choose to feel.
To let my emotions — all of them — be messengers.
Because in grief, I remember the depth of love.
And in joy, I remember the beauty of life.
Both are true.
Both are sacred.
Affirmation:
I honour the truth of every feeling within me, knowing each is a messenger of my soul’s journey.
In every tear and every smile, truth whispers — and I listen.
Bohlale ba Tau
