Relatively few of us are taught as children the language of our emotions or what to do with them. We often are praised for our mental toughness and abilities to power through when facing difficulties. But our emotions are God-given “indicator lights” on our psychological dashboards, letting us know what we need and providing the drive to go after it. Ignoring our emotions is like ignoring our “low fuel” light. We may be able to run for a while, but we will eventually have trouble.

The journey of becoming more human is a choice that every person has the power to make, but it can be difficult to do so because it requires us to attend to our physical bodies. Many of us prefer to live in our heads, accumulating more and more knowledge and keeping ourselves busy to avoid engaging with our physical body.

The past week has been difficult for my family and me. On March 3rd, we lost the patriarch of the Birkemeier family just 21 days before his 89th birthday.

Ok, so I’m not really at the North Pole, but my family would argue our house does looks like a Hallmark Movie is being filmed here. (Sorry, not sorry.)