Permission to Feel

To acknowledge our feelings is to acknowledge a truth, even if it may not be good

Our feelings may not always be rational, but they are real. Acknowledging that simple truth is the first step to helping someone—or ourselves—navigate them. fizkes/Shutterstock

This past weekend, I witnessed an event that was both utterly simple and utterly profound, an interaction that beautifully demonstrates what we really need to feel OK.

I was sitting at an outdoor café, when what appeared to be a family of three: a mom, dad, and their 9-ish-year-old daughter (who was carrying a wrapped present) approached and stopped at the brownstone just next to the table where I was sitting. It looked like they were going to the same party as several other young families who’d entered the brownstone carrying presents in the past half hour. But at the bottom of the stoop, the little girl started crying. From the look of her face, which was red and splotchy, it looked like it wasn’t the first cry of the morning.